Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Gen 3, continued

"your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Gen 3:5

eyes ... opened Sight is a powerful thing. The ability to see-to distinguish light from darkness, truth from falsehood, holy from profance, and good from evil-is very important. By sight we see and are seen. We look around us and see God's Hand in His creation. We study the Scriptures. We see suffering and moved by compassion to ease it. We see beauty and give thanks to God.

And on the other hand (how often there's an 'on the other hand') there are many things we're better off not seeing. And our eyes can often lead us astray. We see something tempting and are motivated by lust to have it. We see suffering and devastation and may be tempted to curse God.

What can we do? "Walk by faith, not by sight." If you have the ability to see, which I presume you do if you're reading this post, use it. And when you come to a question of whether you should follow what your eyes see, walk by faith.

you will be like God, knowing good and evil. What a heady thing. To be like God! What power! What knowledge! What greatness! And all it takes is eating of this fruit? How easy! You mean, if I just eat this fruit, I'll know good and evil and therefore be like God? Wow! Why didn't He tell us this? Maybe there's more to this Tree than meets the eye.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Gen 3:6

So Eve took a closer look. And what did she see? Pay attention-there are three things.

The fruit was good for food; it was pleasing to the eye, and it was desirable for gaining wisdom.
Once again I commend you to Sara's blog about this famous story about temptation. Excellent exegesis which I would be remiss in not having you read and consider. I cannot add much more than to say that the last one (wisdom) finally convinced Eve to eat the fruit.

Food is good. Beauty is good, but that's not enough. They had plenty of both in the Garden already. But for the sake of wisdom, Eve was willing to sacrifice her carefree existence in the Garden of Eden. She was also willing to risk death, although she had no idea of what that was.

I wonder, if Eve hadn't eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, would humanity have acquired wisdom some other way?

4 comments:

Thantali said...

Well said, sir...

And a very good question...

leo509 said...

Thank you, sir. :)

I wonder if Eve and Adam eating from the Tree of Knowledge was God's plan all along. And if so, why did He tell them not to do the very thing He planned for them to do?

Zach said...

Hmmm...


Regarding "I wonder if Eve and Adam eating from the Tree of Knowledge was God's plan all along. And if so, why did He tell them not to do the very thing He planned for them to do?", I'd refer to Nathan's blog...if I could remember the exact post...

leo509 said...

Well, maybe Nathan would be good enough to remind us. :)