Now
the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of
every tree of the garden’?”
2 And the woman
said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but
of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you
touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 Then the
serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 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 3:1-5)
The
serpent was slick (figuratively and literally).
He mixed his lies with God’s truth the way an assassin uses wine to mask
the taste of poison or a politician uses a national distress to obscure a grab
for power. The snake said that knowing good
and evil would make the humans more like God, but he conveniently neglected to stipulate
that they still wouldn’t be gods. They’d just be mortals with the knowledge of
how thoroughly they’d screwed up.
The
funny thing is, we still fall for that half-truth. We shorten the name of the forbidden tree to
the “tree of knowledge” as if defying God brings enlightenment and
omniscience. But the tree didn’t give
all knowledge, only the awareness of good and evil.
Like
God, humanity became instinctively aware that every choice in every moment holds
good options and bad options. Unlike
God, we don’t omnisciently know which option is which. So here we are with all the accumulated
knowledge of human history just a Google search away on our phones and we still
can’t figure out how to make the world better without almost every time also
making it worse.
Adam
and Eve had been naked and unashamed, but, after they listed to their snaky
friend, they knew so doggone much that they no longer knew if being naked was a
good thing or a bad thing. Maybe they
should be less open with one another.
Maybe it wasn’t so good to let your spouse know EVERY thing about
you. Maybe they should hide certain
parts of themselves from each other. It
hadn’t been a problem before, but now every choice had a pro and a con.
The
serpent told Eve that she wouldn’t “surely die,” and Eve did not drop dead the
moment she ate from the forbidden tree.
God didn’t strike Adam down when he bit into the forbidden fruit. They didn’t immediately die, but they did
“surely die.”
They
lost access to the tree of life that could have healed them from all injuries
(Revelations 22:2). They were evicted
from Eden where food grew easily and the animals lived in harmony with them. The entire ecology of the planet mutated and
they exchanged potential immortality in Paradise for an existence that “is of
few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1).
Humanity
gained the knowledge of good and evil and lost everything else, and that is why
we have religion.
A
friend recently argued with me that religion is a human invention, created to
foster division and impose power over others.
I disagreed. I disagree.
In
Genesis 3, God set aside His right as Creator and Judge to destroy our progenitors
for their disobedience. He posted their
bail by promising a human descendant who would pay the price for their sins and
undo the damage the serpent had done.
“And
I will put enmity
Between
you [the serpent] and the woman,
And
between your seed and her Seed;
He
shall bruise your head,
And
you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
God
injected the hope of Messiah into human history.
In
verse 21, God took the life of an unblemished (cause everything in Eden was
perfect) animal and used its skin to cover the man and woman who now saw
themselves through the stained glass of sin and shame.
God
Himself made the first sacrifice for sin.
Religion
is the means by which sinful humanity pursues reconciliation with holy
God. Religion is a partnership between
humanity and the divine. Each played
their part in creating that partnership.
Man pioneered sin, and God invented religion.
Even
if you don’t take Biblical Creation literally and you read the beginning of
Genesis as an allegory for the long evolution of Earth and humanity from the
big bang to literate homo sapiens, logic still demonstrates that God, not
people, created religion.
Humans
developed medicine and defenses to protect life, but life itself is a gift from
God. God gave us food; we just figured
out how to cook and cultivate it. We
form social units but the need to connect with others and to improve our
condition is written into our DNA; we didn’t write it. The impulse to worship God is hardwired into
our brains, coded there by the same hand that designed us for nurture, technology,
and love.
“Know
that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us, and not we
ourselves” (Psalm 100:3).
Religion
is a gift from God --- a gift we have marred and manipulated for sinful ends,
but then how is that any different from what we’ve done with all of God’s other
gifts?
Eve
and Adam screwed over Paradise because they believed the serpent’s half-truths
beautifully packaged and cleverly delivered, more than the plain words of God.
It’s
about time we stop repeating the same mistake.
Has
God surely said?
Yes,
He surely has.
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You
can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and
clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O
Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
No comments:
Post a Comment