The History of Redemption Part 4: The Terrible Lie

And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘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.’

‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

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. (Genesis 2:16,17, 3:4-6)

Satan’s promise to Eve turned out to be a lie. She and Adam did not become like God. In another sense, however, Satan’s word did come true. Their eyes were opened all right, except not in the beneficial way Satan had promised. They now knew good as something they had lost. And they now knew evil as something that controlled them. For the first time in their lives, they felt a sense of shame at their nakedness. Adam and Eve realized they were no longer in full control of their sexual impulses. They were no longer able to direct them only according to God’s will and to his glory. They therefore made immediate, though ineffective, efforts to clothe themselves.

It’s instructive to note Satan’s method of operation when he tempted Eve, because his methods haven’t changed all that much down through the millennia of history. This is still his basic lie: God is not good. He’s withholding from you privileges that you, as an individual, are entitled to—the privilege, for example, of deciding for yourself what’s good for you. Satan still tempts us to turn God’s plans for us topsy-turvy by playing God. He leads us to imagine that we, after all, are in charge of our lives, that we are the masters of our fate, the captains of our soul.

HT: John Jeske in The People’s Bible: Genesis

But as we will soon see, in this History of Redemption, God is good and the rights and rewards he offers to us are far superior to those phantom privileges we pursue. Those privileges appear to be good, pleasing and desirable, but when we have reached out and grasped them with our hands and hearts, their true nature is revealed. It is then that they turn on us  to crush and consume, as they confine us to a life of slavery to the gods of our own making.
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But the only true God does not leave us to be devoured and destroyed by Satan, instead according to his good and loving plan, he would send the second Adam, Jesus Christ, to do what the first Adam could not. He resisted the lies of Satan and crushed the serpent’s head, breaking his hold on us as he broke forth victorious from the grave. By this redemption, I am set free from the constricting control of Satan and his lies. I now have the privileges of a son instead of a slave. I now posses heaven instead hell. I now possess life instead death. I now posses peace instead of shame and despair.

Prayer: Lord our strength, the battle of good and evil rages within and around us, and our ancient foe tempts us with his deceits and empty promises. Keep us steadfast in your Word, and when we fall, raise us up again and restore us through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen!  (Prayer of the Day for Lent Year A)