THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE - PART 3

THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE - PART 3


THE APPLE - THE SNAKE - THE FIG LEAF
Genesis : 3:1 through 3:13

The story of Adam and Eve deals with the stages of the earliest Church.  Driven by the desire for autonomy and self-love, the people began at this point to believe only in facts gained through their physical senses (to see, to touch, to hear).  The snake represents sensory abilities; the woman represents self-love; and the man represents the ability to reason. 

The snake (the senses) persuaded the woman (self-love) to examine closely the tenets of faith in the Lord, to see whether it was true.  This is symbolized by the eating of the tree of knowledge.  The man symbolizes consent on the part of the human being's rational mind ( Genesis -verses 1-6).
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Genesis 3:2, 3  And the woman said to the snake, "We are to eat from the fruit of the tree of the garden; but from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, "You shall not eat from it, nor are you to touch it, or you will die from it."

Fruit of the tree of the garden = the goodness and truth revealed to the people of the earliest church from the Lord.  Religious knowledge.
The fruit they were not to eat = Religious goodness and truth - that they were not to learn about by themselves (through senses, autonomy).
Not to touch = They were also not to think about religious truth and goodness from themselves. or from their senses, or from the facts they knew.
They would die = Means this is how faith - that is, all wisdom and understanding - would perish.
Tree of the garden = Perception of what is good and true.  This type of goodness and truth, because it is a product of perception, is called "fruit".
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The present verse says that the tree of knowledge was in the middle of the garden, But Genesis 2:9 says that the tree of lives was in the middle, implying the tree of knowledge was not.  Please note that the middle of the garden symbolizes our inner being (core): 

The core of the heavenly people was the tree of lives, which is love and the faith that develops out of love.
The core of the spiritual people (the product of the desire for autonomy accomplished), was the tree of knowledge which was faith alone.

Heavenly people = Their character was such, that good taught them about truth; that is to say, love taught them what belonged to faith.
Spiritual people = Did not learn from love about faith's tenets.  Instead, they learned from truth they acquired from facts about goodness. (Or) From religious knowledge they acquired facts about love...many gained little more than facts.
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Genesis 3:4, 5  And the snake said to the woman, "You are not going to 'surely die,' because God knows that on the day when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and will be like God, knowing good and evil."

If they ate - their eyes would be opened = If they scrutinized the tenets of faith from a sensory or factual standpoint, (from their own minds), they would see clearly that those tenet's were not true.
Being like God, knowing good and evil = means that if they judged good and evil for themselves they would be like God and be able to lead themselves.
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Self love carries with it the desire not to be led by the Lord - but by oneself, to turn to sensory evidence and secular knowledge as the criteria for belief.  What group of people believes more firmly that their eyes are open and that like God they can identify good and evil and also those who admire themselves and boast of a good "secular" knowledge?

Such people want to be recognized as "Gods" (authorities), or as fonts of wisdom.  If you took away their prized "self-hood", they would be nothing.  If you ask whether they know what it is to live with the Lord, they dream up their own fantasies and desires.  If you inquired whether they knew what conscience was, they would describe it as nothing more than their own imaginations at work.

This is their wisdom.  These are the people who have their eyes open; these people who are "gods".  Principles like these are their starting points.  From there they go on to reason about the mysteries of faith.  What is the result but a chasm of darkness - these people, more than any, are snakes that lead the world astray. (Rev 12:9)
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Genesis 3:6  And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and a tree desirable for lending insight.  And she took some of its fruit, and she ate and gave to her husband too, who was with her, and he ate. 

Good for eating = intense desire +
Appealing to the eyes = delusion +
Desirable for lending insight = sensual pleasure =
...= these three are properties of our self hood (or the woman).
Her husband eating = the rational mind's consent
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Human self hood is everything evil and false that wells up out of self-love and materialism.  It is a tendency not to believe in the Lord or his Word but in ourselves and to think that what we do not grasp on a sensory or factual basis is nothing.  The result of these tendencies is nothing but evil and falsity, which cause us to see everything backwards - evil things as good, good things as evil, false things as true, and true things as false.  We call hatred love, darkness light, death life.  The Word refers to these type of people as "blind".
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Genesis 3:7  And the eyes of both were opened and they realized that they were naked. And they sewed together the leaf of the fig tree and made loincloths for themselves. 

Their eyes opened = that the inner voice caused them to realize and admit that they were naked...that they now lived in evil and no longer in the innocence they had before.
Opening one's eyes = many verses in the Word - the eyes mean intellect and so an inner dictate issuing from it.
To be naked = Left to their own devices (autonomy)..they no longer retain any understanding or wisdom (that is, faith) and so are stripped of truth and goodness...as a result, they live in evil.
Sew leaves together = to make excuses
Fig tree = earthly good  - Grapevine = spiritual good
Make loincloths for themselves = is to feel shame
...In summary: they had earthly good in place of earlier innocence, that it hid their evil, and since they had just earthly goodness -they felt shame.
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Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God going alone in the garden at the breeze of the day.  And the human hid himself, as did his wife, from Jehovah God's face, in the middle of the tree of the garden.

Voice of Jehovah = the Word itself, teachings of faith, conscience, (or an alertness to what is inside us).
Voice of Jehovah God, going alone in the garden = an inner dictate, which (the people) dreaded.  The inner call was the trace of perception they kept.
The breeze of the day = the era when the church still retained a trace of perception.
Hiding themselves from Jehovah God's face = fearing the inner dictate, as those who are conscious of their evil do.
Middle of the tree of the garden = where they hid symbolizes earthly good.
Middle = deepest core
Tree = perception (since the people had very little perception left, the word is used in the singular, as if only one tree were left.
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Genesis 3:11,12,13  And he said, "Who pointed out to you that you were naked? You ate from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, didn't you?"  And the human said, "the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."  And Jehovah God said to the woman, "Why have you done this?"  And the woman said, "The snake deceived me and I ate."

...Anyone can see that Jehovah God did not talk to a snake and that in fact there was no snake.  Nor did He talk to the sensory part of the mind , as symbolized by the snake.  Rather, other things are involved-- people perceived that they had been deceived by their senses, and because they loved themselves, they were eager to know whether the things they heard about the Lord and about faith in Him were true.  Only then would they be willing to believe.

Self and material love was the reigning evil. It is the evil of not believing the Lord or the Word but trusting oneself and one's senses.  The result is the absence of faith, and when faith is absent, so is love for others - a situation that leads to ALL falsity and evil.

People who make sensory evidence and factual knowledge the standard for belief tumble into doubt and denial - They also subject themselves to every kind of craving.  When we believe in something false, we also act on falsity; and when we believe anything spiritual or heavenly to be impossible, we believe that only what belongs to the flesh and the world exists.  So then we love whatever promotes our self-interest or worldly advantage, and our false premise leads to evil cravings and outright wickedness.