"The Devil Made Me Do It

Mankind has just eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and, in so doing, become aware of the difference between what is good and what is evil. Upon hearing the Voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening, they felt new emotions: shame and fear. We ended the last post with God asking them if they had eaten of the tree that He had commanded them not to eat. And so we continue.




And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? As we pointed out last time, God gives them an opportunity to realize they had disobeyed His commandment and to repent of that wrong. Being God, He knew they had eaten of the tree, and He let them know he knew by equating their knowledge of their nakedness with the eating from the tree.
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Here Adam makes his second blunder by introducing world to the "passing the buck" attitude (also known as playing the blame game), trying to pin the blame on God. He says "God, its your fault because YOU gave me this woman as a companion and she brought me this fruit from the tree for me to eat. Since you gave her too me as a helper, how was I to know this was wrong?" Obviously I am paraphrasing, giving voice to the attitude that Adam exemplifies here.
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. God turns to the woman and asks her what her part was in the matter. She also has the opportunity to repent of the wrong but chooses instead to follow her husband's lead (reminds me of another couple in the book of Acts wherein the wife followed the husband's lead and it also led to severe consequences, but I digress). Woman responds to God by also passing the blame. She says, "The serpent made me do it!"



Readers, an important fact that one must learn from this account is this: the blame resides with the one committing the action/wrongdoing/sin and not with any one or thing else.



Adam said it was God's fault for giving him a defective companion who would give him (Adam) the fruit that God commanded them not to eat. And he said it was Woman's fault for giving him the fruit. But Adam missed the fact that he ate! He did not have to eat of that fruit. Woman did not have him tied up and force him to eat. She simply gave the fruit to him. He chose to obey Woman who said "Here, eat this."



Woman also missed that same fact. She ate! It simply was not the serpent forcing Woman to eat fruit by stuffing it down her throat. The serpent was guilty only of deceiving Woman. Woman was guilty of believing the serpent and eating the fruit and giving it to her husband. She could have turned a deaf ear to the serpent. She could have chosen to obey God and not eat the fruit. Having eaten the fruit, she could have chosen not to give it to her husband. But instead, she chose to obey the desire of her heart rather than God, she chose to cause another to stumble.



Christian