Contents
- 1 The Garden of Eden is the closest place to paradise, the home of a loving God. Why would He allow an evil Serpent to enter?
- 1.1 Why were the Tree of Death and Evil Serpent in the Garden of Eden?
- 1.2 Our Mental Health is at Stake
- 1.3 Good and Evil Present to Oblige Humans to Choose
- 1.4 God’s Purpose for Humanity Focuses on the Long-Term
- 1.5 Two Sources and Two Areas of Sorrow which is Anxiety
- 1.6 Dig Deeper into The Explanation
The Garden of Eden is the closest place to paradise, the home of a loving God. Why would He allow an evil Serpent to enter?
God refurbished Earth and created humans, whom He placed in His HQ Garden of Eden, to rule and socialize. Knowing only God, the couple was in a Godly state of mind. But one element in this paradisiac picture looks out of place, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which leads to death.
(Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life, Chapter 6)
I want the God-Intended meaning of Scripture
Why were the Tree of Death and Evil Serpent in the Garden of Eden?
Why would a good God plant an evil Tree in the midst of His Garden? Why would God tell Adam NOT to eat of this Tree? If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of that nauseous Tree, why plant it in front of them in the first place?
Is all of this a fictitious myth? Make-believe? The imaginations of ancient authors? These events are the first five minutes of the plot of humankind’s story. If we cannot answer these questions with Bible-corroborated replies, we cannot correctly assemble the puzzle of why God placed humans on Earth.
To top it off, an incredible event took place. God allowed an evil Serpent into His Garden. The story says God threw Adam and Eve into the lion’s den. That isn’t an allegory, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil (the evil Serpent), as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:” 1 Peter 5:8. All hell broke loose in the Garden and continues to this day in our world.
In this short episode, numerous fundamental questions about God and humans cry out for solid Biblical answers. How good is God, considering He’s at the origin of these events? He could’ve not planted the Tree of Good and Evil. He could’ve prevented this evil Serpent from breaking into the Garden. By the way, God could’ve simply put an end to the Serpent; why didn’t He? Why did He allow the couple to choose whether or not to eat from the forbidden Tree? Did God know ahead of time they’d eat the forbidden fruit?
The outcome was Adam and Eve’s reasoning ability was drastically altered by their decision-making abilities to the point that instead of enjoying the openness and beauty of the Garden, they hid from their Creator in the obscurity of a clump of trees. their mental stability took a turn for the worse. That’s why we’ve got to go back to the beginning and answer such fundamental questions.
Our Mental Health is at Stake
That’s why The Explanation wrote Mind-Body Problem Solved, because Science, Philosophy, and Religion don’t know what consciousness and mind are, nor how they work, or why we have them. All the answers are in Genesis 2:7, precisely the breath (neshama-consciousness) of life and the spirit in man (Job 32:8, Zechariah 12:1), the ruach-mind. This book, Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life, is the sequel explaining WHY God gave us consciousness and mind, HOW they work, and WHAT each of us can do to build (in our children), maintain, and heal broken mental health.
These first events in Genesis are vital for comprehension. Unfortunately, the translations do not do the story justice. Naked and not ashamed (Genesis 2:25) mean precisely that, but that physical statement hides the more critical state of their minds. Adam and Eve were mentally stable and not confused. After spending the seventh day with God (Genesis 2:3), they understood the essential path to follow.
Good and Evil Present to Oblige Humans to Choose
Here are the answers to the above questions and, more relevantly, the purpose of God setting this scenario in motion. Firstly, God allows wrong-doing (the Tree of Death and the Evil Serpent) to be in our midst so we can make choices, hopefully, the right ones. But, the choice of our behavior is ours; humans do have free will and we must choose. In order to choose, there must be two clear directions: God’s way and the evil Serpent’s way.
This is a Bible theme from Genesis to Revelation. God always encourages humans to make the right choice (Deuteronomy 30:19) but never decides for us. Furthermore, and this will surprise many, He does NOT know what choice we’re going to make. If God knows what our decision is ahead of time, then we do NOT have free choice. Yes, God can and does know certain events and ultimate decisions ahead of time, but He is NOT omniscient regarding your or my spiritual future. Again, if that were the case, there would be no need for trials via the evil Serpent. Be careful of teachings to the contrary.
Here’s a Bible verse that clearly reveals this and another critical principle. Yes, the verse applies to a spiritually converted person, but the underlying lesson applies to Adam and Eve and every human who has walked the face of this Earth.
To deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Many might think that a loving God would keep a sinner close to Him because that’s the best way to help them. Not so, God expulses opposers from His presence; that’s what He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden, NOT to condemn them, BUT so, just like this individual in the Church at Corinth, they LEARN THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON in life: YOU MUST MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE. And that choice is to align yourself with God’s way.
Satan, the evil Serpent, is a tool to help us realize sin does not pay. Because of humankind’s reprobate mind, God is allowing us to learn through war, sickness, sorrow, and anxiety. so that we can come to our senses and change our decision pathway. God is giving everyone, at all times, whether converted or not, the choice to follow the right way.
God’s Purpose for Humanity Focuses on the Long-Term
Humanity focuses on the short term! And in 2024, the short term is getting shorter and shorter with attention spans and fulfilling our pleasures. Express delivery of goods, food, etc., faster and faster internet to deliver often unverified information, and social media are all designed to satisfy our immediate cravings. Carrying mobile phones is symptomatic of this wayward trend of our I must have it now society.
God’s plan is long-term. He removed the man from the Church at Corinth so he could ultimately be saved. God accepts the temporary destruction of the flesh so that humans can transform their minds and upgrade their lives permanently. God is good and knows how best to deal with all humans for their long-term success. The point is He planted the Tree of Good and Evil and allowed the evil Serpent to penetrate the Garden, just as He allows wars, famine, and sickness for the long-term benefit. Understand, God prefers that this evil not exist and shows us how to avoid it, as we’ll see, but He permits it for our ultimate good.
Two Sources and Two Areas of Sorrow which is Anxiety
Starting immediately after Adam and Eve’s disobedience, the first source of sorrow being ourselves, God predicts sorrow in the two major areas of our lives: family (socialization) and professional and other occupations (rulership).
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shalt bruise his heel.
16 To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow (H6093), and your conception; in sorrow (H6089) you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you (socialization).
17 And Adam he said, Because you have hearkened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it: cursed is the ground for your sake (rulership); in sorrow (H6093) shall you eat of it all the days of your life (rulership);
Sorrow is a universal sentiment. Both men and women are vessels of this sorrow. Here’s the meaning of this Biblical Hebrew word.
עִצָּבוֹן ʻitstsâbôwn its-tsaw-bone’; from H6087 (עָצַב); worrisomeness, i.e. labor or pain:
KJV – sorrow, toil.
H6087
עָצַב ʻâtsab aw-tsab’; a primitive root; properly, to carve, i.e. fabricate or fashion; hence (in a poor sense) to worry, pain or anger:
KJV – displease, grieve, hurt, make, be sorry, vex, worship, wrest.
Worry, pain, vexation, displeasure, grief, and hurt are all synonyms of anxiety, today’s number one mental health problem worldwide. In the Western world and major parts of Asia, we have all the gadgets you’d think to make our lives satisfying, yet we’re empty; we’ve lost the contented feeling of fulfillment. Peace of mind has dissipated like smoke in the air.
The second source of sorrow is the evil Serpent.
And I will put enmity between you [the evil Serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed [her descendants, all humanity]; it shall bruise your head, and you (the evil Serpent) shall bruise his heel (cause anxiety).
The evil Serpent is a cause of destruction, as we saw regarding the man in the Church in Corinth. But the bottom line is the man’s wrong socialization is the cause of his pain and anxiety. Eliminating wrong practices, thoughts, and preconceptions relieves anxiety. That’s the crux of Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life.
This blog post is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the book Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life.
Dig Deeper into The Explanation
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