Poor, Blind, & Naked

[dave c]

HEALING SHELTER MINISTRIES #131aaa Re-Written 20MAY09

Save Me Today—Part Fifty Three: Poor, Blind, & Naked

by rev dave c

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something terrible happened—something terrible that Genesis Chapter Three does not fully describe, nor that we could fully understand. We know that God had warned Adam, “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die [or, it will kill you]” (Ge 2:17;NASV). Although they did not physically die immediately, we know that the process of sin and death was started like a countdown clock that measured the days left in their material existence. We know that strife, contention, and pain was introduced into the relationship between Adam and Eve, and we know that the joy of tending the Garden became the expulsion and the ceaseless toil of working the accursed ground. We know that the process of mental degradation was initiated that would soon bear the fruit of murderous jealousy and hate in their children as Cain slaughtered his brother, Abel.

Something else had changed for the first man and the first woman: Their perception of reality. Genesis 3:6 tells us, When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.… The Hebrew word that the NIV translates as “realized” is “yadha” (Strong’s #3045), which AMG Publisher’s The Complete Word Study Old Testament (1994), edited by Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D., describes on page 2321 as, “one of the most important Hebrew roots in the OT. It expresses a broad variety of meanings about various types of knowledge which are gained through the senses.” Essentially, yadha means to perceive, understand, acquire knowledge, know, and/or discern.

When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (Ja 1:13-15; NIV). Interestingly, the same Hebrew word, yadha, that meant realized in Genesis 3:7 is the same word translated as ‘know’ and ‘knowing’ in Genesis 3:5 when the serpent tells Eve, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (NIV). In fact, the word knowledge in “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is translated from a derivative of yadha. When we are told in Genesis 4:1 Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man" (NIV)—the term ‘lay’ (or ‘knew’ in the KJV) is also from the word yadha. When the word yadha is being used, more than a casual acquaintance, more than mere superficial information is being indicated. James makes this very clear in 1:13-15 when he describes our relationship with temptation and sin in the intimate and consuming terms of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman that results in conception. The act of sinning does not just happen. Sin is neither casual in its consummation, nor in its consequences.

The knowledge of good and evil acquired by Adam and Eve was gained experientially through their soul (i.e., through their senses; the sentient process). This is very different from knowledge that is gained through the abstractions of communication (such as talking or reading), or through direct revelation. We know that murder is evil. We know it intuitively...instinctively, but we can also have that knowledge reinforced through reading and/or being told that it is evil. This is a world apart from learning that lesson through direct personal action, or by witnessing the action of others. God had told Adam, “...you will surely die,” but the serpent introduced the concept of theory into the mix. What Adam knew to be true because it was God’s word, became just one of several possibilities in the mind of Eve. Here is The Bible’s first recorded “rationalist” act of what we have come to know as Humanism: “Reality is as I perceive it and I will do what I WILL to do.” She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it— from the beginning, Humanism has worked to proselytize.

Some part of the first couple’s existence did surely die on the day they tasted disobedience. They died spiritually. All generations since have been born into that spiritual death just as Paul describes in Colossians 2:13, ...you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature…. Because Adam and Eve became blind to their spiritual existence, they were suddenly able to see their physical nudity. Their efforts to cover themselves with fig leaves began the process of all humanity struggling to hide our nakedness with clothes, possessions, religion, jobs, power, money, education, the arts, sports, entertainment, addictions, and all other manner of worldly activity and acquisition. In Revelation 3:17&18 Jesus exhorts us, You say, `I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.