Commentaries:
Satan made a seemingly gentle suggestion against God's word and work, first by presenting them in a negative light. God had spoken to Adam and Eve, giving them His word. They had gathered much about the mind and personality of God because of what He said.
In addition, they could see with their own eyes a great deal about God's person, personality, and mind by what He had made. They were in a beautiful garden, which reflected the mind of God. They could see the beauty of His mind, and how His mind provided things beautiful and delightful to enjoy. They knew a great deal about the mind of God simply from what they were able to observe.
By making the challenge the way Satan did, he first made them mildly skeptical about God's love, asking them, Does God really love you?
Second, he made it seem as though obedience to God was, in reality, servility. He made them begin to feel as though God's way was restrictive; that He was holding back good things from them. This thought naturally led them to think much more could be obtained from life if they just followed their body's and mind's natural inclinations.
Third, he played his trump card: Not only would they not die, but they would be in control, free to determine right and wrong. In short, they would be equal to God!
Satan successfully brought them into a spirit of competition against God, resulting in the enmity described in Romans 8:7. He indirectly lied about God Himself, and he directly lied about the penalty, giving them misinformation about the reward.
He did tell them the truth, that their eyes would be opened and that they would not immediately die. Their eyes were opened, and they now looked at things through the twisted perspective, seeing evil in everything. From innocence, they became ashamed of their nakedness. The effect began immediately.
This is important because right thoughts precede right actions; right thoughts determine the release of proper emotions. Our thoughts express themselves even in our most casual relationships, in daily work, and most importantly, in our intimate relationships in our home and family. Most of all, they express themselves in our relationship with God. False beliefs about God and His purpose for man are far more destructive than alcohol and drugs. They confuse, divide, and bring on warfare.
Satan's lies, his counterfeits, and his devices are usually so subtle that only a trained mind can discern them. God teaches us to be able to see. He trains us to be able to spot the ploys, contrivances, and stratagems of our enemy so that we can overcome and defeat him.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 2)
In the original sin of Adam and Eve, Satan held out to them the promise of attainments beyond what they had experienced to that point in the Garden of Eden. Tempting them, he said, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). This helped motivate them to become greater than what God, their Creator, had assigned to them.
In Genesis 1:31, when God saw everything He had made, He declared it to be "very good." Pride is not "very good." It was not in them as God created them, but it entered into their thinking in Satan's presence. The very first exercise of that pride earned them death and ejection from God's presence and the Garden.
At some time following his creation by God, pride arose in Satan, and he uttered this desire, as written in Isaiah 14:13-14:
For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."
His devious offer to Adam and Eve in the Garden is an echo of his challenge against God. This exercise of his pride separated him from God.
Pride, Satan's lofty feelings of superiority regarding his beauty, corrupted him. It deceived him into wanting even greater power to complement his splendor. After all, he deserved it, did he not? Notice how great he was in his own eyes!
John W. Ritenbaugh
Living By Faith and Human Pride
The word “shrewd” more closely captures Satan's character than "cunning." Shrewd means “sharp and clever in a selfish way.” Though “cunning” is not incorrect, “shrewd” has clearer connotation.
To be cunning and shrewd like Satan indicates malevolent brilliance—with the emphasis on malevolent. He is seeking to kill. His cunning is like that of a tiger, silently padding through the jungle with eyes malevolently seeking something to kill and eat.
Consider how clever his tactic was. He subtly made a suggestion rather than an argument to discredit God's authority, casting doubt about God's credibility. Satan asked, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'"
Through the tone and inflection of his voice, Satan implied that there was doubt that God told them the truth. This is shown by the way Eve replied; she corrected him. She knew from the inflection of his voice that he was really asking a question and casting doubt. When she replied, she over-corrected.
Like a good salesman, the serpent got his victim to agree with him, getting the victim to say “Yes, yes, yes,” and then, "I'll buy it!" Eve was already influenced when she gave her reply because she over-corrected.
Satan successfully magnified God's strictness in her mind, reminding her that the way is narrow. She began to agree with him, thinking about God in terms the serpent wanted her to think. She began to agree, saying “Yes, yes, yes” to the salesman's ploys.
Satan immediately minimized the penalty, saying an outright lie, "You shall not die" (3:4). Then to clinch the sale, he offers her a reward: "You shall be like God" (3:5). What a price she paid! Satan offered a reward that must have seemed so big to Adam and Eve that they could not afford to reject it. What he offered was enough to reorient their lives.
They did not catch the complete significance of what he offered, but enough to know it was big. He offered the self to become the dominating focus of life; "You shall be God." He completely reoriented their lives by turning their focus away from obedience to God toward obedience to the self. He gave them the right to choose and to set the standards of right and wrong. They bought it hook, line, and sinker.
From that point on, mankind has viewed God as a rival and competitor rather than a friend—Someone with whom to compete and outwit rather than cooperate, for they were now gods too!
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 2)
Clearly, Eve, like Adam, was instructed and warned. In that regard, both were without excuse. Eve adds the prohibition against touching the fruit, and the context shows she admired its beauty, which is not a sin in itself but reveals her intensifying desire for it even before the serpent makes its sales pitch. The problem became much more critical because she listened to the serpent, apparently making no effort to flee the potentially sinful situation. As the Bible reports, she was clearly deceived, but she was thinking right along with the satanic sales pitch, as the desire to eat and be wise grew within her. All these pressures were edging the pair closer to choosing to sin. In doing so, they reaped the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, experiencing the pains of suffering and death.
Adam was guilty of idolatry and of deliberate sin. God directly curses Adam in Genesis 3:17, charging him, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' . . . .” He then lists a series of consequences, which would make life more difficult for him. These, of course, affected Eve as well.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Fourteen): A Summary
We must acknowledge a foundational truth: Contrary to conventional wisdom, the human soul is not immortal. This is a false teaching that was implanted into human religion when Satan convinced Eve of it in the Garden of Eden. Essentially, the Devil tells her that God is a liar, she will not die, and in fact, eating of the Tree of Knowledge would make her like God, a goddess with the same abilities as the Creator Himself. Satan's deceptive assurance that she would not die—taking the sting out of God's command—was central to her decision to eat of the fruit.
Elsewhere, the Bible flatly asserts that humans are physical, mortal beings. First, of course, is God's own warning in Genesis 2:17 that, upon eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, "you shall surely die"—in other words, sin ultimately ends in death, both the physical death of the human body and in due course the destruction of man's spiritual component in the judgment (see Revelation 20:14-15; John 5:29). The apostle writes in Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment." Twice in Ezekiel 18, God declares that souls die: "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4, 20), which the apostle Paul echoes in Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death." Finally, Jesus warns in Matthew 10:28 that God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
In fact, the Bible says only God has true immortality (I Timothy 6:15-16). Human beings can have immortality only through Christ and only through the resurrection from the dead, according to the pattern set by Jesus in His resurrection to eternal life (I Corinthians 15:22, 45-52). So, while true Christians have eternal life in them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it is only an earnest, down payment, or guarantee of the fullness of eternal life that will be given at the resurrection (see II Corinthians 5:1-5; Ephesians 1:13-14).
As Job 32:8 says, man has a spirit that provides him with understanding, and Paul explains in I Corinthians 2:11 that it endows humanity with intellect. This spirit in man comes from God (Zechariah 12:1) and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59). It records the events of our lives, our characters, and our personalities, which God somehow stores until the resurrection, when it will be returned, restoring each person's full memory and characteristics. However, the Bible never describes this human spirit as immortal or eternal; in fact, John 6:63 and Romans 8:10-11 explains that man needs that other spirit, God's Holy Spirit, to achieve eternal life.
So, what happens when a person dies? Again, the early chapters of Genesis provide a fundamental answer: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19). Humans, then, die and their bodies naturally decompose, breaking down into the elemental components of which they are made. The biblical usage of the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek Hades—which some, following pagan thought, contend is a place where the spirits of the dead live on after death—actually means "the grave" or "the pit," describing the place of burial.
Every human that has died, with the exception of Jesus Christ, remains in his grave, whether it is in the earth or in the sea. Even David, righteous and beloved of God, awaits the resurrection in his grave. In Acts 2:29, Peter says to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. . . ."
Scripture also explains that in death, life and consciousness are absent. Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 9:5, "The dead know nothing," and he later adds, "There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (verse 10). The psalmist writes in Psalm 146:4 about a person's death, "His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish." Thus, while God retrieves our human spirit for safekeeping, it has no inherent life, self-awareness, or any kind of functionality. It requires a living body to work, so once the body dies, it is inanimate, a mere record of a life but without life in itself.
In addition, while it is a record of a person's life, it is not the person himself. The Bible declares that people do not go to heaven (or to hell, for that matter) after death. In the same Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, Peter asserts, "For David did not ascend into the heavens" (Acts 2:34). Jesus Himself confirms this in John 3:13: "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." These direct statements confirm that all the dead, rather than going to heaven or hell or some sort of purgatory, await the resurrection in the sleep of death. They all await this call, which Paul bases on Isaiah 26:19: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Ephesians 5:14).
It is encouraging to see what Isaiah 26:19 says: "Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; . . . and the earth shall cast out the dead." In that great resurrection, just as in the first resurrection, God will give "eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality" (Romans 2:7). Thus, not only a Christian's hope of life after death rests in the resurrection of the dead, but even though they do not realize it, it is also the hope of all those who have never had the opportunity for salvation.
When that occurs, it will be clear that, indeed, "Death is swallowed up in victory" (I Corinthians 15:54)!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Seven)
The first angelic being appears in Scripture in Genesis 3 as the Serpent who tempted Adam and Eve. This being was no less than the demon we know as Satan. Isaiah 14:12 identifies him as “fallen from heaven,” and in Ezekiel 28:14, he is designated as “the anointed cherub who covers.” II Corinthians 11:3 names him as the one who “deceived Eve.” Revelation 12:9 calls him “the great dragon, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (also Revelation 20:2). The Bible certainly does not ignore this demon spirit.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Do Angels Live Forever?
Earlier, God had informed Adam and Eve that sin exacts a penalty, death - the cessation of life - and, if a person will not repent of sin, this means total death - no chance for eternal life. This threat God has held over mankind's head from the beginning. Notice, however, how the Devil replies:
Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 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." (verses 4-5)
Here is the lie: "Look, Adam and Eve, you have an immortal soul. God cannot enforce His threat." In its various forms through the centuries, this doctrine of man having eternal life already has appeared time and again.
In theological terms, this belief is the basis of the "Doctrine of Eternal Security." What is worse, this heretical doctrine has resurfaced in the church, having been part of the latest apostasy. It cannot stand, however, before the light of God's Word. God has a far superior way of dealing with humanity - both righteous and incorrigible.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Do We Have 'Eternal Security'?
Satan's words are partly true and partly false. We can see a pattern developing here. God gave clear instruction, simple teaching to Adam and Eve. When Satan entered the scene, he deceived them into disbelieving, distrusting God's plain, unambiguous directions.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Christian and the World (Part Two)
The Devil asserted that by taking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, human eyes would be opened—implying wisdom and enlightenment—to allow a person to know good and evil as God does. Immediately, Satan places the emphasis on knowing, but it is contrasted with living eternally. Satan proposes that mankind should be like God in taking to himself the knowledge—the definition—of what is right and wrong, asserting that this is a good thing! In contrast, the Tree of Life represents a way of living in which the meaning of good and evil already exists, and eternal life involves submitting through the Holy Spirit to that definition and the Sovereign who is its source.
Likewise, the Gnostics are those who know—who pursue mystical knowledge that they believe holds the key to eternal life through advancing beyond the physical and into the spiritual realm. Gnostics believed the key to eternal life was contained in right interpretation—knowledge—of those esoteric sayings.
The book of Revelation expounds on the Tree of Life in two places:
· To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)
· Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into [New Jerusalem]. (Revelation 22:14)
The Tree of Life, then, is associated with a way of life—one that requires overcoming (growth against a standard of righteousness) and keeping (doing) God's commandments. The only ones who are allowed to partake of the Tree of Life are those who have changed themselves (with God's help, by His Spirit) to begin living in the same manner as He does. To those who submit to His standard of righteousness, then, He grants life that is both endless and of the same quality that He enjoys.
Satan, though, in addition to casting doubt on what God plainly says, and implying that God is unfair by withholding good things, offers a shortcut. He says, "You do not need to follow God's way, for it is obviously unfair and far too stringent. You can follow your own way. You can take knowledge to yourself of what is good and what is evil. You can be just like God in determining what is right and wrong." Adam and Eve took the bait, and ever since, man has rejected God's standard of righteousness in favor of his own.
This heresy is easily seen in the antinomianism (literally, "against law") of the Gnostics, who may not have been against every law, but were certainly against any law that impinged upon their standard of conduct. Thus the ascetic Gnostics who grieved the Christians in Colossae held to manmade regulations of "do not touch, do not taste, do not handle" (Colossians 2:20-21), while rejecting the command to "rejoice" with food and drink during the God-ordained festivals. Similarly, mainstream Christianity will (rightly) use portions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy to point out God's abhorrence of abortion and homosexuality, but will claim that the same law is "done away" when it comes to the Sabbath and holy days. They have taken to themselves the knowledge of what is good and what is evil, establishing their own standard of righteousness.
A core issue of the Bible is whether we submit to God's governance or try to form a government based on our own perception of what is good or what works. God's way results in eternal life, but it comes with the obligation to submit ourselves to God. It requires keeping all of His commandments and overcoming our human weaknesses that do not rise to that standard. Satan, conversely, seeks to persuade us to do our own thing and to usurp God's prerogative in defining right living. He encourages us to be enlightened, to have our eyes opened, by doubting God and rejecting His way.
David C. Grabbe
Whatever Happened to Gnosticism? Part Three: Satan's Three Heresies
In verse 4, Satan slyly convinces Eve that God has lied to them by withholding from them the ability to become "like God, knowing good and evil." God was being unfair, he argues, keeping them from their potential. The passage suggests that, after hearing this, Eve did not hesitate one bit in making her decision. She took the bait without even flinching and ignorantly promoted the interests of Satan by giving the forbidden fruit to her husband. In effect, she signed on to advance Satan's objective—to derail God's plan to create mankind in His spiritual image.
Satan's tack has been the same ever since, even though he must realize that, due to Christ's death and resurrection, he will ultimately lose (Revelation 20:10). While he still has time, he will try to make as many people as he can fail to reach their incredible human potential. He will do whatever is in his power—whatever God allows him to do—to convince them that his way is superior to God's.
For those that have been called by God in this lifetime, we have far more at stake here. If Satan can succeed in deceiving us to advocate for him more and more, he greatly increases our chances of being subject to the second death, the eternal death in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14-15).
Peter warns us of the dangers that Satan poses to God's people: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8). According to the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, "sober" (Greek nepho) is a verb found in the New Testament only in the figurative sense, implying "sober watchfulness." In addition, "vigilant" (Greek gregoreuo) means "to keep awake, i.e., watch (literally or figuratively)."
Combining "sober" and "vigilant" paints an interesting word-picture for us. When a person is heavily intoxicated, he wants nothing more than to sleep it off, so it is impossible for the sleeping drunkard to be vigilant about anything. The message for us is that we must be attentive to our physical and spiritual condition so that we do not become spiritually intoxicated. This type of person is exactly the kind whom Satan seeks. If we enter this state, then we make ourselves a prime target to be devoured by the "roaring lion."
Staff
Should a Christian Play Devil's Advocate?
Through distrust, Satan seduced Adam and Eve away from submitting to the most wonderful, lovable, giving, concerned, sensitive, and helpful Personality in all creation—God. Can you imagine that? The Devil convinced them that God could not be trusted!
Distrust is a powerful incentive whose fruit is divorce. Our first parents sinned and division began. The world has not been united since. When there is distrust, faith evaporates. Fear, anxiety, and depression escalate, and the motivation to be personally secure and free from the hassles of coping intensifies. The "fight or flight" mechanism kicks in.
John W. Ritenbaugh
In the Grip of Distrust
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 3:5:
Deuteronomy 30:15-19
Job 32:8
Amos 3:13-14
Matthew 7:11
Matthew 16:6
Matthew 16:11-12
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
