16 January

The creation account in Genesis 1-2 is contrasted with the fall of God’s greatest creation, man and woman, in Genesis 3. Man’s first sin committed is based on a greed for knowledge, a natural desire that becomes corrupted with the temptations of the serpent. Many would say God’s omniscience is based on his superior knowledge to humans, and so man’s corrupted desire for it is really a sinful desire to be God. When man and woman eat from “the tree of knowledge of good and bad”, they gain a specific type of knowledge through a sexual awakening. Their knowledge was not good knowledge, as they confused what had been created good by God with bad. For example, nudity was now nakedness, and innocence had been lost. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, which is important to note because it highlights a human dependence on the earth and the natural world. They disobeyed God through their human frailty, and ironically had been overpowered by the very things they had been given dominion over – the serpent and the tree. Adam and Eve had become like God in their ability to make judgments of what God had created. However, their “godliness” clashes with their innate human form, as they were forced to be banished from the garden. The serpent had lied in his promise of what would occur after they ate the fruit. Adam and Eve’s sin was an act of disobedience, but it also allowed death to enter the world. They did not die immediately, but they would eventually return to dust of the earth and their relationships with each other and the world were forever altered. Fortunately, God’s ability to bring even greater good out of the situation through his Son would represent the next step in his mercy toward Adam and Eve.