A Woman's Worth, by Elaine Stedman
Chapter 10.
Woman in Eden (Part 2)
Since the direction our lives take and the influence we have upon
others is determined by the choices we make, it is crucial for
us to be able to define good and evil. The human view is that
everything conforming to my ideas and wishes is good, and of course
everything not conforming is bad. The name for this system of
thought is humanism. And from this viewpoint, God is either non-existent,
threatening, or controllable. The Apostle Paul labels this the
"natural mind," and apart from Jesus Christ, that is
the mindset of the human race (Romans 7:15 ff.). It is the human
"good" which results in evil. We are five billion ego-centrics,
competing for first place. The result is war, chaos, divorce,
ulcers, loneliness, bitterness, bigotry, etc.
The solution even a child can comprehend. One day our daughter,
Laurie, then five years old, brought a tearful report of conflict
between a playmate and herself. We talked it over, applying the
old biblical principle of the mote and the beam, allowing the
Spirit of God to correct our thinking and time for the emotions
to adjust to that reality. Then Laurie said, "Mother, isn't
it a good thing we have God, or how would we know good from bad?"
I have never been able to state it so well!
God is good, and goodness is godlikeness. That is the only no-contest
criterion for goodness. In God's Person there is an inflexible,
impeccable Good which transcends law, but which every just law
tries to preserve. This is the Life of God, the Life which may
be described as love and joy and peace. It is the life he created
us to live, but which cannot be lived apart from him, and therefore
depends upon an unbroken relationship with him, a relationship
of love and trust.
For every positive there is a negative. One wonders whether a
positive can exist as such without its negative. Thus, God who
is Love can hate evil, be jealous for the good of his people and
be provoked to wrath by defiant, rebellious sinners. (A wrath
which he turned on himself in Jesus Christ who became sin for
us and paid the price of our rebellion!) It appears then that
the very existence of good poses the potential for the existence
of evil--not, however, a negative which harmonizes and accentuates
a positive, but a defiant opposition to that which is good, a
negative gone hostile and asserting itself as Good.
The Lord God commanded the man (thereby making him governmentally
responsible) to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, warning him "in the day that you eat of it you shall
die." Physical death was, of course, imminent in choosing
to disobey, but of far greater import was the effect of death
upon the whole person--death to the spirit and death to the soul.
In knowing good, Adam would think himself Good, and, setting himself
up as God, become evil. Thinking himself Love, rather than Love's
agent, he would lose the faculty for loving; thinking himself
Joy, rather than the agent of God's Joy, he would no longer experience
joy. Claiming to be wise, he would become a fool, futile and senseless
in his view of God and of himself (Romans 1:18-32).
God, who is Good, is a Person. The first man and woman had communion
with him. He had shared his creative plan with them and infused
and surrounded them with his life, including the tree of life
"in the midst of the garden." He made life the centerpiece
of their communion with him.
Evil is also a person, and Satan is his name. (Incidentally, if
we object to the masculine pronoun for God, should we not also
protest the masculine pronoun for Satan?) Although there is evil
in our nature, humanity of itself is neither Good nor Evil; we
may opt for the control of either, and in either case we are dealing
with a person, God or Satan.
Satan's stock in trade is subtlety. In Revelation 12:9 he is referred
to as "the deceiver of the whole world." The Hebrew
word from which the translation "the serpent" derives,
actually means "the shining one." II Corinthians 11:14,
15 says, "...for even Satan disguises himself as an angel
of light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves
as servants of righteousness." He is an artist in craftiness
and deception, in the distortion of truth, and he is behind all
deceitful strategy, the model for all pretense. "I will make
myself like the Most High," was the exalted boast which articulated
his absolute commitment to evil (Isaiah 14:12-14). His outward
beauty was a veil for inward corruption, a trap for the easily
deceived.
Satan, the subtle strategist, made his initial appeal to the woman.
He did not go to the governmental head of the race, but took his
appeal to "the people." I believe Satan's choice of
the woman strongly suggests that he understood the distinctiveness
of the male-female function and characteristics. Would the subtle
deceiver choose to "lay it on" the less subjective,
more judicially culpable of the two? Would he not find it strategically
expeditious to aim at the man through the woman, particularly
if she were the way to the man's heart? Certainly the tactic of
a subtle enemy bent on subversion and exploitation would be to
attack at the point of greatest vulnerability.
And yet, characteristics which accompany vulnerability are those
which we highly esteem, such as a keen sensitivity and a faculty
for adapting to life and people. We admire one who can motivate
with gentleness and compassion. These are the characteristics
of the emotionally strong and mature. But the temperament from
which these strengths may spring can also produce an inversion
to these strengths, by virtue of its vulnerability. It may be
well to remind ourselves at this point that in the discussion
of temperamental and biological differences, we are not at all
addressing the question of identity or worth, but only a variety
in function.
Nor are we attempting to put an either-or characterization to
the male and female, but rather a more-less distinction. Obviously,
we may not say woman is sensitive, man is insensitive; woman is
illogical, man is logical. We are a long way from the original
creation, and each of us is a complicated structure of genes and
culture. But just as the male-female biological pattern has remained
consistent, so I believe has the basic structure of the male-female
psyche instituted by our Creator. This is why I believe we must
listen so carefully to these Genesis passages, comparing them
with the whole body of Scripture.
There is in all of us the racial memory of Eden, when we were
like God, made in his image, where two human wills were harmonized
in the full expression of humanity through choosing to relate
to God on his terms. God had given Adam and Eve a loaded option:
"every tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food,
and the tree of life also in the midst of the garden," with
only one prohibition. The key issue was obedience, their will
subject to God's will.
We live each day between Eden and heaven, under attack from an
enemy who introduces doubt and distrust of God and one another
through deceit and subtlety. God is not enough, the enemy suggests,
or God is dispensable. You have what it takes to go it alone,
or at least to make a good show. Then we take off on our self-centered
excursions, and my way versus God's way becomes my way versus
yours. When we transfer our faith and our expectations from God
to ourselves or others, we breed fantasy, illusion, frustration
and despair. No human being can fulfill himself or another except
in a secondary manner as an agent of God's life filled with the
character of the indwelling Jesus Christ, taught and empowered
by His Spirit.
"We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing
greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves"
(2 Corinthians 4:7).
God has given us all of life to enjoy, but that enjoyment is contingent
upon his control of our motivation; that is, the control of agape
Love, a love which is always satisfied because it demands no gratification
from the loved object. God who is agape Love is its only Source.
Without him, human "loves" are at best a shabby imitation,
at worst a devastating tyranny, and in any case a diversion from
the Giver. Controlled by agape Love, we are free to enjoy every
relationship without emotional sabotage, and in it we are always
drawn back to the Giver. God's image is restored in us when he
is in control of our human faculties.
An independent identity is an illusion. We simply choose the form
of government under which we shall live, God's or Satan's. Our
emerging function will be good or evil, accordingly. God tells
us truth about ourselves and life; Satan offers a counterfeit,
and his initial thrust is an attack upon God's credibility. To
question God's character is to question his very existence. When
we face our doubts to the dregs we are brought to the unbearable
conclusion of godlessness, and then, because we were made to be
possessed by God, we will choose to return to him, or we will
opt for a counterfeit.
The woman met the enemy alone, and she was no match for his subtlety.
The Apostle Paul uses the Greek word exapatao, to indicate
intensive deception (1 Timothy 2:14). She violated her unity with
God and with the man, and, unsupported, she bought the twisted
perversion in which Satan offered her godlikeness. Deluded into
thinking God had cramped her style, deprived her of her rights,
she defied his authority, "took of the fruit and ate."
Then, deeply engaged in the satanic enchantment she offered the
fruit to the man.
The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul tells us Adam was not
deceived (and here the milder word, apatao, is used). The
man, without recourse to God, and in full possession of his objective
capacities, capitulated to the woman, "and he ate."
"Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that
they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made
themselves aprons" (Genesis 3: 7).
The psycho-sexual-spiritual implications of this account are profound.
In it we are taught the basic format for human existence, the
struggle between God and Satan, the function of choosing. The
deepest issues of our sexuality are implicit in these "simple"
phrases if we will be teachable and transparently honest with
ourselves and the Spirit of God.
I believe it consistent with the entire body of Scripture to define
sin as placing something or someone finite before God. Satan,
appearing in beautiful guise, first engaged the woman's emotions;
then with seeming logic he persuaded her that she could add dimension
to her humanity beyond the limits proscribed by God, and on her
own initiative. She could be godlike without God, and she would
share her new, independent adequacy with the man. She would offer
him more than God, and, by-passing God, she would be man's Help,
rather than his helpmate, his First Cause rather than his supporter
(or to put it in the language of some contemporary literature),
"the idol of her husband's heart." "God-playing,"
we sometimes call it; "idolatry," is God's name for
it.
Adam met the woman alone, and he was no match for her. First Timothy
2:14 tells us he was not deceived. Later he would respond to God's
questioning by blaming "the woman whom thou gavest to be
with me." We are not told her method. Did she nag, wheedle,
weep, threaten, bribe, tease, or all of these? Or perhaps she
feigned submission--the subtlest weapon of all. At any rate, Adam,
out on a limb, ignoring God, surrendered his headship, and "sin
came into the world through one man" (Romans 5:12).
The Genesis reference to nakedness is solid confirmation of the
synthesis of body, soul, and spirit in humanity. Our first ancestors
were at peace with their bodies so long as they were in unbroken
unity with God. Sin had not yet defiled their humanity and so
their nakedness was not an issue. And since their relationship
with God was unbroken, and their identity therefore unthreatened,
they had no need to mask their humanity nor to support it with
contrived trappings.
There was no shame because there was no guilt. The moment they
committed themselves to their own defiant method for understanding
good and evil, guilt enveloped their entire persons. The sexual
polarities which had once been harmonized and complemented in
spiritual unity with God and each other, now became an embarrassment.
Now alienated from God, they become defensive, self-centered,
and seek ways to hide from him and from one another.
With simple elegance, the story of our lives:
"And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees
of the garden" (Genesis 2:8).
With poignant beauty, the story of humanity's Lover, the Hound
of Heaven:
"But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him,
'Where are you?'" (Genesis 2:9).
Again, God initiates the encounter with Adam, the head of the
race, holding him responsible to the divine commandment; a commandment
which, if observed, would have interpreted their freedom and kept
them free from the bondage of self-centeredness. And now the question
which will incriminate the woman as his motivator as Adam evades
his responsibility:
"Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of
the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis
2:11)
Eden's Watergate unfolds, with cross accusations, buck-passing
and the fading fig leaves of unrepentant self-righteousness. Adam
blames the woman, and God for giving her to him. The woman cites
the beguiling serpent.
And God? Once they knew him as their Creator-Lover. Now they will
know him as their Lover: Redeemer!
Chapter 11
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