1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
Genesis 3:1–7
At first glance I think most of us read about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and simply think that eating from the tree would give Adam and Eve the ability to know the difference between good and evil, thus being in a state of innocence before that time with no moral knowledge. But think it through, did Adam and Eve really not know the difference between good and evil before eating the fruit? They definitely knew that it was good to obey the commands of God. Wouldn’t that have given them the knowledge that to disobey would be not good, or evil? They certainly knew that the consequence of death was not a good thing.
The one thing that God has always demanded is that all creation, including the devil, acknowledge that He alone is God. From the moment of Satan’s rebellion, He has always wanted to be God. I think careful analysis will show us that this has everything to do with the prohibition of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
When the Bible authors combine two words, as in good and evil, (or heaven and earth, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, etc.) it is a way of including everything in between. I think it would be reasonable to say that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents man’s desire to have the knowledge and wisdom of God (omniscience), or in other words, to be God. To disobey God is to deny His sovereignty and assert one’s self as sovereign. Thus, when Eve looked at the tree it looked to her as able to make her wise. In disobeying God, she wanted to be like God and asserted her own wisdom over His. Therefore, what she reaped from her disobedience was not just moral discernment, but the shame of guilt and the consequence of mortality.
My prayer for you today
is that you will yield yourself always to the wisdom of God
over the wisdom of man, the wisdom of this world.