Speaking to the Serpent

Genesis 3:2 Moses account of man's fall:

"And the woman said to the serpent..."

Do you have a fond remembrance of childhood? Many of us remember it as a time when we knew nothing of evil and only of good. A time when the family sheltered us from this world's depravity and we understood little of its dangers and fears. It was a time of healthy ambition for learning and growth.

Unfortunately, such innocence lasts little beyond infancy and the world comes at us with full speed depravity, corrupting our ability to recognize good from evil. It is a great sadness to see children so robbed of innocence.

Is it any wonder then that God desired the same for man?

Moses account of forfeiture of innocence  in the book of Genesis reveals to us the root of man's depravity. When we examine the first recorded activity of the man (Adam) and the first recorded activity of the woman (Eve) we learn of the culpability of each in changing this world originally declared by God as 'very good' into our present reality of depraved mortality.

The first man was given a task and a prohibition. He was to claim dominion over God's creation by the naming of each creature but he was not to claim dominion as God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was God's desire that man be kept in a state of innocence but not in a state of ignorance.

His prohibition was, in part, so that man could enjoy God and all that He had created without fear or corruption. The knowledge of good and evil was to remain the exclusive prerogative of Holy God.

Man now seems determined to create a world where there is no need for God. In this world, man's wisdom trumps God's wisdom and turns from a relationship with God to 'speak to the serpent' instead. It is a world torn by ethnic hatreds, selfish ambition, overwhelming fear and outright hatred against God and His authority. It is not the world that God created, it is a world created by man when his heart was turned away from God. 

It is notable that the first recorded action of the woman was to speak, not to her husband (to whom she was given as a helper), and not to God (to whom they were both accountable to). When she spoke to the serpent she committed the first act of idolatry. Since that time, every transgression of man is a result of speaking to the serpent. 

Our responsibility is to speak to God, but in our pride and fallen condition, we can no longer do so freely without a mediator ("For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus";1 Timothy 2:5). As a result, we are more comfortable with the devil's manipulations than with God's declarations.

Though Eve was in the transgression, Adam was right there and said nothing to restore the right order. Adam followed his heart in the deception. His heart was to follow his wife rather than follow God. In this way he corrupted the love of God - a self-sacrificing supreme love - to the lesser, but more popular forms of love that the Greek language describes as 'eros' (erotic love) and 'phileo' (brotherly love). 

As the head of the human race and of his wife Eve, Adam was held accountable. As proof of the corruption of God's perfect, sacrificial love, Adam deflects blame to Eve for the deception. When Adam is confronted by God with his sin, God asks him, "Have you eaten of the tree...?" Adam replies: "The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat."

The serpent as a proxy of the devil was very subtle indeed. Satan chose the most beautiful creature in the garden to approach the first couple (see Ezekiel 28:13). As a master of half-truths, he recognizes their joint heir-ship over God's dominion but ignores Adams headship and speaks directly to the woman. She was enticed by beauty and by a desire to be as wise as God Himself. By this deception, the first man, Adam, forfeited the innocence, the glory and the honor that God had desired for His creature. 

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" Romans 5:12

You and I, before we die, will respond to God in one of two ways. We will either continue to follow our natural impulses, speaking to the serpent, exalting man's wisdom, following our heart's passions without regard for God...or, we will turn back to God through the one mediator that He has appointed, God's Son, Jesus Christ.  

Our response will determine our eternal destiny. 

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."  Acts 4:12