- God to Adam, Genesis 2:16-17
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
- The Serpent to Eve, Genesis 3:4-5
The devil is a liar. If he is not outright flipping the truth on its head, he will twist it and weave it with half-truths to get us to swallow the bait.
“He is a liar and the father of all lies.” - Jesus, John 8:44
We know that the devil is capable of reciting truth. Consider his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness:
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ “
- Satan to Jesus, Matthew 4: 6
What he said is true. That is a direct quote of OT scripture, Psalm 91:11-12. He used God’s truth to tempt even our Lord.
The statement he made to Eve in the Garden was in fact part lie and part truth. The outright lie was in his opposition to God’s statement that ‘you will surely die,’ which God DID in fact tell Adam (Eve had not even been created when God handed down this warning to Adam). This part of Satan’s statement (‘you will surely not die’) was a complete lie, because, as we know, once Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, death did in fact enter their world.
The true part of his seductive statement to Eve was that they DID receive the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ once they had eaten of the fruit. Satan revels in using truth to deceive. But why did Satan introduce the concept of man’s “eyes being opened” as part of his seduction? Where did THAT come from? God made no reference to Adam about his eyes in his warning to him about the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan seduced Eve with the lust of her eyes on his own volition. He proposed that God was hiding something from her, something that she currently could not see. Satan made her believe she deserved to see it. What if THIS is the part of his statement which was the outright lie. What if he told Eve that her eyes would be opened because he knew that what would ACTUALLY happen is that her eyes would be CLOSED?
Did you get that?
What if Satan LIED to Eve and told her that her eyes would be opened because HE KNEW they would actually be CLOSED?
Hold that thought for a moment and fast forward with me to the New Testament. One evening, Jesus is debating with Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, about being “born again.”
“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
-and-
“I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Jesus to Nicodemus, John 3:3 and 3:5-8
There are several important things to notice in what Jesus is saying. First, let’s jump to the part of his statement where he mentions that “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Nicodemus didn’t get that at first pass, so he questioned Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. So Jesus elaborated to humor Nicodemus and said, “flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Jesus point is that in order for someone to see the Kingdom of God, they must be “born of the Spirit”. So let me pose this question: How was Eve born?
We’ll come back to that.
Jesus leads off with, “I tell you the truth.” Christ prefaced many sayings in the New Testament with this phrase. Not only is it a sign post to the listener that the speaker is about to say something important, but it is a stamp on the validity of the following statement. What Jesus was about to say to Nicodemus was TRUE. It is much like someone saying today something to the effect of “Let me make myself perfectly clear.” So what was the TRUTH that Jesus wanted Nicodemus to fully understand? That he was MISSING SOMETHING. There was something at work that he could NOT SEE. He had NOT been born of the spirit and could NOT see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus did not have spiritual eyes.
The contemporary band, DC Talk, released a great song several years back on their “Jesus Freak” album called “In My Mind’s Eye”…
“Can you catch the wind? Can you see a breeze? Its presence is revealed by the leaves on the trees, an image of my faith in the unseen.” http://youtu.be/qBVdrQt7xQo
In the middle of the song, there is a sound byte, a snippet of a sermon given by the Reverend Dr. Billy Graham in which he says,
“Can you see God? Have you ever seen him? I’ve never seen the wind. I’ve seen the effects of the wind, but I’ve never seen the wind. There’s a mystery to it.”
A mystery indeed. We want to see so badly the things that are hidden to us, don’t we? Dr. Graham poses an interesting question. Have you ever seen God? Doesn’t every believer long to see the face of God? Moses wanted to see God so badly, that he asked him point blank in Exodus 33:18 - “Now show me your glory.” But God told him that “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33: 20) So he put Moses in a cleft in the rock, guarded him with his hand and passed by, only allowing Moses to get a brief glimpse of his back side. So here’s my next question; If Moses wasn’t allowed to see God and no one could see God and live, how was it that God freely walked through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve and did not take the same precautions to shield their eyes from him?
We’ll come back to that one also.
The bible tells us that God is spirit and that we cannot see him. Scripture makes many references to our “sight” or our “eyes” and of being “blind”. Paul tells us that “as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:8) He also says that “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (I Cor. 13:12). And John tells us, “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Even Job confesses that he cannot see God in Job 9:11 “Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.”
The bible makes it pretty clear (no pun intended) that there is something wrong with our spiritual eyesight. We can’t see God. We can’t see the spirit world. We can’t see Jesus or the Holy Spirit or angels or demons. We are spiritually blind people. And yet scripture is also clear that we are to take it on faith that the spirit world; God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, angels, demons - are all very real – they REALLY DO EXIST.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. – Hebrews 11:1
…while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. – 2 Cor. 4:18
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. – I Cor 2:9
Scripture is trying to help us get our heads around this: There is a whole other world out there, that WE CANNOT SEE, which is real and living and active and dangerous and eternal. Consider Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings chapter 6…
“When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.
“Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
- 2 Kings 6:15-17
Let’s suppose for a moment – and I’ll do my best to back this up with additional scriptures beyond what I’ve already given – but let’s suppose that when Adam and Eve were originally created that they were created in a body that was meant for eternity and they could see both the physical AND the spiritual realms. They were created by God, in his image and therefore, seeing God every day (before their fall from grace) was normal, comfortable, safe. God was their father and they were his children. His face was the first thing either of them saw when they opened their eyes after God breathed life into them. They were with him and they saw him every day and they were not afraid. They lived in God’s light and they obeyed and trusted what he said. They had a perfect relationship with him and were destined and created to live eternally in that state. They were created with eyes that could see both the physical AND the spiritual realms existing together as one. Those two realms existing together was the only landscape they had ever known since their creation.
Now let’s go back to my question about why God freely walked through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve and did not take the same precautions to shield their eyes from him as he did with Moses. Because Adam and Eve were born with spiritual eyes which allowed them to see God and to be comfortable with him from the first day they were created. Moses wasn’t born that way and did not have the spiritual reference point with which to accept God within the spiritual landscape. See God without that reference point would have blown his circuits. Literally, it would have killed him.
And if Adam and Eve could see God, who is spirit, then isn’t it plausible that they may well have been able to see other spirits including angels, cherubim and seraphim? They were probably comfortable seeing these angelic beings and may have looked upon them as respected beings also created by God. They may have seen them as their protectors, spiritual brothers (and maybe sisters). It was not out of the ordinary to wake up one day, after a good night’s rest in the garden of Eden, for Adam to pick some fruit, pet the horse, feed the dog and say “good morning” to Michael the archangel…or Satan, also an archangel. It’s obvious that Eve was not startled when the serpent spoke to her. She shows a tremendous amount of comfort in having a conversation with the serpent and did not for a moment think it out of the norm that an animal was speaking to her. Their spiritual eyes allowed them to see and be used to ALL of these things in their original, sinless state. I asked the question earlier about “how was Eve born?” Well, she wasn’t born by the flesh, but she was CREATED by God who is spirit. Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus? “flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Adam and Eve were “born” (created) by the spirit of God. Therefore, they must have had a set of spiritual eyes that allowed them to see the kingdom of God.
Now let’s go back to Satan’s deception of Eve and my very first question: What if Satan LIED to Eve and told her that her eyes would be opened because HE KNEW they would actually be CLOSED?
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.” – Genesis 3:1
Satan had set out to ruin God’s creation. That was his plan when he entered the serpent and spoke deception to Eve. IF Adam and Eve had 20/20 spiritual vision and could see the spirit world clearly (the Kingdom of God), then Satan would stand a much better chance of ruining their relationship with God if he could put their spiritual eyes out, so to speak. What if Satan’s trick on Adam and Eve CLOSED their spiritual eyes so that, after just one bite, they could no longer see the spiritual realm? One bite and they could no longer see the Kingdom of God and it’s heavenly inhabitants - their protectors, the other spiritual beings, the angels…which meant they would no longer be able to see God either…and they became scared.
Think about it. What was the first thing Adam and Eve did when the spiritual lights went out? They ran and hid. Adam says, “I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid.” What is it that we are most afraid of? The things we can’t see! We are afraid of the dark, the unknown…that thing that might be under the bed or in the dark closet. Maybe Eve took one bite of that fruit and she immediately went SPIRITUALLY blind. Maybe she could still see the physical realm and the physical creation (Adam, the animals, the garden), but she COULD NO LONGER see the spiritual realm. She became scared because she KNEW something was now terribly wrong. And instead of running to Adam and telling him that she could no longer see the spirit world, she passed the deception on to him, gave him the fruit and let him gouge out his own spiritual eyes in the process. Maybe Adam and Eve ate the fruit and gave up eternal life…AND their spiritual eyesight with it.
So now, Adam and Eve have children and pass on their state of sin and death to us all and with it, their spiritual blindness. They had seen God and then suddenly weren’t able to see him any more…and neither can we. None of Adam and Eve’s offspring would ever be able to see God, but for Moses, who was only allowed a brief glimpse of God’s back. Maybe that’s because, since we did not see God from the moment we opened our eyes and weren’t able to become comfortable with him as our heavenly Father, we would be absolutely frightened to death if we came face to face with him.
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. - Hebrews 10:31 (NAS)
And maybe this spiritual blindness is a secondary reason for Christ having to come to earth as a man. Yes, his sacrifice was necessary to reverse the spiritual death Adam caused, but what if his coming also was the beginning of a reversal of our spiritual eyesight? What if, by believing in Christ, we start to understand a little of the “mystery” that Dr. Graham spoke of. We start to “see through a mirror dimly.” What if we become like the blind man that Jesus healed in Mark 8:23-25…
“He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything? He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”
We put just a little bit of faith into what God says in his word and we surrender our lives to Christ and he starts to slowly, gradually give us back our spiritual eyes. We start to read and understand more and more of his word and suddenly a heavenly realm with spiritual beings becomes plausible. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.” When I look at scripture through this lens, these passages take on a whole new meaning to me. And when he returns, our spiritual eyesight will be restored and “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Amen to that.
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