pilgrim people

The Fall

Satan tries to derail God's glorious plan. He observes that God has made humans in a way far superior to the rest of his creation, namely, in his own image. He observes that God placed Adam into a Covenant of Works in which glorified life (symbolized in the Tree of Life) was promised to humans upon fulfillment of the covenant's stipulations. Satan sees that this glorious cosmic temple which God has made in his creation brings God glory. He sees that this kingdom project arranged in a CoW will bring God more glory. Thus, he tries to preclude the consummation by getting Adam to break the CoW. Satan knows that if Adam violates the stipulations of the CoW, then God, being just and the suzerain-King in the covenant, must prosecute and judge Adam the vassal-king.

This is why he goes after Adam in the way he does. Yet, shrewdly, he does not go after Adam directly. Instead he goes after the woman. Satan knows that Adam has been called and commissioned as a protector and guardian of the covenant (This was part of his responsibility in the CoW. See 2.15; the English word "keep" in the ESV is a translation of the Hebrew shamar, which means to guard/protect. Compare 2.15 to 3.23-24). Thus, he approaches the woman, whom Adam said was "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."

The first thing Satan does is challenge God's authority as the Lord of the Covenant. He contests the stipulations of the covenant, which God announced in Word: "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" He casts doubt on the truthfulness and accuracy of God's Word: "You will not surely die."

Satan then challenges God's motives, casting doubt on his goodness: "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." He is essentially telling the woman to look beyond God's pettiness and reach within herself to realize her full potential. He convinces the woman that God is trying to hold her back from divine enlightenment.

The woman succumbs to the temptation of the devil and falls. Yet, her fall is not as catastrophic as Adam's, for Adam, not Eve, was our federal head and representative in the garden. When Adam fell, he all fell. As many of the English Puritans were fond of saying, "In Adam's fall, sinned we all." His failure and violation of the CoW resulted in condemnation and death for the whole human race (Romans 5.12-21). Adam was called to be the guardian-priest of the holy garden. He was given the responsibility to protect the garden from defilement. He should have not tolerated the league between Satan and the woman. He should have exercised his priestly and kingly authority and executed judgment on the devil and Eve. Instead, however, he too entered into this unholy covenant with the devil, violated the CoW, and selfishly tried to obliterate the Creator-creature distinction. 

More to come...