What Was That Forbidden Fruit, Anyways?

 

Recently, at a women’s conference, the speaker read scripture from the book of Genesis. While tempting Eve with the forbidden fruit, Satan challenged what God had told her, stating that “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.” – Genesis 3:4-5 (NLT)

While that wasn’t the focus of her message, it spoke volumes to me about the love of our heavenly Father.

When you have children and grandchildren – really, any child that you love, you want to protect them. Ideally, we wish that they never had to know evil at all. How wonderful would their lives be if they never even heard about, let alone experienced, all the evils in the world? It’s our sincerest hope and wish to protect them from all that’s evil. Oh, that they would never know about pain, insult, assault, rape, kidnapping, torture, murder, greed, heartbreak and so much more!

Alas, we know that they will be exposed to all those things through media and some of those things through their own experiences.

What if there was something we could do to protect them from it?

What if we could prevent them from opening the doorway to the evils of the world?

What if they could only know…..good?

In His love, mercy, compassion and goodness, God only had one rule for His children in the Garden of Eden: Don’t open this door – this door will lead to pain and sorrow and destruction, even death.

Yet through the subtle deception of the enemy, the door looked tempting, as Satan attempted (successfully) to make it look to Eve – and Adam there with her, like God was keeping something good from them. He wanted to make them believe that knowing good AND evil would make them like God.

But God didn’t want His family to know the torment of evil. He didn’t want us to know good AND evil – He only wanted us to know good, forever.

In wanting the best for His children, He sought to protect them with a simple rule. He’d already provided every good thing for them – and forbid the bad from destroying their lives by containing it in a single tree.

“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.” – Genesis 3:4-5 (NLT)

Knowing what we know now, they’d never have eaten from the forbidden tree. But – they didn’t yet know evil. They didn’t even know what evil was.

Sometimes, as in this case, rules are for our own protection. God didn’t want us to know evil – only good!

Because that fruit was eaten, we now need to be redeemed. In His great love for us, God provided for our redemption by sending His own Son to make the sacrifice necessary to bring us back into harmony with Him.

“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”  – Romans 5:8-9 ESV

Yet, like Eve – and Adam, so many of us think we know better than God.