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Knowledge of Good and Evil
19
sadness they said goodbye to their beautiful surroundings and went
forth to live on the earth, where rested the curse of sin.
To Adam God had said: “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’: cursed is the ground for your sake;
in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and
thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the
field. In the sweat of your face shall you 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 3:17-19
.
Although the earth was blighted with the curse, nature was still
to be our first parents’ lesson book. It could not now represent
goodness only, for evil was everywhere present. Where once was
written only the character of God—the knowledge of good—was
now written also the character of Satan—the knowledge of evil.
From nature, which now revealed the knowledge of good and evil,
human beings were continually to see the results of sin.
In drooping flower and falling leaf Adam and Eve witnessed the
first signs of decay. The stern fact that every living thing must die
was brought vividly to their minds. Even the air, on which their life
depended, bore the seeds of death.
Continually they were reminded of their lost dominion. Among
the lower creatures Adam had stood as king, and so long as he
remained loyal to God all nature acknowledged his rule. But when
he transgressed, this dominion was forfeited. The spirit of rebellion,
to which he himself had given entrance, extended throughout the
animal creation. Thus not only the life of humans but the nature
of the beasts, the trees of the forest, the grass of the field, even the
air—all told the sad lesson of the knowledge of evil.
But the human race was not abandoned to the results of the evil
that had been chosen. In the sentence pronounced upon Satan was
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given an intimation of redemption. “I will put enmity between you
and the woman,” God said, “and between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Genesis
3:15
. This sentence, spoken in the hearing of our first parents, was
to them a promise. Before they heard of the hard work and sorrow
that would be theirs, or of the dust to which they must return, they