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Darkness Before Dawn
Eve Yielded to Temptation
“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
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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.”
Verses 2-5
. He declared that they would become like God, possessing
greater wisdom than before and being capable of a higher state of
existence. Eve yielded to temptation; and through her influence, Adam
was led into sin. They accepted the words of the serpent, that God
did not mean what He said; they distrusted their Creator and imagined
that He was restricting their liberty and that they might obtain great
wisdom and exaltation by transgressing His law.
But what did Adam, after his sin, find to be the meaning of the
words, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”? Did
he find them to mean, as Satan had led him to believe, that he was to be
ushered into a more exalted state of existence? Then indeed there was
great good to be gained by transgression, and Satan was proved to be
a benefactor of the race. But Adam did not find this to be the meaning
of the divine sentence. God declared that as a penalty for his sin, man
should return to the ground whence he was taken: “Dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return.”
Verse 19
. The words of Satan, “Your eyes
shall be opened,” proved to be true in this sense only: After Adam and
Eve had disobeyed God, their eyes were opened to discern their folly;
they did know evil, and they tasted the bitter fruit of transgression.
Immortality Forfeited by Transgression
In the midst of Eden grew the tree of life, whose fruit had the power
of perpetuating life. Had Adam remained obedient to God, he would
have continued to enjoy free access to this tree and would have lived
forever. But when he sinned he was cut off from partaking of the tree
of life, and he became subject to death. The divine sentence, “Dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” points to the utter extinction
of life.