Donna Danna (16 March 2012)
"REPLY TO PATTI C.  --  THE TEMPTATION IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN"


In reply to your 3/15 post at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/march2012/pattic315.htm the book of Genesis does not say that it was an apple that grew on the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  It is simply called the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
 
According to Genesis 2:16-17, "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."  God did not tell Adam and Eve to not touch the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil; He told them not to eat of it.  According to Genesis 3:3, it was Eve that said that God said that they couldn't eat of it nor touch it, which means she must have added to God's words and told the Serpent a lie.
 
Also no where in the book of Genesis does it say that Eve had physical, sexual intercourse with the Serpent.  However, the word "intercourse" can also mean
1. dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.
2. interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc. according to  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intercourse so Satan did have that type of intercourse with Eve, and Satan's seed was the words that he planted in Eve's mind which she believed instead of believing God's words.  Eve could have rejected Satan's seed (his words) from her mind, but she chose not to.  Instead the Serpent's seed bore the fruit of unbelief in her mind and spirit when she acted upon his words, and ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in disobedience to God's words.  Jesus said in Luke 8:11, The word is the seed of God, and in John 6:63, Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life."  However, Satan, the enemy sows tares as well according to Matthew 13:25 which means he plants seeds of doubt, unbelief and lies so that people don't believe God's words. Instead they believe Satan's words which in this case Eve did so she received Satan's seed (his words) into her mind and spirit and believed him. His words produced the fruit of unbelief from the seed of unbelief (no faith in God's words) and it produced the fuit of unrighteousness (spiritual fornication) from Satan's seed of unrighteousness.   However, Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, FAITH, meekness, temperance:  against such here is no law."  Ephesians 5:9 says, For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth:" Satan's seed and fruit was the opposite of the God's seed (the word) and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. 
The Bible does not say that Eve had sexual intercourse with the Serpent, who is Satan, but she did commit spiritual fornication with the Serpent. Another example of this would be the great whore or harlot in Rev. 17 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication. Instead of committing sexual fornication with the harlot, they commit spiritual fornication.
So why was the Serpent's punishment to go on his belly and eat dust all the days of his life (Genesis 3:14)? To go on his belly all the days of his life means that he is in a permanent lying down position because of his lying to Eve which means that he is permanently fallen all the days of his life and not upright and he can never repent of his sin.
 
Why do Eve and Adam make aprons to cover up themselves when they saw that they were naked after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and why was Adam afraid when he saw he was naked and hid from God?  You thought that Eve had sexual intercourse with the Serpent, and that was supposedly her reason for covering up herself with an apron.  However, you never said anything about Adam having sex with the Serpent, and that being Adam's reason for covering up himself with an apron.  In fact, Eve gave Adam the fruit and he did eat it so that would leave out Adam having sex with the Serpent.  However, Adam also received the the seed of Serpent's words into his mind and spirit when he disbelieved God's words to not eat the fruit.   So both Eve and Adam committed spiritual fornication with the Serpent by believing his lie.  I think they knew that they committed spiritual fornication with the Serpent, and covering up themselves with aprons represented them trying to cover up the spiritual fornication that they had committed with the Serpent which would have been exposed (naked) unless they tried to hide it from God.   However, God sees all our sins before we even confess the truth about them to Him. 
 
As for Adam's reasons for eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, did he not want to leave his bride Eve alone in a fallen state so he decided to join her by eating the fruit so that he can also become a fallen creature? Or did Adam decide to disobey the Lord and eat the fruit because Eve did not physically drop dead on the day that she ate it so he thought neither would he although they spiritually died?  The Lord did say, "... for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."  Or did Adam also want to become as the gods knowing good and evil as the Serpent suggested, and why should Eve become as the gods and not Adam become as the gods as well?   I guess we'll have to get the answers from Adam one day as to why he did what he did.
 
John 6:44 tells us that Satan is "a liar and the Father of it" (the lies.) I wonder if there would be fewer lies told if a person was to imagine that Satan was the Father of their lie if the lie was produced by having sex with Satan or lying with Satan.  However, the lie isn't conceived and produced by having sex with Satan, but Satan is still the Father of the lie which was created. It is possible to commit spiritual adultery or fornication, or even spiritual murder by wishing someone was dead so the Lord wants us "to gird up the loins of your mind.." (1 Peter 1:13) so that we don't commit these types of sin.  Also Ephesians 6:14 says, "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness."  We are not to cover our loins with fig leaves to hide our sins, but we are to expose the truth about our sins by confessing both our spiritual sins and our sins in the flesh to the Lord so that we can ask forgiveness for them.