Back to Eden: Perspective Con't

The story of “the Fall” in Eden has been preached and taught from various perspectives to make diverse points. But what seems clearly presented in the text is a change of perception, their eyes were “opened”.  Prior to the fruit of the tree named “the Knowledge of Good and Evil” they are naked and not ashamed.  After they eat the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they suddenly have a judgement perspective that produces shame between them and fear in response to God. 

Isn’t it curious that God was trying to protect them from the very thing that would cause them to judge themselves. One reason this is so interesting is because it is so common in “christian” teaching to judge ourselves and others.  But if this was God’s plan for mankind why would he have told them NOT to eat that produced this ability.

So, in this the first community, after eating fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil there is shame and fear but the only thing that has “changed” is their perception.  Before ingesting this fruit, they were in harmonious relationship with God, while naked, yet not ashamed nor afraid. After the fruit, perspective changed, to a judgement of fact that was contrary to God’s word. 

What God does in response to the eating of the fruit is often perceived a “judgement” (any surprise?).  What could have been God explaining the symptoms of our allergy to the fruit (of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) is received as a curse. But God didn’t say that if they ate from the fruit they would be cursed, He said they would “die”. Actually, when he told them not to be eating from the tree, He also told them that they would be eating of the tree: Read Genesis 2:17

But what does this have to do with the message and “the Word” that Christ embodied? Consider God’s FIRST response to the confession of nakedness and fear. God’s first words are “who told you that you were naked”.  

Why, after such a devastating error is God’s first inquiry into whose WORD his creation had accepted as truth rather than His. “Who told you that...?”; this unanswered question haunts us to this very day. Who told you that you were naked, uncovered, unacceptable to God? Better question: Whose opinion/perspective is power enough to overrule and overturn God’s proclamation that the He created mankind was anything but “good”.