“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?” (Gen. 3:11)
The Lord knew they were naked when He made Adam and Eve, He has always had the knowledge of good and evil, He has always had all knowledge. “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3)
I would ask you to notice something here, something I believe many people miss, Eve did not immediately feel shame. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;” (Gen. 3:17) She ate first, and either went and found her husband or looked at him and then spake words to him as he was standing beside her. She did not run away from his sight, she felt no shame until the Lord appeared, and then it is questionable as to whether she ran and hid on her own, by her own volition, or, as the angels in Sodom did with Lot and his family, if Adam took her hand and ran for cover.
And recall, they were not totally naked, they had made coverings of leaves for themselves. Why did she not feel shame, what were the words she said? Why would the knowledge of good and evil cause shame and fear?
Satan entered into the serpent, he was not created a snake, but a covering cherub, so how are we to interpret Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”
Subtleness evokes thoughts of being sneaky, of deception, not always in a way that causes grief though, but why chose the serpent and in what way was that subtleness an advantage for our adversary? And again, without laboring on this side note, why curse the serpent unless he was a willing participant to the wiles of the devil?
With the knowledge of good and evil comes the knowledge of sin, and without the action of sin against the Living God, grace and mercy cannot be given. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23) This is why you have read in these poorly written letters several times that it had to be this way, why so many of them come back to the subject matter of our free will, and why I have spoken these words more than I can recall, “The mind of man cannot reconcile the free will of man and the Sovereignty of God.”
Eve was deceived, beguiled, yet she still had a choice, Adam harkened to the words of his wife, used logical, deductive reasoning skills and determined that her words were the truth, evoking thoughts that I cannot verify, that by default in the mind of Adam that God had lied.
They hid because of shame, but perhaps also because of fear, fear of what the Lord would do to them for disobeying. All because of a fruit from a tree that imparted knowledge to them.
I do not desire to make this sound like a play at the theater, but the Almighty knew when He made Satan what he would become, he knew Adam and Eve would eat that fruit, He knows and has always known everything. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:11)
Without free will there would still be a heaven, but would it have been necessary to make hell or the Lake of Fire? Can love be given and received without free will, would grace and mercy need to be offered to those who never sinned?
There is an age, the age that began when the Lord created the heavens and the earth that will end when He creates the new heaven and earth. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8)
This has, for lack of better words, all been set up, God’s rule is Sovereign, man has free will, we all posses the knowledge of good and evil. Now, ask yourself this, when He calls you, do you run to Him, or in shame do you run and hide?
