Genesis chapter two relates that God placed two special trees in Eden: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life. He then told Adam he could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and if he did eat the forbidden fruit he would die. Then came Eve. In Genesis chapter three, Adam and Eve ignored God’s prohibition of eating of the forbidden fruit, and they believed Satan’s lie that, by disobeying God by eating of the forbidden fruit, they could become all-wise like God, independent, and self-sufficient. All too late, Adam and Eve discovered that God had told them the truth and that Satan had lied to them. And the result was the fall of Adam and all humanity, as well as the fall of the rest of creation (see Romans 8:20-25). It has long been believed by many that God gave Adam and Eve a choice between eating good fruit and evil fruit—to test their faith, and to uphold the principle of man’s seemingly autonomous “free will.” But that forces two absurd conclusions: that wisdom (knowledge of good and evil) is bad, and that the Creator, at times, yields His sovereignty to His creation.

The back story
As often is the case, a passage of Scripture is considered outside its context, which can lead to a faulty conclusion. And so it often is with the above passage concerning Adam and Eve and those two trees in Eden. For whatever reason, the “good and evil” in the name of the one tree is often mistakenly applied to a contrasting ethical nature of the two trees, one being “good” and the other “bad.”

As a result, it is commonly—and wrongly—thought that the forbidden fruit was bad. But, contrary to that perception, “God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). So, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not bad—nor was its fruit bad.

Rather than focusing on the fruit, we should be drawn to Adam’s behavior: He was disobedient. Now, let’s consider a logical question: If the forbidden fruit was not bad, then why did God tell Adam and Eve not to eat it?

For one thing, knowledge alone—without wisdom—needs wisdom to properly utilize it. While the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a source of certain knowledge, it was not the source of wisdom, as Satan lied it would be. For true wisdom is a gift of God and an attribute of the Christian’s new heart. Psalms 90:12 speaks of that “heart of wisdom,” and Psalms 111:10 tells us that “fear [awesome reverence] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” While the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, spiritual growth and spiritual discernment nourish wisdom.

Now, I want to draw an analogy from childhood experience: The prohibition God placed on Adam was for a similar reason that Mom tells her son not to dig into the chocolate cake before dinner (because it could ruin his appetite for a more nutritious meal). Was the cake “bad” before dinner but “good” after dinner? Eating the cake before dinner was disobedience, but eating cake after dinner was in accordance with the permissible order of things. If the son disobeys, he will face discipline (perhaps even punishment) for his “bad” behavior. And, because he would be filled with cake, there would be little room left to complete a nutritious meal.

If I may make an aside here: That was the kind of culture in which I was raised. Contrarily, in today’s politically correct culture, the cake is the culprit and the son is its victim. Actually, the son is a victim of political correctness. Now, back to Adam. For him to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil at that moment in time was outside of God’s permissible order of things. The last part of Genesis chapter one offers a pertinent example of God’s order of things. There we read that God blessed Adam and Eve and then:

God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

I call your attention to those first three commandments of God to man:

1. Be fruitful

2. Multiply

3. Fill the earth

Did “Be fruitful,” “multiply” and “fill the earth” all mean to populate the earth with many children? Or did they also reveal God’s order of things—means to an end? Let’s approach the question by examining the three commandments in reverse order, for outcome reveals the rationale behind the order of things—the means to the end.

Fill the earth
While this might mean to populate the earth—to “fill the earth” with many children, is it not reasonable for Adam and Eve, as stewards of the earth, to “fill the earth” with their God-granted authority to “subdue” and “rule.” And, in doing that, it could also mean for them to fill the earth with the light of God’s glory. Multiply To “fill the earth” with children would span a timetable that requires many generations. So, God told Adam and Eve to “multiply”—to procreate many children who, in turn, would procreate more generations of children. With the intent, of course, that they, in turn, would fill the earth with their inherited authority over it, which would be to God’s glory.

Be fruitful
If “fill the earth” means to “subdue” and “rule” to the glory of God, and “multiply” pertains to having children who would do the same, then what did God mean for Adam and Eve to “be fruitful”? In the Bible “fruitful” (Hebrew parah) means to “bear fruit.” And that simply means to “produce,” whether children or the fruit of another kind: of one’s work.

In the case of bearing children, the Bible numerous times refers to children as “fruit of the womb” (e.g., Psalms 127:3). “Fruit” can also allude to lineage—to one’s biological or spiritual “family tree.” Now, let’s see “fruit” in the sense it is the outcome of what a person does—of one’s work. Paul wrote to the Roman Christians that, through Christ, we were made righteous in Him to “bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4). He further stated that sinfulness produces “fruit for death” (Romans 7:5). Jesus explained it this way when he taught about knowing false prophets by their fruit:

“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:16, 17).

Just as Jesus likened false prophets to “bad trees” that produce “bad fruit,” I suggest that God’s commandment in Genesis to “be fruitful” was to tell Adam to be a “good” tree and to produce “good” fruit.” Perhaps He meant “good” children” and “good” fruit—which, in Paul’s words, would amount to “fruit for God.”

Adam and those two trees in Eden
Now, let’s return to chapter two of Genesis when Adam (who was metaphorically a tree) came face-to-face with two trees of the plant variety: The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Though actual trees, their names indicate they also symbolized things outside of the botanical realm.

Not only did God give Adam and Eve authority over the earth, He gave them the potential resource for exercising that authority—first through the Tree of Life, which would have bestowed them with wisdom, among others things, and, second, through the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which would be exercised through wisdom to the glory of God.

So, in that order and manner of eating fruit, Adam and Eve could have been motivated and capable of producing “fruit for God” (Romans 7:4), and thereafter to comply with the other two of God’s initial commandments—to multiply and to fill the earth with the light of God’s glory. But, Adam and Eve ate fruit out of order, in disobedience to God.

Eve, like Adam, bore the consequences of her disobedience. However, at this point, we will focus primarily on Adam, for Eve was created from his rib and it was from his seed that Eve would bear their descendants.

That, of course, takes nothing away from Eve because it would have taken both of them to fulfill God’s first three commandments. However, in God’s order of authority and accountability, Adam came first. Even so, Eve was not absolved of her disobedience. God said to her: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children; yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16.

As it was, however, Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.

His disobedience resulted in separation from God, but not independence. Rather than attaining God-like autonomy, because he obeyed Satan, he was positioned in the realm of darkness and made “flesh,” became enslaved to Satan, and also to Sin and Death, the World (now temporarily under Satan’s usurped authority from Adam and Eve), and the wrath of God’s Law for his disobedience. And because Adam was in bondage to those “masters,” he walked in their ways.

All of that happened because Adam leaned on his own limited understanding and perceived that some things were good and right when, in reality, they were bad and wrong.

Proverbs tells us: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12), and “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Here is a comment on the latter verse that is worth considering:

If we rely on human reasoning to get through life, we’ll eventually be led astray. Sometimes a choice or an option appeals to us or seems right, but it really isn’t. We need spiritual discernment from God to help us understand what’s truly good and what isn’t (gospel.com).

I’ll add that “all your heart” refers to a whole heart, and that a whole heart can only be found in the Christian’s new heart. Thus, a Whole-Hearted Christian can draw upon spiritual discernment in appraising what is truly right and wrong, good and bad.

To “lean” on one’s “own understanding,” in this context, refers to a Half-Hearted Christian’s assessment made out of a flesh-like soul that is functionally divided from his spirit and estranged from the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

When Adam disobeyed God, he placed himself under the authority of Satan, Sin and Death, Satan’s World Order, and the condemnation of God’s law. They were his masters, and he was their slave.

Ontologically, Adam forfeited becoming a child of light and partaker of eternal life and the divine nature of love; instead he became a man of darkness and flesh.

Positionally, Adam forfeited entry into God’s kingdom of light, love, and life, by entering Satan’s domain of darkness.

Relationally, Adam forfeited being “alive” to God (related with Him), and became “dead” to God (separated from Him). Yet, he became “alive to”—in relationship with—Satan, Sin, the World, and the death penalty of God’s Law.

Figure 1-1 illustrates Adam’s fallen state positionally, ontologically, and relationally, by which he could only lean on his own understanding and strength.

Figure 1-1:
Adam became a fallen man of darkness and flesh, and was separated from God
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Adam’s family tree
Figure 1-2 illustrates fallen Adam as a metaphorical tree that was rooted in new, though devastating, spiritual relationships.

Adam and Eve were commanded by God to bear fruit for God, to have children, and to fill the earth with the light of His glory through their administration over all the earth.

The result would have been Adam’s family tree rooted in the Tree of Life. However, in disobeying God, Adam was banned from Eden and denied access to the Tree of Life. Thus, his family tree become rooted elsewhere—positionally in the Dark, ontologically in the Flesh, and relationally in Satan, Sin and Death, Satan’s World Order, and God’s Law. And, of course, Adam walked in those ways and produced fruit for death.

Figure 1-2
Disobedience, not fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil, placed Adam in the Flesh and in Darkness, dead to God and Eternal Life, and enslaved to Satan, Sin and Death, Satan's World Order, and the wrath of God's Law. Thus, Adam produced "fruit for death" (Romans 7:5).

Obedience in eating the permitted fruit of the Tree of Life would have placed Adam in the Spirit and in the Light, and alive to God, God's Eternal Life, God's Love, God's Kingdom, and God's Grace. Adam's labor would have produced "fruit for God" (Romans 7:4).
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While Adam and Eve went on to have children, they were incapable of producing fruit for God with truly good works through faith, and they surrendered themselves and their authority over all the earth to their new spiritual master: Satan. And, instead of filling the earth with the light of God’s glory, they filled it with darkness—things not of God.

When God banished Adam and Eve from Eden, they entered into and became the first human slaves in the Satan-controlled, sin-darkened or “fallen” world. But there was more: God placed a curse on “the ground” (Genesis 3:17b), that is the earth and all of creation, as Paul indicates in Romans 8:19-22.

Consequently, Adam and all of his descendents would face living on an earth that, while it reflected the glory of its Creator, it was hijacked from Adam and Eve by Satan, who temporarily became “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The Tree of Life
The Tree of Life, when considered in light of biblical dualism, is, in some ways, quite the opposite of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Had Adam eaten of the fruit of life, on the other hand, he would have been positioned in God’s realm of light, made spiritual rather than flesh in an ontological sense, and placed in relationship with God, God’s love, God’s Kingdom, and God’s grace. In effect, he could have become rooted, not in Satan, but in God. Or, as we now read in the New Testament, “rooted in Christ.”

Paul wrote of this to the Colossians:

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude (Colossians 2:6, 7. See also Ephesians 3:17).

That is but a preview of what we will consider in following sections of this study.

How Adam Became Enslaved to Satan
There is no indication in Scripture that Satan is bright red, has horns, pointed ears, and a tail. However, in the interest of easy recognition, my icon for Satan has some of the well-known features of this traditional caricature of the Devil.

Satan deceived Eve and tempted Adam through Eve with the lie that eating the forbidden fruit would not kill them (Genesis 3:4), but would make them wise and “like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The deception of becoming all-wise and self-sufficient like God was very appealing to Adam and Eve. And it is a deception that to this day forms the faulty foundation of every humanistic philosophy and false religion. But, it was a big lie on that fatal day in Eden, and it’s a big lie today; man cannot truly become self-sufficient or a god.

God’s commandment to Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit demonstrated His authority, goodness, wisdom, justice, faithfulness, grace, and other attributes. And when Adam disobeyed God, he chose not to trust in His faithfulness, but in Satan. He rejected the truth and power of God’s word and accepted the lying words of Satan. In doing so, he rejected God as his Father, Lord, and Master, spurned God’s grace, repudiated God’s authority; doubted God’s goodness; disputed God’s wisdom; and rejected God’s grace. Adam’s sin was wholesale contradiction of God’s perfection, omniscience, omnipotence, and sovereignty.

Adam, through his sin, entered into a spiritual relationship with the Devil. By submitting to Satan’s lies, he obeyed Satan. In this way, Satan became his evil, domineering master, and he became the Devil’s oppressed and doomed slave.

Satan was Adam’s “father” in the sense that Adam was Satan’s fruit—much in the same way that one-third of heaven’s angels became his fruit through following him in his rebellion against God. The rebellion resulted in failure, of course, and the angels became demons. Adam and Eve did not become demons, but were fallen humans, and we were born in that same fallen state of being because we were rooted in Adam’s family tree.

Because Satan was master over Adam, Adam walked in Satan’s ways.

How Adam Became Enslaved to Sin
The icon of skull and cross bones represents sin and its consequence of death. This familiar image has long served as a symbol for both poison and death. It is a fitting symbol because sin can be seen as a sort of spiritual “poison” which, for Adam, resulted in his spiritual death and separation from God, as well as his eventual physical death.

God planted two special trees in the center of the Garden of Eden: The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:9). He then placed Adam in the garden and commanded him: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16, 17).

The history of Adam presents man with an object lesson: While those two trees were “good,” God establishes an order of things, and such order is adhered to by man through obedience to God. Disobedience, however, is disruptive—and therefore sinful. Adam wanted to become all-wise and autonomous like God. But God’s way for Adam to Godliness was through obedience. Satan’s false path was that of disobedience.

When Adam disobeyed God, he placed himself under the authority of Satan, Sin and Death, Satan’s World Order, and the condemnation of God’s law. They were his masters, and he was their slave.

We do not know what would have happened to Adam’s body had he eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life. But after his sin, his body was perishable—subject to disease, injury, and eventual physical death. In Genesis 3:19b, God tells Adam that he will remain under His curse in the world, “Till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Because Adam was enslaved to sin, he walked in sinful ways.

The many definitions of sin
Through Adam’s disobedience, he introduced sin to humanity. “Disobedience” is but one meaning of sin.

Many Hebrew and Greek terms are translated as “sin” in our English Bibles. Some portray sin as a negative influence, force, law or principle, power or dynamic—such as the force of gravity and the cause and effect principle of thermodynamics.

Other terms give sin the meanings of motivation, attitude, thought, feeling, desire, or behavior that is totally devoid of, or is contrary to, God and the things of God, including His love, life, light, righteousness, and truth.

Sin is also seen as a spiritually “dead” state of being, in which a person is separated from God, His life, and His divine nature. For example, at the cross, God made Jesus “who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him: (2 Corinthians 5:21). Still other biblical definitions and descriptions of sin include: lawlessness (1 John 3:4); falling short of the glory or perfection of God (Romans 3:23); rebellion against God (Isaiah 1:2); unbelief, which is to label God a liar and a fraud (1 John 5:10); being self-willed and not living according to God’s will (Isaiah 53:6).

How Adam Became Enslaved to the World
The icon representing Satan’s World Order depicts the truncated Egyptian pyramid and all-seeing eye in a radiant triangle. I have adapted it from the Great Seal of the United States (as seen on the back of the dollar bill).

For more than 200 years this symbol has been touted to represent things that it really does not. One deception is that it represents Israel’s bondage under Egypt and omniscient God. Another is that the pyramid represents America’s achievements under the watchful eye of God.

The truth, however, is that the Great Seal was designed by a European advocate of a one-world government who happened to be enmeshed in the Egyptian occult. The Latin inscription below the pyramid is translated “new order of the ages,” and the hieroglyphic eye is that of the Egyptian god of the world Osiris. The eye in the radiant triangle is certainly not a biblical representation of God.

Adam and Eve Became of the World
After creating Adam and Eve, God appointed them as stewards of the world. But they did not keep their assignment for very long—not even long enough to leave Eden and enter the world, which God had commanded them to subdue and rule. Through submitting to Satan, a complete turn-about took place: They forfeited being stewards over the world to their new master Satan and became slaves in the world under his rule.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God they were denied access to the Tree of Life (spiritual union with God, and all the blessings that relationship had to offer), and were driven out of Eden and into the world, which Satan ruled as part of his domain of darkness.

“World” is translated from the Greek term kosmos. It has been transliterated into English as “cosmos.” In the Bible “world” can refer to the universe, or to the planet earth, but the more common meaning is “ordered world” or “world order.” The world in this sense is that spiritual/ temporal society, system, or order within Satan’s domain of darkness, which includes demonic spirit beings and all unsaved people.

God is in ultimate control of all things, including the world and its governments; however, He has allowed Satan to rule the world for a short time (as God measures time). At present, the world’s political leaders (most are Adamic people) manage their constituents by rule of law (whether leader-decreed or otherwise established).

In John 14:30 and 16:11 Jesus calls Satan the “ruler of this world.” Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:4, refers to Satan as the “god of this world.” And in the first epistle of John, the author writes that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).

At the end of time, Satan’s world order will be manifested in history’s last great empire, which is symbolically called “Mystery Babylon the Great” in Revelation 17. How fitting is the symbolism of the Great Seal, with its nearly-completed pyramid and watchful eye of a false god. It is not dissimilar to what that infamous Babylonian ziggurat—that ancient Tower of Babel—might have looked like. t appears that Adam and Eve faced both a difficult existence and strained relationship with one another as fallen mortals and slaves to Satan’s World Order. To Eve, God said:

“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children; yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

Then to Adam God said:

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:16-19).

Because Adam was “of the world,” he walked in the ways of the world.

How Adam Became enslaved to God’s Law
The icon for God’s law depicts the stone tablets upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments He gave to Moses to deliver to the children of Israel.

Now, here is how Adam came to be under the curse of God’s law of sin and death.

God verbally revealed His will to Adam regarding the two trees in the center of Eden. We could say that God “laid down the law” to Adam. His desire was for Adam and Eve to become spiritually united with Him and to enjoy an everlasting and mutually loving relationship with Him. That would have come about had they first eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life rather than the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God’s Law and the principle of Sin and Death
Through disobeying God by eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve entered into an enslaving relationship with the law.

In biblical terms they came to be “under the law.” This means they were subject to the principle of sin and death.

Though sin (the cause) results in death (the effect), sin has no judicial power of its own: God’s law is the authority that judges sinners and condemns them to death because of who they are (sinners) and what they do (commit actual sins by violating or ignoring God’s law).

If that is unclear, consider this: A crime (sin) does not condemn the criminal (to death); that is the responsibility of the judicial system (law). We’ll discuss this at greater length in a later chapter.

We should note the irony in what Adam and Eve sought to achieve by disobeying God through eating the forbidden fruit. They had been deceived by Satan to believe that if they ate of it they would not die, but would be wise “like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4, 5). However, what Satan purposely did not disclose, and Adam and Eve did not realize, is that eating of the forbidden fruit failed to make them the least bit like God, but more like Satan.

When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they came to “know” good and evil; but not in the way they expected, or in the way God desired. To “know” in this sense means more than intellectual awareness; Adam and Eve came to “know” the law by entering into a forbidden spiritual union with the law.

I’ll cite an example from the Bible to illustrate: Adam “knew” Eve—had sexual intimacy with her (Genesis 4:1). By this act the two were joined together—related or united—as “one flesh.” In a similar way the phrase “knowledge of good and evil” carries the meaning of having intimacy with the law—becoming subject to the law’s authority to condemn a person to death because of his sins and sinfulness. It was in this way that the law became master over Adam and Eve, and they became its slaves.

Had Adam and Eve eaten of the fruit of The Tree of Life, they would have become wise in the order God desires—first, through knowing Him. Scripture tells us that knowing God and having reverence for Him “is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

Adam was separated from God, and none of God’s light, love, and life was in him. He was darkness and flesh, and he was enslaved to Satan, Sin and Death, Satan’s World Order, and the death curse of God’s Law. All of his descendants were born with Adamic fallen nature and in bondage under Adam’s spiritual masters.

Implications for the descendants of Adam
When Adam was cast out of Eden, God prevented him from returning to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24).

Why? Because Adam, in disobedience, ate prematurely of the forbidden fruit—he acted outside of God’s order of things.

At the moment Adam ate the forbidden fruit, certain dynamics were set in motion that would have devastating impact, not only on him, but on you and me—indeed, the entire human race (Romans 5:12).

All of us came into existence sharing the consequences of Adam’s disobedience (the “original sin”). Among other things, we inherited his unregenerate, spiritual heart, and the moral or ethical nature of his life, which had been corrupted by his original sin. In short, we inherited Adam’s fallen human nature—his unregenerate, sin-natured spiritual heart. And, like him, we were separated from God and enslaved to Satan, sin and death, the world, and the death curse of God’s law.

As Adamic people we walked in the ways of darkness, the flesh, Satan, Sin and Death, Satan’s World Order, and the judicial consequences of lawlessness. And those sinful ways produced “fruit for death” (Romans 7:5) rather than “fruit for God” (Figure 1-3).

Figure 1-3:

Adamic man is a descendant of Adam—is of Adam’s “bad” family tree. As such, he inherited Adam’s sinful (dark and flesh) nature, as well as Adam’s spiritual relationships with Satan, Sin, Satan’s World Order, and the wrath of God’s Law. Those spiritual “relatives” became spiritual masters over Adam and held him in bondage. Consequently, Adamic man walks in their sinful (dark and fleshly) ways.
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