Last time in Bible Understanding, man and woman were naked and unashamed, representing their moral innocence. Along comes a crafty serpent, slithering up to the woman as though to begin a conversation with an inquiry. This is our first glimpse of the devil, who has clothed and disguised himself as a snake, one of God's good creatures. He asks "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman replies that while she and the man are permitted to eat fruit from the garden's trees, God did say 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' Here is were things get dicey in the story as the tension builds. The woman is innocent at this point and has been engaged by the devil dressed up or more aptly, down, as a crafty snake. She is at a pivotal point here because what comes next marks the beginning of her fall from innocence into the despair of shame and guilt. The serpent has the woman's attention and responds with "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." In this statement the devil insinuates a falsehood on Gods part, suggesting subtlety to rebel against Gods command for the purpose of being like God and knowing good and evil. Eat the fruit and be like God, knowing good and evil? Don't eat the fruit and remain innocent from the knowing, living free from this bane of existence and never dying. The devil negates Gods warning, blatantly denying Gods divine pronouncement that death will result from eating the fruit from this one tree, as a way to convince the woman into disobedience. He entices the woman into believing that eating from this tree will provide her with a Godly knowing and the woman eagerly buys what the devil is selling, looking to the middle of the garden and eyeing the fruit of the no no tree and seeing that it was "good for food, pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom". She eats, she gives some to her husband who was with her and he too eats. Once the fruit is eaten their eyes are opened and they realize they are naked. The first body covering clothes are sewn from fig leaves out of shame for the nakedness. Satan successfully caused the woman and man to doubt and then disobey God and thus began the alienation between God and man. Exciting and dramatic stuff, until next time in Bible Understanding.
