The Original Condition (Gen 1:26-31)

• God made man & woman like Himself in perfection (1:26).
• God then blessed them recognizing them as "very good" (1:28-31).
• Only after the fall did they become imperfect knowing good & evil (3:22).

• God gave the man & woman a choice, He did not mechanize them.
• The command was negative & not positive.
• They could express constant obedience by restricting only one activity.
• Positive commands require a repeated act to express continuing obedience.
• A positive command would have been more burdensome.
• The command typifies "freedom within form" in Biblical commands.

• Notice the unusual name of the tree: "The tree of the knowledge of good & evil."
• The full meaning of the words "good" & "evil" was limited.
• The name could have been "The tree of the knowledge of squik & squirk."
• This knowledge was undesirable, however, because of it would bring death.
• God retained their innocence in giving them the command.

• If the man & woman ate from the tree, what would happen to their perfection?
• The answer is found in the elements of perfection: truth, holiness & love.
• Truth - they would distrust God by accepting a lie in place of His truth.
• Holy - they would disobey God by choosing their will over God's.
• Love - they would place the importance of themselves & nature above God.
• They would abandon their perfection & relationship with God by eating.
• Since God cannot look at evil (Hab 1:13), God would have to abandon them.
• Through the tree, they could choose to maintain their relationship with God.

• The serpent was an animal originally created by God.
• Other Scripture reveals the serpent to be the fallen angel Satan (Rev 12:9).
• An angel is a finite supernatural being.
• Like the man & woman, some angels fell to an imperfect condition.
• See also: "Studies in God's World."
• A likely scenario is that Satan possessed an animal created by God.

• Was the Lord a God who was oppressive & did not provide (vs 1)?
• Satan's claims directly oppose God's (vs 3).
• He implies the knowledge of good & evil is acceptable because God has it.
• He also implies that God was deceiving by keeping this knowledge from them.

• Left on their own, the man & woman had no meaningful alternative to obedience.
• Created perfect, they had no means of concocting a meaningful alternative.
• The serpent's temptation gave an alternative to consider.
• The man & woman now had two viable options.
• Because the alternatives opposed each other, only one could be true.
• The temptation moved them from passive acceptance to active choice.

• The time elapsed between creation/temptation & temptation/fall is unknown.
• Both intervals probably totaled something less than 130 years.
• By this time they had another child after Cain & Able named Seth (Gen 5:3).

• There were three reasons given for their choice.
• First, it "was good for food," it would satisfy their bodily needs.
• Second, "it was a delight to the eyes," it appealed to their senses.
• Third, it would "make one wise," it appealed to their desire for reason.
• Here, human experience & reason takes precedence over God's revelation.
• James 1:13-15 states that people are the author of sin not God.
• This also defines temptation as being enticed & carried away by one's own lust.
• God made the man & woman with choice (Gen 2:16-23).
• God also provided them with an alternative to temptation (1 Cor 10:13).