Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #3 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read Genesis 3:1-5:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which JEHOVAH God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

In our last study we looked at the word “subtil” in verse 1, where it says, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which JEHOVAH God had made.” We saw how that word “subtil,” Strong’s #6175, is also translated as “prudent” and it is associated with someone that possesses knowledge – hidden knowledge – and that is why Satan chose the serpent that God had made more subtil than the other beasts of the field because it had a reputation for “wisdom.” In this case wisdom or prudence is identified with a creature that possessed understanding and knowledge. The problem Eve thought she had was that she was made to realize she did not know about evil. She thought it was something she should know about as the temptation went on and the serpent presented the knowledge that was involved with the tree God had placed off limits to man. It was that tree that God had said, “Thou shalt not eat of it,” and it was that tree that had the mysterious name of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The serpent came to her in a hostile way, although Eve was not aware of it because he came with all subtlety to deceive and to make her interesting in that tree and what God was holding back from her and preventing her from knowing through her experience, as Satan said to her, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” He was saying, “All you have to do is eat of it. You know where the tree is.” Then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:6:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Now she would experience “evil” and this evil was simply disobeying God – that is all it was. That was the knowledge of “evil.” It was nothing tremendous and nothing great or good. Did Eve experience some sort of enjoyment? There may have been some sinful pleasure as she approached the tree. There is always excitement when doing wrong. There is a feeling you get that it is out of the ordinary and, normally, man does not get excited about doing what is right or good, but as far as doing something bad, there is a thrill or excitement.

Eve approached the tree and took of the fruit. Eve had already said that God had commanded that they were not to eat of it or touch it, lest they die. That is what Eve said, but she was just developing God’s commandment a little further because God had said, “Thou shalt not eat of it.” Of course, if you are not going to eat of it, you should not touch it and Adam probably stressed to her, “We should not touch that tree or the fruit of that tree. We do not want to have anything to do with that tree,” so it was a good idea if you do not plan to eat something, you should not touch or handle it. This is a weakness that people have when it comes to certain sins. They say, “The Bible says I should not do this,” and, yet, they circle all around it. For all intents and purposes, they are “touching it” and trying to get as close to that sin as they possibly can without committing the sin. It really reveals their deep desire to do the sin, so it is not a wrong understanding to think, “If I am not to eat of that tree, I better not touch that tree. I better not touch that fruit. I better get as far away from that tree as I can and leave it alone and not see how close I can get to it without eating it.” It is not a mistake at all to realize, “I do not want to eat it and I do not even want to touch it,” but there Eve is and Satan had just brought up a couple of things to her. That is one thing that really stands out.

This is the first recorded sin in the Bible. Adam and Eve representing mankind did “right and good” and all of mankind was in the loins of Adam, so we were there with him. He is our figurehead. We are all descendants of Adam and Eve and we were represented in the garden by our father Adam and for a short period of time our first parents did well. They enjoyed communion and a right relationship with God and they tended to the garden, and so forth. They were enjoying great blessings of God everywhere. It is only when you lose blessings that you tend to realize that they were blessings, but Adam and Eve did not have sin-tainted minds and they may have been thanking God every minute of the day: Thank you for the fruit of the trees. Thank you for the warm day. Thank you for the lovely creature that just walked by me and thank you for the beautiful birds flying through the air. That would have been a good thing for man to do to give God proper due to for being the Creator of such a beautiful creation.

They were going along in perfect bliss and there was no wrongdoing and no curse upon the creation. There was nothing askew and nothing out of place. Everything was perfect. And then one day Satan showed up as he indwelled the serpent that God had created and that serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field. Satan had a plan he had hatched already and he had already fallen. Much depended on the success of his plan. If he failed, then God would likely have destroyed him and all the fallen angels. Of course, it is God’s plan to destroy them eventually, but God allowed these things to occur and He put off the destruction of Satan until the very time of the end. But Satan had a plan that he developed and devised. He had witnessed the creation of man that was made in the image of God and Satan came to deceive them in regard to that tree, the tree that God had set up as a testing ground for mankind. Satan saw an opportunity through the Law God placed in regard to the tree. There had been positive commands like telling man they could eat of all the other trees of the garden, but there was the negative command, “Thou shalt not eat it,” and it was applied to only that one tree.

In Romans, chapter 7 God moved the Apostle Paul to write as though he was mankind in the beginning (and he was in the loins of Adam, just as we all were), and it says in Romans 7:7-9:

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once…

In verse 7 Paul is speaking as though he is the man Adam in the beginning and without the Law. There was a short time after Adam was created in which God had not yet given the Law concerning the tree. Again, it says in Romans 7:9:

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

What God is saying through Paul is that God placed the commandment on the tree and it gave opportunity for sin because there has to be a Law in order for there to be sin. Sin is the transgression of the Law, according to 1John 3:4:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

This is the definition of sin. What if there is no Law? If there is no Law, then there cannot be sin because you need a Law in order to transgress the Law. To illustrate it, for example, someone says, “This is my land and you cannot trespass.” He places a fence about it and he puts up a sign that says, “No trespassing.” If someone comes along and climbs over the fence and goes on the property, he has transgressed. But let us say that someone else comes along that same road and there is no sign and no fence, so he walks across the man’s land. He has not transgressed the boundary. The Law is established and set up by God as the “ancient landmarks.” You may come up to this point, but you may not step beyond it. If you go beyond the Law that you shalt not kill and you kill or if you are commanded not to eat of that tree and you eat of that tree, then you have gone beyond the landmark and transgressed the law and committed sin. We know the wages of sin is death.

It says: “but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,” because through the Law there could be the transgression of the Law which would bring death.

Then it goes on to say in Romans 7:10-11:

And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

This is interesting because it says, “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.” Again, Paul is speaking as if he were Adam and, in a real sense, he was and you are and I am, because we were all in the loins of Adam and we were all alive without the Law once. And, yet, through the commandment, sin revived, and we died. Sin took occasion by the commandment and deceived me and slew me. Yet, it was Satan who took occasion by the commandment and it was Satan that deceived Eve and then Adam fell along with his wife and it slew mankind as death entered into the world. Satan is completely identified with sin, as the Bible tells us that Satan was a liar from the beginning and the father of it. It is the “lie” that killed mankind, so Satan is also called a murderer from the beginning. Murders and lies are sin and he is the father of sin. Here, he is even likened to sin itself: “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me”.

This is what we see here as Satan comes indwelling the serpent that is more subtil than any beast of the field. He is coming as someone who is wise and full of knowledge and understanding; he knows all about that tree and he knows the solution. “Here is the answer.” He is speaking to Eve, not Adam. He is speaking to the woman and this is establishing a pattern for all through history as the woman is a type and figure of the outward representation of the kingdom of God and Satan will repeat the pattern when national Israel is the outward representation of the kingdom of God. Satan will also repeat the pattern when the New Testament corporate church is the outward representation of the kingdom of God on earth. Satan comes in the same manner. It is always concerning the Word of God and questioning the Word of God using guile and deceit in order to confound and confuse the “woman.” He comes against the woman and the woman is deceived.

We also mentioned in our last study how the elect could be deceived as Satan comes at the end of time with such deception that even the elect would be deceived, if it were possible, but God implies it is not possible because the elect have been born again. They have been made new creatures and they have received a new resurrected soul and they are given the blessing and benefit of hearing the Shepherd’s voice. They are begotten by truth, as the truth has set them free from the kingdom of Satan and they have been translated into the kingdom of God’s dear son. They have been given “ears to hear” the voice of Christ and they have been given the ability to hear truth, which is something new for fallen man. They are given the ability to discern and understand truth and to recognize the voice of their Master, the Good Shepherd. God says in John 10:4-5:

And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

We can understand that they hear the voice of truth and they will not hear the voice of lies. Since man’s fall into sin, they are not able (of themselves) to make that distinction. By nature man is geared to follow the “stranger” and the voice of the lie, going all the way back to Eve as the temptation is before her: She hears the voice of God on one hand saying, “Thou shalt not eat of it or you will die,” and she hears the voice of a stranger in the form of a serpent, a lesser creature than mankind, saying contrary things to what she heard by the Word of God: “Ye shall not surely die.” This is a flat-out contradiction. There are two opposing statements and two opposing results. One says, “You eat and you die.” The other says, “You eat and you will not die.” Then the serpent goes on to say that not only will she not die, but her eyes will be opened to know good and evil and they will be like gods. He makes it sound wonderful. He makes it sound like the best thing ever if she would eat of the tree. It is in complete opposition to what God had said and this is the dilemma before the woman. What does she do?

One thing stands out and we notice it right away. The serpent did not have to work very hard at all in order to deceive the woman. He did not have to throw her on the ground and grab her arm and start twisting it. He did not have to go into long, elaborate explanations. She did not continue to resist him on the points he said and it was not days and days that the serpent came to her. It was not even hours that she resisted and she was not struggling for a prolonged period of time regarding who to obey, whether to obey God the Creator or the serpent, the “stranger.” We do not see much resistance at all. As a matter of fact, it is stunning how quickly she went from knowing and remembering what God had said to completely giving in and submitting to what the serpent said. She went from taking the Word of the Almighty Creator that she had a proper and right understanding of because sin had not clouded her mind in any way. She knew this Almighty God had spoken a command concerning this tree, but here comes a mere creature that is not even on her level (as man was created in the image of God to have dominion over all these creatures) and she listened to the serpent. That does not speak well for mankind at all, but we will have to continue with this in our next Bible study.