Value System

I've been reading in Genesis lately. I found chapter 3 particularly interesting. It's the story of the Fall. We're all familiar with that one, right?

It starts with the serpent who was "was more crafty than any beast of the field". Look out! There's a warning there! His first approach is simple: "Did God say ...?" It's so simple. Question God. What did He really say? Was it fair? Was it kind? How good really is this God of yours? Eve overreacts like any good Pharisee. If dancing might lead to sexual sin, then it's best not to dance. If it's possible that drinking alcohol will get you drunk, it's best not to drink alcohol at all. If God said not to eat the fruit, it's best not to even get near it. Unfortunately, it also bears a component that the serpent already suggested: "Is God kind?" I mean, how kind is He if you can't even touch some fruit?

Satan's next attack is to directly contradict God. "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4-5). Can I share a little secret with you? It struck me as I read this that Satan didn't lie. Everything he told her was the truth. Proof? Well, Adam and Eve ate of the fruit that day and Adam lived something like 830 years. He did not die on the day that he ate it. As for the second claim, God Himself affirmed it. In Gen 3:22 God is quoted as saying, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil ..." -- exactly what Satan claimed.

We're faced now with a tricky question. Who was right -- Satan or God? Satan questioned God, and it appears that Satan was right. They didn't die and they did become like God, knowing good and evil. The problem, of course, is the very same problem we carry around today. It is a problem of values.

There is a (somewhat nonsensical) joke told about the rich man who figured out how to take his riches with him to heaven. He loaded up his casket with gold bars and when he arrived at the pearly gates he had a load of gold. Of course, Peter greeted him with a mixed response. "We're glad to see you ... but why did you bring paving bricks?" You know ... streets of gold. I know, not that good. But it illustrates my point. We suffer from a problem of values. It's as if God offers us diamonds and, unfamiliar with such stones, we turn Him down because we're happy with dirt. God's version of "die" is not the same one we have. And God's concern about "like God" in knowing good and evil is not the same as ours. When Eve saw that the fruit was "desirable to make one wise", she ate. God, on the other hand, would have spared her -- us -- that wisdom. So dangerous was this wisdom that God threw them out of the garden lest Adam "stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen 3:22). That would be a bad thing. (Really? Well, apparently God thought so.)

We are so twisted in our judgments. We think of "living" as "the period between life and death" and God thinks of it as a personal relationship with God (John 17:3). We think that extending that period as far possible is grand and God thinks that it would be better to be in an eternal relationship with Him. We think that knowing evil as well as good is wise and God considers it ... fatal. Did Adam and Eve die on the day they ate? Not physically, and that's a massive tribute to God's mercy. Had He killed them on the spot He would have been just. But they did indeed die that day as evidenced by their first act -- to hide from God. Their intimate relationship with God was ended -- God's version of "die". And humans ever since have been stillborn, spiritually dead in sin, requiring a second birth to remedy a problem from Adam's sin. Their "wisdom" presented them with a new set of knowledge -- evil -- and we've been honing, expanding, and perfecting that knowledge ever since.

So how is it that Satan as the serpent managed to get mankind to step into sin? He questioned God -- primarily His goodness -- and he told the truth -- a truth that appealed to Man's shallow sense of values rather than God's genuine values. Satan hasn't changed tactics since. It is still the number one question of humans in general and skeptics in particular. "Is God good?" There is an entire wing of Christian Apologetics devoted to responding to that question. We call it "Theodicy". After that, it gets easy. Just point to Man's skewed sense of what is and isn't valued and sinful perspectives sound so ... wise. Do we have to keep falling for this ruse? Not necessarily. We just need to get a new set of values -- God's version.