Genesis
3: 4-5 “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
After Adam willfully disobeyed
the commandment of God and took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
his attitude toward God and toward himself changed. The moment Adam and Eve’s
eyes were opened they knew they were
naked’ (Gen. 3:7).
When Adam saw himself the way God made him he did not see a wonderful
creation. He did not rejoice in the miracle of life breathed
into his nostrils from God. Instead,
the lusts of the flesh filled his heart. The vanity of the flesh consumed him and he
was ashamed. Whereas before he went
about with no sin, full of the joy of all creation bestowed upon him by God
the Creator, now, full of evil, he was not content with God’s way. God said of his creation, It is good. Adam said of God’s creation,
“I can do better.” Thinking himself to be a god he began to devise
his way. All the while unaware of
this one dreadful thing, that all his thoughts were now turned away from God
and only toward himself. Every person
born in Adam receives this same nature that Adam obtained. And just as Adam did, man crowns himself king, always bending the
truth of the one true God into the god of his imagination—a god like
unto himself.
In thinking himself a god, Adam feared the true God.
When Adam heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden Adam
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the
trees of the garden. (Gen. 3:8) Adam feared that
God would discover the evil, which he had done. Adam’s sin separated
him from God. All the sweet fellowship
he once had with the Lord God was ended. There is within every spiritually dead man
the knowledge that God is good and that fallen man is evil. But rather than beg God for mercy and grace,
the man who thinks himself a god hides away, for fear that he will have to
confess what he is. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
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