When Quoting God's Word Is Not Enough

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” [Genesis 3.1]

The first test of man and woman was a test of knowledge. Satan shrewdly asked a question laced with half-truth. God had indeed forbade eating one fruit in the Garden, but not all fruit in the Garden. The woman answered the half-truth-loaded question accurately citing God's Word, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’

As the Bible will eventually reveal, the number one thing God hates is pride. Pride is at the center of every sin. For God to have such a bad taste for pride indicates its role in the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. So let's look at how that came to be...

It must have been exhilarating for the woman to knowledgably quote God's Word to Satan. If we can see it though, that was likely Satan's plan all along. For Satan's outright lie to accomplish its intended purpose of convincing Adam and Eve to disobey and eat the forbidden fruit, he first had to appeal not to their disobedience, but to their pride. He knew from his own experience that disobedience is the product of pride. Once the door of pride is opened, disobedience is soon to enter.

In knowledgably quoting God's Word, Eve's pride was sparked. I can imagine that Adam, standing there with her, at least thought, "Yeah, what she said!" after Eve quoted God's Word. A self-preserving energy was inadvertently stroked to life that would set Adam and Eve up for disaster. Satan then "pulled all the stops" blatantly contradicting God's death warning upon eating the forbidden fruit, and, instead of defending God's Word, the couple proudly exercised their right to do what they wanted instead of what God said. This happened because, in that moment of the slightest pride, instead of "not touching" (which can translate into a proximity question - 'how far do I stay away for the fruit I am not to touch?'), the first couple obviously stayed within arm's length of the fruit because they took it into their hands and ate it.

In that moment of knowledgably and proudly quoting God's Word but not obeying it fully (to neither eat nor even touch - or get away from it), sin entered mankind and, as they say, "the rest is history." In that moment, quoting God's Word was simply not enough.

It is all too easy to proudly quote God's Word while standing entirely too close to sin. Adam and Eve were not only not to eat the fruit, but not to touch it. It was pride at its core for Adam and Eve to not immediately distance themselves from the forbidden fruit (not to mention Satan who was offering it). Anyone who has raised a child from infancy has seen this happen before their own eyes... The baby is forbidden to touch an object, but he will predictably approach it and put his hand as near the object as possible in an inherently sinful display of pride in testing boundaries.

The takeaway from this story is this: it is simply not enough to quote God's Word in the face of sin. One must distance themselves from sin! 

Father, as this New Year commences, may we take a fresh look at Your Word and not just quote it - but purposefully and obediently live it.