Genesis 2:4-25
Adam and Eve
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a 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 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.
10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
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 from it you will certainly die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
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 certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from 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.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Choice!!!...What an important word in life...Over a lifetime we are given the opportunity to make many, many choices...And what we choose to do, makes all the difference...And in the free choices we make, there is LOVE...And God wants us to choose Him and to trust Him...
Why would God put temptation in Eden?...Why would He put evil in Eden?...After all, Eden is our Paradise...And we have lost paradise for one choice we made...God gave us this ability to choose...And what we did was make a choice...We made a choice to try the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, against God's will...So is evil just a choice we make?...And is evil in each of our choices everyday?...Adam, I believe found out early, that there were choices he would make would that would keep him in harmony with God, with Eve, and with the animals and other creatures around him...To choose one way makes us full of joy and peace and knowledge and power and heavenly...Adam and Eve knew what goodness was...They knew goodness because they were in paradise...God said His creation and Eden was good...But Adam and Eve did not know what misery was (yet)...They would make a choice to find out what misery was...In our choices, come consequences...We are faced with choices like this in life...This choice made them something that was a little bit different than they were before...We see this by them feeling naked and feeling ashamed and embarrassed...They now wanted some clothing after eating the fruit...Some of the choices we make, separate us from God...
Our Lord God commanded Adam, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”...God gave and gives us choices each and everyday...Out of the many, many fruit trees and fruit bearing vines and bushes to eat from, they chose the one, they were not supposed to eat from...Each and everyday, we make choices...And in these choices we either get closer to God, or a little further from Him...C. S. Lewis put it this way, “[E]very time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before...And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself...To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power...To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
And many questions come up about one of mankind's first choices...Why couldn't God forgave us of our wrong choice in paradise?...After all, it was just our first mistake...Can't we be forgiven for one mistake...As one thinks about these different questions, others come to mind...Was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in and of itself evil?...I don't think the fruit off the tree was necessarily evil either...It was God telling us that we could not eat the fruit from tree, and we decided to go ahead and do it...So the act of eating the fruit was not in harmony with God, and it was not His will...
The word choice is an important word for believers...Believers believe that choice, free choice, which is free will, relates very much to LOVE and to the fall of man...But also, it seems that evil can be found in choice...What we choose to do today and over the rest of our lives can be good, or it can be evil...God allows evil to exist and to happen...God could have at anytime prevented the evil one from tempted Eve and Adam with his slyness and craftiness tactics...But in the end God has given mankind free choice and Eve then Adam ate the fruit...And since this disobedience of ours, we have sinned, and continued to sin...We have also seen evil, wars, terrible tragedies, sickness, and (as God us it would happen) many, many deaths -since our fall from grace...
But we can see LOVE in the story of Adam and Eve...God has given the first couple complete and unconditional love, to freely choose...They have complete free will...We are given complete free will to choose and make whatever decision we choose...And we can and are able to choose wrong as Adam and Eve did...But Complete LOVE requires choice...
We find out in life that there is right and there is wrong...Adam and Eve made a choice to eat the forbidden fruit...We do live with the choices we make...They gave in to temptation, and now had to live with there decision...A place of paradise like Eden, would be easy to maintain and live...Now they must leave paradise and survive...“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life...It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field...By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”...Adam and Eve would be working hard now to eat and sustain themselves, outside the garden...