The Day of Knowing

Genesis 3:5 … God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil …

Satan, by his very nature, is a deceiver. Jesus calls him the Father of lies. Realizing that, I’ve turned to take a closer look at the serpent’s first words to Eve. What might they reveal about Satan? What corrupted picture of God might he have been imparting to Eve?

A single word was the first lie. The inclusion of not into the exceedingly abundant provision and permission God had given Eve. It brings to mind the saying, “Give them and inch, they’ll take a mile.”

God withheld from His beloved nothing, save one thing. To not eat of the single thing that would endanger, would bring harm, in a world that otherwise held no limitations.

Scantly clad in orphan attire, holding out a now empty porridge bowl having known only meager portions, Oliver’s voice suddenly bursts upon the page: More please!

But Eve was no orphan … nor were her provisions meager. They were abundant beyond measure, beyond what she could have consumed in a lifetime.

I fear desire already lived and breathed within this feminine clay … desire for the forbidden, because it was forbidden.

The fertile heart soil lay ready, waiting … and the serpent, reading the signs well, dropped the seed. Growth was instantaneous.

Eve grabbed the bait, added her own lie nor shall you touch it, and glossed over the consequences. God had left no question to the cost of disobedience: you shall surely die. He couldn’t have stated it more clearly. But Eve displayed a heart already questioning God, already displaying a deafness to His Word: lest you die.

God’s pronouncement declares certain death; Eve’s rendition held only the possibility of death.

I’ve never appreciated ‘dumb blonde’ jokes, but I must admit at this moment a deep desire to chalk up Eve’s subtle word shadings to a ‘blondeness’ in her thinking. But God personally built Eve in His image, and I just can’t make ‘blondeness’ fit that scenario.

She chose. Deliberately. Intentionally. Selecting the lens through which she would look and listen. It hurts, because I want to make excuses for her, excuses for me. When I read the passage quickly, I can; but not when I look into a heart so clearly revealed there.

Not until Eve had revealed her heart did the serpent strike the deathblow, permission already granted him through her own lies.

And that’s where I began, looking at those words, wondering the picture of God they painted. Was it a picture the serpent believed? Knowing from where he came that seems unfathomable. A portrait Eve wanted to claim, because it would make godhood attainable for her? Regardless, they both wanted the same thing … to attain godhood. It’s a portrayal that certainly twists and perverts the very nature of God.

… in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil …

Could Eve, or anyone for that matter, truly believe that God’s essence is knowing good from evil? Not righteousness. Not holiness. Not love. Not light. Not all the things that God reveals Himself to be … none of which are attainable by man.

Knowing, through discernment and personal experience and involvement in, does not make for godhood. It’s contrary, in one respect. God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.

Eve had to have known that. Adam, who was there through it all, certainly did, a witness to God’s creative nature. But even if, for a fleeting moment Eve bought the lie, choice still followed. Choice revealing a darkness of heart already looking for another god.

The serpent had indeed found fertile soil, innocence already gone. It wasn’t the ‘sight’ of the eye the serpent appealed to, but the ‘sight’ of the soul, the perception, that seat of understanding we’re all tempted daily to lean upon.

Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Where that dark seed first knew life within the Potter’s clay remains a mystery. But on the day of knowing, that mystery no longer mattered. It’s fruit no longer hidden, Grace’s covering, also, came visibly into play.

Eve displayed more than her own nature that day, a nature I share with her. With a single bite, she also put on display the nature of God. Mercy and Righteousness lay in full view … before Eve … before Adam … before a serpent … before this heart of clay who speaks the words of one after God’s own heart – Create in me a clean heart, O LORD, and renew a right spirit in me.








© 5 December 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks