Page 17 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

God had given three simple instructions. “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 it you will certainly die” (2:16-
17). Satan attacks each in turn. 1.) Freedom to eat from any tree but one becomes restriction from
eating that one tree (3:1). All of God’s good creation is spoiled by one prohibition. Satan turns true
freedom into bondage. 2.) The result will not be death (3:4), a direct contradiction of God’s words. 3.) In
fact, good will result as Adam and Eve could have god-like experience of this world (3:4). Satan’s goal is
to make God seem unreliable. He is not their friend. He has not really given good. He is unreasonable.
Their own minds are capable of deciding what is good and what is evil without God’s help.

Here is the essence of sin and the source of death. God said very simply, “Do not eat from this one tree.”
The fruit could have been nothing more than an apple or mango or banana. The good God’s command
should have been enough without some lengthy explanation about the
health issues involved as if this particular fruit produced toxic juice deadly
to humans. When Eve, followed by Adam, decided to question their good
God, they began to experience the difference between good and evil from
the perspective of evil. “Eating of the tree was not in itself obviously wrong;
the command not to eat of it was not reinforced by an instinct in man’s
nature. It appeared therefore all the more clearly as a sheer test of
obedience. Would man obey God’s commands only when he could detect
Fig. 8: mango the reason for them, or would he obey them knowing simply that they
were God’s commands, knowing that because He gave them they had
some quite sufficient reasons and were holy and just and good.”
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The consequences begin immediately, and we get a basic understanding of death. Death is shame and
hiding from other people and from God (3:7-11). Death is all efforts to escape responsibility including
laying blame on others (3:12-13). Death is conflict, war even, between mankind and Satan (3:14-16).
Death is pain in childbirth and family (3:16). Death is joyless work (3:17-18). Death is physical death
(3:19).

Later scriptures explain the consequences in more theological terms. This original sin and death have
been passed on to succeeding generations (1 Kings 8:46; Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:19; Eph. 2:3). Yet at this point
in Genesis, we only read about the loss of Eden. Adam and Eve are banished, and an angel with a sword
blocks the way back (3:21-24). Soon we learn more.

Adam and Eve have children, wonderful little ones who add so much to the
lives of their parents just as children do today. Yet Cain kills his brother:
Death (4:1-16). More generations are born. They bear the image of God.
They build cities, domesticate animals, create music, and use tools. Yet
Lamech takes two wives: Death (4:17-26). Generation follows generation.
Lives are long, in some cases hundreds of years. The end of each is the
same, “then he died” (5:1-32): Death.
Fig 9.: Creole Cemetery
At the center of death, passed on from one generation to the next, is the
intermingling of people of faith with people who have only an earthly
outlook. A godly line exists of people who “call on the name of the Lord” (4:26). These “sons of God” are

17 J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), p. 164.

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