February 17, 2002 Genesis 2:7-9,15-17; 3:1-7
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
There once was a man named Amnon who fell madly in “love” with his half-sister Tamar. Actually, it was just lust. He wanted to have sex with her - worse than a dog in heat. In fact, he was so obsessed with her that he was starting to lose his health. Such a relationship was forbidden, but this didn’t deter Amnon. After consulting with his good friend Jonadab, he decided to fake a sickness, call on Tamar to serve him, and then rape her. (2 Samuel 13) Here’s a sick story of a man who went to great lengths just to get what he wanted.
Have you ever done maybe not sick, but strange things to get what you wanted? When I was in 1st grade, I noticed that several of my classmates had eyeglasses. I thought they were pretty neat, and I wanted some. So I decided to pretend like I had a hard time reading books. Immediately the teacher asked if I had a hard time seeing it, and I said yes. Before I knew it, I was at the eye doctor’s getting my eyes tested.
You might compare this to what Eve did in today’s text. She had perfectly good eyesight. But Satan convinced her that she needed glasses, so to speak - that she could see even more. All by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Today, as we begin our Lent Sundays, we’re going to look at what started the whole reason for Lent - as we look at -
The Eyes of Eve in Eden
I. Had plenty to see
When you move into a new house, what’s the first thing that you usually do after you get situated? It is traditional in America to give people a tour of your new facilities. The LORD God had built some new facilities for Adam and Eve to live in. And our text says, the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. Adam was given a variety of trees not only to look at, but also to eat from - apple trees, pear trees, peach trees - all kinds of them! It was an actual paradise!
But this wasn’t all that man had to look at! Notice how God described his creation of man - the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. God had carefully formed the man the way a potter shapes his vessels, and even more specially breathed life into his nostrils - unlike what he had done with the animals - these humans would even have a soul and a conscience. These words denote to us that God took special care and thought into his creation of man. Adam and Eve could be happy with the way they were created - they weren’t lacking anything. When put side by side - they made the perfect couple! On top of this, he made them perfectly holy - right in line with what God wanted. Their will was the same as God’s.
But God wasn’t done! Imagine just sitting there and staring at the trees and each other. It might get boring after a while! So after God put this ultimate creature into the beautiful garden of Eden, he gave him a special duty - to work it and take care of it. Even before the fall God gave man work to do - which shows us that work is a God pleasing thing! Even in heaven God says that we will be “serving him day and night in his temple.” (Revelation 7:15) Just think of how good it feels to finish a project - and how much BETTER it feels to do it without a hitch - with nothing breaking and everything fitting in place! That’s an awesome feeling! That’s how it would have been for Adam and Eve. Every plant would have grown perfectly. The weather would be perfect. The bugs wouldn’t bite.
If this weren’t enough, God gave man one other duty. The LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Why did God plant this tree in the middle of the garden? Martin Luther said,
This tree of the knowledge of good and evil was Adam’s church, his altar, his pulpit. Here he was to yield to God the obedience he owed, to give recognition to the word and will of God, to give thanks to God, and to call upon God for aid against temptation.
By NOT eating from this Tree, God was giving Adam and Eve the opportunity to show their allegiance to God. They would KNOW good by experiencing the continued blessings of following God’s will and know evil not from the experiential standpoint - but from observation. By refraining from eating of this tree, they would then be able to progress from a created holiness to a CONSCIOUS holiness. God wanted his holiest creatures to be holy by CHOICE, not by ACCIDENT. The eyes of Eve had all kinds of things to see - opportunities and gifts abounded!
Even after this tragic fall, God continues to provide us with wonderful gifts and opportunities as well - as far as the eye can see. All of us are given a wide variety of trees to enjoy and look at - maple trees, apple trees, peach trees, and the variety goes on. He gives us wonderful gardens we can grow - with beans, peas, tomatoes, etc. We have the ability to work not only on gardens but houses and buildings as well. We can choose from many different jobs - all the way from accounting to cleaning to cooking. Whatever is up your alley!
And think of it from a spiritual perspective as well. Whereas we may not have the advantage of Adam and Eve in inner holiness, at our baptism we were given a foreign holiness - that of Christ. Our inner and outer sins were put on the cross and washed away in the blood of Christ. We were anointed with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the ability to choose right from wrong - in spite of our sinful natures. Most of us have had these advantages since not long after out births! With this spiritual life within, God then gives us avenues to show our appreciation. He gives us churches to sing praises to him. He gives us altars to say our prayers at and lay our gifts upon. He gives us families to serve. So much to do all to the glory of God! When we open our eyes to our many blessings, not one of us could accuse God of being selfish, now, could we?
II. Couldn’t see the forest through the Tree
Yet that’s exactly what Satan did. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Satan decided to use a very crafty animal to use his evil craftiness. Notice how he does it - through a seemingly innocent question. It’s as if Satan was saying, “I was just wondering, is it really true what I heard, that you couldn’t eat from ANY tree in the garden? What good is it to have all of these trees if you can’t eat from any of them? What kind of a rule is that?”
So Eve answered Satan, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” Some think that Eve was adding to what God had commanded them by saying they couldn’t “touch” it. But since Satan didn’t use that “touching” aspect to tempt her further, it seems that it is a perfectly fine expounding of God’s command. So was there anything wrong with her answer? She probably shouldn’t have answered him in the first place, giving him an opportunity with his evil thinking to continue on with another false assumption. And also, she could have just mentioned that they could eat from the trees in the garden, and ended it at that.
Satan knew that God hadn’t prevented them from eating of all of the trees. But what he wanted to do was to indirectly get Eve to focus down to that one particular tree, by bringing it up. If he could get her to focus on that one Tree she “couldn’t” have, then she wouldn’t focus on the forest of blessings she did have. Instead of looking at that Tree as a blessing and an opportunity to grow, Satan gave it a totally different spin. “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Notice that Satan now went from hinting that God is not faithful and loving to directly ATTACKING Him - accusing the same God who had given them wonderful bodies, a wonderful place to live, and wonderful opportunities to serve and grow- to accuse that same LORD of being a selfish God who wants to hold by his greatest blessings from them. Not only this, but he also accused God of being a liar - that not only would Eve not die, but he seems to be insinuating that NO ONE would die - not even Adam - who was there listening - or their offspring. As if he were saying, “no, you won’t die - nobody is going to die.” (The verb for “die” is a plural as opposed to the singular used by God.) Satan’s lie was that it would be a victimless crime.
Have Satan’s temptations changed? Not at all. If you think about all of the blessings that God gives us, what does Satan always get us to focus on? What we don’t have! When two kids are playing in a room full of toys, it inevitably happens that they fight over a toy that the OTHER child has. When you look in the mirror, the first thing he gets you to notice is the mole on your neck or the zit on your face. How many kids do you know are unhappy because they want to be smarter, more popular, taller, skinnier, or stronger? How many adults don’t wish they had better health, more wealth, a more loving spouse or children that behaved better?
And doesn’t the devil approach it from an innocent way - just from a seemingly innocent question that comes from within? Instead of attacking us straight out, he takes the form of wisdom and the form of logic. His words sound like pure holiness and gold within our hearts. “Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you just made five more thousand dollars a year?” And then he takes it one step further - “If God loves me, why doesn’t he give me better looks. If God really wanted what is best for me, why wouldn’t he cure me of my sickness so I could serve him better?” It makes sense - perfect sense to our sinful hearts.
So then comes the next temptation, “what is wrong if I can cheat to get the results that I want?” He gets husbands to think, “If God really wants me to be happy, then why can’t I get divorced from this person who I am unhappy with and marry a younger and more attractive woman?” And what’s the reasoning? “We don’t have any children yet, so it won’t hurt any.” Or, “the kids won’t grow up right if we just keep fighting in front of them.” He gets teens to reason, “If we’re in love, why can’t we have sex before marriage? We’ll use contraception. Nobody will get hurt. God won’t mind as long as we plan on getting married some day.” Or when you notice you didn’t get charged enough for an item at the grocery store you reason, “this company gets enough of my money, who is it going to hurt if I don’t say anything?” The “victimless crime.” That’s what he was getting Eve to think as well. “You will not surely die. Nobody is going to get hurt.” We become so obsessed with the one thing - the one tree that we can’t have, that we can’t see the forest of blessings before us.
III. Became as blind as could be
So what happened to Eve? 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. As soon as Eve said, “you know what Satan, you’re right,” she had sinned. The perfect bond of trust had been broken. Instead of looking like an altar, the Tree looked like food to her. And that’s not all that changed. She looked naked, and so did Adam. She no longer had the trust in God or Adam or happiness with herself to stand before them naked. Their eyesight went from being completely holy to being completely blind in sin. She and Adam went from knowing good by experience to knowing evil from experience. In a spiritual way, Eve and Adam immediately died at that moment. The eyes of Eve in Eden became completely blind to God’s blessings.
And what is the result of this one sin? Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men. From that point on, all people were born sinful and born spiritually dead, on the pathway not only to physical death but spiritual death. Because of this one sin, Cain murdered Abel. Because of this one sin, God had to send a universal flood on the world. Because of this one sin, you are a sinner. Because of this one sin, God says that you are a sinner who deserves hell. Because of this one sin, your back hurts. Because of this one sin, you are lazy or you eat too much. Because of this one sin, millions of people are born spiritually blind and end up in hell. Because of this one sin, there are still liberal theologians who blindly look at the Fall as a “blessing” to the human race.
It was also because of this one sin, that God said to Jesus, “it is time for you to enter man’s world. Whereas I told Adam to avoid one tree, I want you to go straight to a tree - the cross.” That’s what Lent is all about, as we see Jesus take His final steps to the tree of the cross. Just as the Tree of Knowledge brought a curse on the world, so did the tree of Golgotha. Instead of avoiding that tree, Jesus went straight to the tree of Golgotha, taking the punishment proclaimed to Eve on his shoulders. Through this one punishment, God for men, Jesus paid for the condemnation that was put on the world. He rendered his own verdict as paid in full.
And now what is the result? God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. As we sing in the song Amazing Grace, “I was blind, but now I see.” God has restored our eyes, to make us able to see clearly again. Once again we see that our God is a loving God - that He is a faithful LORD! Only a loving God would send his only Son to die for us! Only a loving LORD would give us a free salvation through the blood and righteousness of Christ! Even our forbidden fruit - the things that we don’t have, whether it be good health, more wealth, more time to work with, or better looks, is a blessing from God. God will somehow use these things to make us GROW as well. We now once again see the blessings as blessings, instead of the curses we once thought they were.
When my parents brought me to the eye doctor to get the glasses I didn’t need, it didn’t work for me. I just couldn’t fool the eye doctor. He didn’t know what was wrong. I don’t remember how I reacted as a child when I found out that I couldn’t have new glasses. I would imagine that I was a bit upset over the whole thing. But now, looking back on it, I am as happy as can be. If God had granted me that request my eyes probably would have been ruined for life. Nothing would have looked right and my eyes would have had to adjust to things they could have seen perfectly fine.
As we’ve looked at the eyes of Eve in Eden, we’ve noticed something similar take place. Her eyes were fine - she had all kinds of nice things to look at and enjoy. But Satan ruined her eyesight by telling her to look at the Tree of Knowledge as a fruit tree instead of an altar. As we’ve looked at the eyes of Eve in Eden, we’ve noticed that Satan has used the same trick on us, time and again. But thankfully, God then converted another tree - the tree of Golgotha, into an altar in which he could slay his Son. With this sacrifice, God has restored our eyesight - so that we could once again looking at our Savior again. He’s taken off Satan’s glasses, and given us eyes to see His blessings of creation and salvation in a whole different light. Amen.
