12.2 The Garden Story
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
First, read all of Genesis Chapter 3.
In this lesson, we look at an overview of the characters, the setting, and the events of the garden story found for us primarily in Genesis Chapter 3. In Lesson 34: The False Covenant, we investigate the larger and specific issues of Adam’s choice, the agreement he made together with the serpent that hurled all creation into death. In Lesson 35: Human Psychosis, we explore the psychological foundations for the insanity of human psychosis, the creation of the false human self. The elements of the curse we will not look at, however, until Session 25: Setting Creation Free.
Image, Subdue, and Two Trees
Let’s place before our eyes the texts of image, subdue, and the choice of two set by God before His image.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). – And God said to them: “. . . subdue” (Genesis 1:28). – The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9b).
And the Lord God commanded the man, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:15-16).
The Call to Life
In a nutshell, everything is the Word, issuing forth from the Father’s mouth, creating and sustaining all things. Yet this God who is invisible desires to be seen and known by all of His creation. Out of that desire He chose man to be the created object through whom He shows everyone what He looks like. But Adam was not complete. In order to subdue, Adam required rivers of Spirit flowing out of His belly. In order to know such rivers, Adam must eat of the tree of life. Everything, everything, everything in this context beckons, calls, woos Adam out from his heart to find, to seize hold, and to EAT of life.
The Choice
Both of the two trees are the word God speaks, one outward and the other inward. The same trees appear again in the Bible, the works of the law performed by a false self versus the faith of Christ our only life. God never forces Himself on anyone. God requires faith coming out of a heart won by His love. To enter into full union with God, to be God’s appearance in creation, Adam must choose life out of his own heart. But Adam’s choice between life and death must be made in the press of the battle, in the agony of overwhelming loss. To reveal God is to lay down one’s life for another.
The Serpent
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made (Genesis 3:1a).
Adam was fully of heaven as much as earth. Both of Adam’s bodies functioned fully as God created him. Adam could see and communicate with the heavens through his spirit body equally with his ability to see and communicate with the things of earth through his physical body.
Adam and Eve were in the center of the garden before the two trees for one reason only. They were MADE for LIFE and life beckoned to them, calling them every step through the garden. No one ever approaches life, that is the Person of Jesus inside their person, without passing first by the jaws of the dragon.
The Cherub
I contend regarding two things concerning this mighty being, more “subtle” than any other created thing. First, this being is an angel, the mightiest and most glorious of all living species and of all individual angels.
Ezekiel 28 IS a description of this angel, a cherub in the midst of Eden. That chapter is a Spirit word regarding heavenly realities, using the rulers of men as metaphors of heavenly powers. And Isaiah 14, refers directly to this same individual, calling him “helel,” the shining one, in Latin, “Lucifer,” and placing the motive of envy as the source of heavenly evil.
Second, I contend that this angel is unfallen; when Adam and Eve step into the clearing, sin has not entered God’s creation.
Adam Was Not Deceived
What happens next is a succession of very rapid events, happening through the space, probably, of less than one hour. However, each one of these events happening almost simultaneously is huge and we can write books on each one.
The first thing we must know is that Adam and Eve know only purity and holiness. They are perfect in all their ways. More than that, God always leads them in triumph. Every event pressing against Adam as God led him towards the tree of life IN NO WAY casts any shadow of darkness against Adam, including Eve handing him the fruit of knowledge. Possibly the most horrific line in all Scripture is found in 1 Timothy 2:14. – Adam was not deceived.
Iniquity Found
Event 1: This mightiest of all created persons, “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” “the anointed cherub” covering all the works of God’s hands, dwelling in the Word God speaks in the form of law (the law came through angels – Galatians 3:19) wanted with all passion to see just what God “looks like.”
The serpent’s perception of Adam and Eve took place well before the couple arrived in the center of the garden. The serpent was not impressed. Not even. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. – I will be like the Most High. – “I will be the image of God, not this worm made out of dirt.” – ENVY!
The Lamb Slain
Event 2: As Adam enters the clearing, his heart, his eyes, the passion of his being is caught by, consumed by the tree of life. If Paul is correct that Adam knew God on the one hand and was NOT deceived on the other, then we know that Adam, with an IQ likely around 2000, grasped the full extent of Christ Jesus, the Lamb slain, filling the tree of life as the revelation of God, life laid down and love poured out. Adam’s heart throbbed within him as no human has ever known desire since, save One. Adam longed for LIFE!
Event 3: Although Eve and Adam are physically together, their minds and hearts are caught in two different worlds. Adam sees overcome; Eve sees beauty and perfection as God made her.
Eve Was Deceived
Paul said that Eve was deceived. That means that Eve thought the only thing she could think, that this glorious heavenly being, perfect in beauty, was created by God as an expression of His glory. She was completely correct. When Eve’s eyes lighted upon the serpent, he was unfallen, perfect in all of his ways, sent by God as His emissary to preside over word on the outside of man.
God did not and does not place evil before us. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone (James 1:13). James then states that sin is a progression; a thought that then becomes an action.
The Serpent Spoke
Event 4: The serpent spoke to Eve. “Has God indeed said?” You see, when the serpent said in his heart, “I will be like God, not man; I am the one who looks like God; God looks like me,” he had not yet sinned. But that thought in the serpent’s heart now came out of his mouth in the form of ALL accusation against God.
“God, You lie!” – Of course, he is subtle. He never says it that way. It always comes as “You don’t really believe that do you? It’s not talking about you.” “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” The serpent is a master psychologist; he wants Eve to speak.
Eve Speaks the Curse
Event 5: Eve speaks the curse. The serpent wanted Eve to speak the curse, “lest you die.” Yes, she was speaking God’s words, but she was hearing the voice of the accuser. Thus those words of God were not Christ in her heart, but rather word on the outside of her.
Word on the outside of us ALWAYS becomes curse, that’s why God said, “Don’t eat of it. It will kill you.” The final word of the Old Testament is “lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
The serpent then answered the words of the curse spoken by Eve with the lie. Yet the serpent’s lie was disguised by sleight of hand, hidden by the very words he spoke.
Blowing Smoke
Event 6: The serpent speaks the lie.
“You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4).
Please understand fully that the serpent is blowing smoke. There is not one word or thought or idea or phrase in this line that is even the slightest bit true. All of it is hot air. Everyone reads these words the very opposite of their trickery, however; everyone believes the nonsense called the lie. By sleight of hand, the serpent re-defined God and he re-defined man. And everyone from then until now, including almost all Christians, have embraced his definitions fully.
The Lie and the Curse
The lie takes on two very different forms. First, the serpent really means, “I am the image of God because I am great; I know everything. I know what is right and I know what is wrong. I am the great covering angel of heaven. Therefore, if you want to be like me, the one whom God looks like, then you also have to know what is right and what is wrong so that you can be in charge of your own little self.”
But all of that is just the hot air enlarged. You see the serpent was not stupid. All the while he was conversing with Eve, his heart and mind were all wrapped around Adam, hovering dangerously before the tree of life. Let me state the real lie and the real curse hidden behind the serpent’s words.
Get Away from That Tree!
The serpent screamed against Adam, against the deadly dangerous reality by which he was about to lose this new lust consuming his own heart. “Get away from that tree!”
“Christ is NOT your life. Turn away from that tree. Christ is not your life.”
And the curse found also with those words, the horrible hellish weight of Hades desired by the serpent to crush down upon his master (the serpent knew that Adam was the boss and hated the very idea even more) are these words.
“Adam, look at yourself, look in the mirror; you have a life NOT Christ. Here is word on the outside of you, use your own life, created entirely by you, to build your own goodness.”
Christ IS My Life
Isn’t that what you were taught all your Christian life? Jesus might live in your heart, well and good. But Christ Jesus is certainly not your only life. Oh no. You have an evil life that is not Christ at all. And you yourself, by your own human ability (with God’s help, wink, wink) must put your own life to the death of the cross so that someday, someday and far away, you can see Jesus (though He will never be your life). The lie and the curse, spoken all through Christian “theology.”
But we have the simple truth, Galatians 2:20 and Colossians 3:3-4, absolute and today. – Christ IS my life; I have no other life.
On the Brink of Ruin
Event 7: Eve eats of the knowledge of sin, word on the outside of her, the law (by law is the knowledge of sin). She then turns, reaches out with her hand to give the fruit of that tree to Adam. Adam, caught by a vision of all the holiness and life of the call of God upon his heart, has been oblivious towards everything else until this moment.
Event 8: Adam turns from his vision of glory and sees the entire universe teetering on the brink of ruin. Yet we never imagine that God has now led Adam out of the way to life. Everything now pressing against Adam, although outside of that way, is in every respect essential to the reality that God is always leading him in triumph.
What Does Adam See?
Three things are now pressing against Adam with over-whelming power. Adam comprehends all three of these things fully at the same time. Adam grasps the jeopardy in which all things now stand. Adam understands everything. Adam knows he is the master. Adam knows God in his mouth.
Adam sees, not the heart, but the face of Eve, always seductively beautiful, now tinged with shadow and even more appealing. Adam sees in her hand the word of God in outward form. And Adam sees the serpent, more glorious and wonderful in appearance than anything he had ever imagined.
The Choice Again
The burning image Adam saw upon the tree of life, a Lamb laying down His life for His enemies, for all creation, a Lamb, entering into him as his very and only life, Person inside of person, remains clear and full in Adam’s heart and mind.
On the other side is (a) the face of Eve, what I think other people think about me; (b) the word God speaks in a form Adam can control, not this other Person requiring the utter surrender of his heart; and © the most incredibly glorious, the strongest, the wisest, the brightest expression of God’s creative genius, taking Adam’s breath away with outward show.
Adam was stunned and overwhelmed by the appearance of the serpent and by the appearance of the beauty of knowledge.
The Comparison
The beauty and magnificence of the highest heavenly expression of God’s creative power VERSUS Adam’s puny and weak human frame. – The Image of God?
The allure of me, myself, doing what God says by knowing what is right and what is wrong VERSUS a Man hanging naked, bloody, bruised, and unashamed upon the tree of life, life laid down and love poured out. – The Way to Life?
But there, front and center, directly before Adam, the most powerful influencer against the human psyche.
What will people think about me?
Driven by the lust to appear smart, powerful, and attractive to the woman.
Looking good, Baby!