BIBLE READING
I have started reading an in-a-year bible reading plan once again. I have read through the bible a number of times, but it has been several years since the last time. If you'd like to join me, you can find the plan I'm following here.
Being January 1 at the time of this writing, I was reading the first 3 chapters of Genesis. Obviously, this wasn't an unfamiliar passage to me. In fact, it is a passage that even non-Christians are fairly familiar with for at least the overarching storyline. God created the universe, God created Adam and Eve and put them in the garden of Eden, God forbade them from eating the fruit of one very specific tree, the serpent tempted Eve regarding that fruit, Adam and Eve ate fruit from that tree, and they were summarily ejected from the garden.
It is a very familiar passage to me, but I found myself considering something I don't think I have considered before. If I have, or if I have heard it elsewhere, it apparently didn't stick with me.
DON'T EAT THAT FRUIT
Genesis 2 recounts in more detail the creation of Adam and Eve from chapter 1 as well as the creation of the specific garden called Eden.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 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.”- Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 3 tells of the fall of mankind from sinlessness and living in paradise into sinfulness and exiled from paradise.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
- Genesis 3:1-3
Eve has taken a bit of a bashing for the additional phrase recorded here: "neither shall you touch it". As is evident, the text of Genesis 2 in which God issued His command regarding the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil does not include that phrase Eve uttered in Genesis 3.
It has been argued that at best she misquoted God or that at worst she added to His command. Either way, she has been frequently faulted for one of those two positions.
But I wonder....
At the time of her answer to the serpent, she and Adam were not fallen into sin and physical or mental degradation; they were sinless and in the state of perfection of how God created them. It was a fairly simple command: don't eat fruit from that one specific tree. That is not something easily misinterpreted or forgotten especially for a person living in a pre-fallen, sinless, condition.
It is because she answered in her pre-fallen, sinless, condition that I question both of those assumptions of either misquoting God or adding to His command.
However, even if innocent of both of those accusations that does not exonerate her (or Adam) though. They are both definitely guilty and at fault as both willingly ate of the fruit in spite of God's command.
But as I read this passage for an unknown numbered time, I was struck with a different view of the additional phrase. God's command was to not eat of the fruit of that tree. To eat of it would be sinful disobedience. Sinfulness should be avoided and even fled from. Examples from scripture include:
But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.- 1 Timothy 6:11
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.- 1 Corinthians 10:14
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.- 2 Timothy 2:22
But what about that part about not even touching it?
DON'T TOUCH THAT FRUIT
While not eating the forbidden fruit is technically and by-the-letter-of-the-law not sinning, the touching of it is certainly a dangerous flirting with sin. Flirting with sin indicates a heart desire or inclination toward that sin. When that flirting is done often enough, and for long enough, it will almost certainly lead to the falling into the active sin. [Warning: Mileage may vary]
Could it be like Jesus' deeper teachings? Such as could:
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful
intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)
extrapolate to:
But I say to you that everyone who touches the fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has already eaten of it
in his heart.
Jesus' point was that it wasn't just an act of adultery alone that was a sin, but it was even just the desire of the heart that was a sin. Which is why this passage, and others like it, are so important:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ- 2 Corinthians 10:5 (my emphasis)
Take captive each thought and reject those that are not godly so that you can avoid flirting with sin. A singular ungodly thought left unchecked can be dwelled on and revisited and ultimately become the catalyst that leads to flirting with sin. In a real-world scenario, life-ending cancer can start with the mutation of just a single cell.
I love and often quote this line from one of my all time favorite movies, Ladyhawke. I find it applicable in many of life's settings. In one scene, the Bishop of Aquila tells his henchman, Captain Marquet:
"Great storms announce themselves with a simple breeze...and a single random spark can light the fires of rebellion."
Touching or dabbling around the boundaries of sin may seem innocent in the moment, it may seem fun in the moment, it may seem exciting in the moment, but it is neither innocent nor a game. It is a baited trap on a road to destruction.
It would be akin to someone like me with a history of pornographic pursuits to again begin looking at PG-rated "soft porn" images. Maybe it just happens once every few weeks. Sooner or later the frequency increases to every week, and then several times a week, and then finally daily. And then the next step comes: PG-rated images aren't satisfying the desire any longer. More provocative material is then sought until that isn't satisfying enough either, and the downward-spiraling fall toward XXX-rated material continues and is what becomes sought daily. Excuses for self-justification may even be made all along the way.
Or consider how many intimate encounters begin "innocently" but because of the allowance of being in compromising situations, inappropriate environments, and flirting with boundaries, it culminates in the completion of its execution. Those instances are also all too frequently accompanied by excuses for self-justification.
Even if you never advance past the first step and make that your "limit" of allowance, you are already in the trap with a heart issue flirting with that sin.
This is even how sin often begins in the first place: by dismissing its gravity, thinking you have mastery over it, and by flirting with it.
FLIRTING WITH DEATH
Flirting with sin is a conclusive indicator that a person's view of sin is askew. Someone that flirts with sin neither acknowledges its true nature nor takes sin seriously enough. Sin isn't innocuous or impotent. Flirting with sin is flirting with death.
[Note: Death here, as in the Genesis passage, is not simply physical death. Adam and Eve's disobedience resulted in an immediate spiritual death and an eventual physical death - both of which have passed on to all of us. See my article on Hard Questions: Am I saved? How Can I Be Saved? to learn how Jesus offers an immediate spiritual life and an eventual physical life.]
Sin results in utter separation from God (Isaiah 59:2)
Sin leads to death (Romans 6:23)
Death is an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26)
Enemies actively seek your destruction and aren't concerned with the means required or employed in order to achieve that goal. Death isn't something an intelligent and sensible person callously flirts with. Flirting with an enemy seeking your destruction is beyond foolishness.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
- 1 Peter 5:8 (my emphasis)
And Jesus both warns of the devil's intent and of His offer and promise:
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.- John 10:10 (my emphasis)
The danger of flirting with sin and all of its consequences isn't a warning solely for unbelievers. Peter's warning in the above passage was written to Christian believers throughout Asia Minor. For a Christian, flirting with sin adversely affects the relational interaction with God even though that relationship with God is secured, it can be a major stumbling block to other Christians to the point of flirting with sins themselves or even leaving the church, and it can diminish or outright destroy the gospel witness for watchful unbelievers.
Again, flirting with sin is not innocuous or impotent. It has meaningful and often lasting ramifications.
AT LEAST ONE CONCLUSION
- Did Eve add that phrase to God's command of her own accord?
- Did God originally say it but it wasn't recorded until Eve repeated it?
- In Eve's pre-fallen state did she understand the implication of the command and expound on it to imply we shouldn't even entertain the idea; don't touch sin?
Whether the faulting of Eve as ignorant of God's command or of her pompously adding to God's command is earned, or if she expounded with the command's implication, I don't know. I haven't seen anything within scripture that directly addresses it.
But I do know this with absolute certainty, and I know it from personal experience:
Flirting with sin is a certain path into sin.
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