When is the last time you thought deeply about the story of the fall in Genesis 2 and 3?  Of course, we all know the story.  God plants and garden, puts man into it, gives man a wife, forbids them to eat of the forbidden fruit – enter the serpent.  Eve is tempted, makes a faltering attempt to resist before taking a bite, invites Adam to do the same, and suddenly they are aware of their nakedness, they are ashamed and hide, they make some lame excuses and try to blame one another, the serpent, and even God; and in the end they suffer the consequences of their choice and lose paradise.

But let’s look a little closer.  What is this forbidden fruit?  (I’m not opening a debate about whether it was an apple, a pomegranate or a passion-fruit.  I’m asking what it represented; and what its promised effects were.)  In Genesis 2:9 it is first named, along with another unique tree: And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up ever tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.  The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Did you catch that?  The tree has a name, and the name is a description, and the description is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  So it represents something – it represents knowledge, and perhaps the case can be made that it promises that same effect – but we’ll discuss this in a moment.  There is another promised effect that God made clear to Adam in Genesis 2:16-17 – And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.’

It is fascinating to me the disproportionate amount of attention people in general, and skeptics in particular, place upon this one tree.  So many wonder aloud at God’s goodness, generosity and grace because of the presence of one tree that is forbidden.  Yet the garden is filled with trees from which Adam and his wife are encouraged to eat.  They are given abundant freedom!  Every provision for every need has been foreseen!  But they are under a covenant of works.  Their relationship with God is to be maintained by their own effort and merit.  What does this effort require – simple obedience – they are to refrain from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  That is it.  One law and every imaginable freedom.

We could get into a prolonged conversation about why God would put such a deadly thing in the garden – but let us agree that God sets before man a test, with every desire that he should pass the test, and should keep himself from sin.  Satan, on the other hand, presents a temptation, with every desire that man should fail and give in.

So let’s turn the page for a moment and consider Genesis 3:1-7 (to save space I won’t write it out here – but since you’re online why not open a window and look it up – you should read it first).  Okay – now that you’ve read that you have heard Satan’s temptation.  He makes a suggestion about the PROMISED EFFECTS of this fruit also.  Listen – But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ (Genesis 3:4-5)

Was the serpent lying?  Satan is a liar and the father of lies – but this wasn’t a complete lie – it was contained in the very name of the fruit – the fruit had a promised effect and part of that effect was the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL.  But Satan baits the hook with the fruit hiding the barb – God had promised Adam that he would surely die.

But that leads to the final question I want you to wrangle with today.

Did God not think it necessary that Adam know good from evil.  Are you ready for a shocking reply?   No – the knowledge of good and evil was not a necessary component to Adam’s freedom, joy, and walk with God provided Adam trusted God and obeyed his Word.

In fact, I believe the temptation in the garden is really a situation we see repeated over and over again in the world; not only outside the church, but tragically within the church.  We don’t trust God.  We don’t believe his Word.  We suspect that he is keeping something from us, and so, from time to time, we reach over and take control of our lives and insist that we will decide right from wrong for ourselves.

Now, of course, Adam had only one law to contend with, but his disobedience opened the door for sin and its effects and the result is a plethora of laws and rules necessary to protect us from sin.  But ultimately, all these things can be reduced to trusting God – to allowing God to be God and for me to be his creation – dependent on his wisdom, and suspicious of my own hearts desires.

So, here is the question I lay before you.  Where is the serpent suggesting to you that God’s Word might not be sufficient or trust-worthy?  Which part of the Bible is he trying to make seem unreasonable or less-weighty?  He loves to suggest that God has no concern about your thought life, or that sexual-ethics in the Bible can’t be considered relevant for a modern world, or that the whole idea of submission to the will of God is only for pastors and missionaries.  But is this not the temptation in the garden played out again in your life?

Do what Adam and Eve did not.  Let God be God; take him at his Word.  Trust him.  He has your freedom, life and joy at heart – Satan would see you in bondage to sin and ruin.

Adam has been on my mind quite a bit this week.  I've been working on an article on Adam and Eve to post here - and then, today, Adam was everywhere.

I attended a morning prayer gathering today at Trinity Anglican Church, and the Old Testament reading was from Genesis 3, the account of Adam and Eve's rebellion and the ensuring curse, and promise of redemption.  As is customary in this sort of prayer meeting, there is a moments pause for meditation on the scripture, and my mind rested on the importance of Adam to the whole drama  of redemption in scripture.

Last week I read a chapter from A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life by Joel Beeke and Mark Jones that discussed Natural and Supernatural Theology - and most of the teaching centred on Adam in the garden.  (Natural theology is the way in which God is revealed naturally in the world, nature and what we can observe with our own senses; while supernatural theology deals with what our senses cannot grasp about God without his special revelation through Scripture.)

Finally, after returning from my time at prayer, I sat down with the thought on my heart to write to you about the importance of Adam as scripture portrays him.  What was the first article that popped up on my facebook feed?  A review of a book on Adam by Tim Challies.  (http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/four-views-on-the-historical-adam)

Now I know that there are coincidences in our lives - but I see this as a strong prompt from the Holy Spirit to spend some time talking with you about Adam, sin and salvation.   So you can expect that the next few of articles will focus on this subject.

Adam is under siege in the church today.  In an attempt to narrow the (perceived) gap between faith and science, there are pastors and teachers who have suggested that the story of Adam is just a myth - that there never really were any such people as Adam and Eve and that there was no Garden of Eden.  The really disturbing teaching sees Adam and Eve as some sort of parable or myth; softer (yet still troubling) interpretations see Adam and Eve as a couple of people who God identified out of a whole existing population and began to work through.  Both of these suggestions require jettisoning the clear teaching of Genesis.  But its more than that!

If we reject the story of Adam and Eve as literal, we end up rejecting the whole Bible.  We have to throw out the prophets who believed that Adam's sin was an actual event, like Hosea (Hosea, speaking the Word of the Lord says: But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.  Hosea 6:7).  We also have to throw out Paul's teaching in Romans 5; I Corinthians 15; and I Timothy 2.  We have to reject the book of Jude at least in part, because Jude taught that Adam was actually a man.  Finally, Jesus himself references the creation of Adam and Eve as a literal event in Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9, if in fact Adam and Eve were myths, Jesus is mistaken.

But there is even more at stake in this debate.  If there was no actual Adam, and no actual Garden of Eden - what is the origin of sin?

We have all sorts of places in scripture where we can point to sin and rebellion, we can find sin and rebellion in the world all around us - but the story of Genesis 3 establishes the cause of this situation and lays the foundation for all of God's work in redemption.

Paul's argument in Romans 5 is that sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin; but Christ's righteousness and sacrifice has brought about justification through faith.  The very foundation for Paul's argument is the literal act of Adam and the literal act of Jesus, that is lost if we jettison Adam.  In I Corinthians 15 he carries on the argument stating that all those who are in Adam will die as a result of his sin, but all those who are in Christ will be made alive as a result of his resurrection for the dead.  Without Adam the death and resurrection of Christ become of questionable need and value.

So a great deal (everything in fact) rests upon our understanding of Genesis 3.  I hope you're persuaded that a deeper consideration of these matters is worth your time.

I propose to write a few articles for your reflection on Adam - look for these in coming days: The Significance of the Tree of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; The Long-Lasting Effects of Sin and It's Peculiar Marks Upon Men and Women; The First Adam and the Second Adam; Science and Faith - Are They Irreconcilable?

I welcome your questions and comments.