We have been walking through what I have termed Garden Theology. At the heart of this phrase is the truth that everything we understand about life, ourselves, relationships, ecology, sociology, and even the Lord, is all rooted and understood in the events described in the third chapter of Genesis. While it is impossible for the depth of this truth to be fully explored, we can truly understand its framework. What is essential to this fact is man's use of and relationship to God's word since, it is in this chapter, that the drama eternally shifts. It all begins with God's word being questioned: "... Now the serpent... said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’” (Genesis 3:1)?
What appears to be a sincere question and concern for Eve was, in fact, a deceptive and destructive attempt to distance her from her joy, her relationship with her Creator - Lord. The question posed has nothing to do with the serpent’s curiosity about things or his care for Eve. When the serpent questioned God's Word to Adam and Eve, he was questioning the integrity and character of God seeking to call into question God being trustworthy. The truth is that when we question the word of a person we are, in fact, questioning the integrity of that person's character. It is no different with the Word of God. When we are suspicious of its authority, we are questioning its Author.
Why did the serpent ask this question? The answer is that he knew that Eve's heart position and trust of the Word was the direct link to her eternal position with God. She was created by God and for God. She had no other words to be trusted except that of the Lord provided to her by her husband. She had been safe with that word all this time but now, danger lurks with this competing narrative. Not an external and momentary danger but an internal and eternal danger. The same is true for man today. When we question the authenticity, perspicuity, and authority of the word of God we are not only questioning God, but we are crafting a different way of understanding, seeing, and engaging with reality as well as eternity.
This questioning is the source of and the savage slope into secularism. Secularism is a worldview that sees rationalism as supreme. It defines everything sacred and holy from the perspective of man rather than the truth of the Word of God. The seduction of secularism is that it does not seek to deny God or His word. Instead, it seeks to dethrone God and the word from the place of supremacy in the mind and conscience of man. Secularism allows for one to believe in Christ but not to hold out such belief as binding or universal. You can have the Bible just don’t make it where others must comply. This dangerous and, unfortunately, it is all too common among professing believers.
This is how so many who attend church can also hold views about the Bible that is orthodox and, at the very same time, live and or affirm lifestyles that are antithetical to that of scripture; and do so without any sense of being in danger. They do not live according to God's truth but to the secularized version of that which they call "my truth." Eve was being tempted by the serpent to live in this way. We see this in two ways. First, she developed her truth by listened as if the serpent’s competing narrative was plausible.
Instead of being instructed and protected by her husband she was now the serpent’s pupil, flirting with danger. Whenever lies are given the space to be true destruction is not far behind. Therefore the psalmist tells us that the root cause of a blessed or happy life is that a Christian "walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; (Psalm 1:1). Eve, however, did the opposite. She believed the lie of the serpent. Second, after she developed her own truth, the inevitable happened: she acted out her truth in rebellion against God by taking what was forbidden – walking in disobedience.
Like Eve, we have the Truth, but we are constantly exchanging it (tempted to do so) for our truth. This exchange in Genesis 3 is what Paul was speaking about in Romans 1 when he wrote,
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they
became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise,
they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things 24 Therefore God gave them up in the
lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because
they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than
the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:21–25).
There it is! The root cause of man's troubles is affirmed by the Apostle Paul in the context in which he is teaching about the universal condemnation of man! This condemnation is not due to the absence of truth but the suppression of it (Romans 1:18) and the desire to willingly exchanging it for a lie (Romans 1:25). It is this change of heart position from the truth that evokes the wrath of God showing us that what took place in the garden was an act of idolatry: worshipping the serpent (the created thing) over God, the Creator of all things!
Therefore, those who attend church can have a show of worship for the Lord in church and, at the same time, live a life that is in rank rebellion against the Lord. They see and operate as if their relationship with the Lord can be exchanged repeatedly and when desired. They pick and choose when they believe God, their Creator, is worthy of their thoughts and activities. This is tragic!
What we see in the garden is what people often miss: disobedience or disregard of the Word of God in one area leads, inevitably, to disobedience and or disregard to God in all areas! It is impossible to live my life for the Lord if His word is, in any way, up for negotiation in any one part of my life.
That is theology from the Garden
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