When you turn on the news soon after some horrific crime has been committed, you will likely hear speculation as to what led the person to do something so horrible. In personal relationships and conflict, we do this as well. We want to know why. The more thoughtful and introspective among us do the same with ourselves. We want to know why we did the bad thing we did. This question of root causes is just as applicable to our first parents as well. Given that they did in fact sin against God by eating the forbidden fruit, the question remains, “Why did they do it?”
Q: Why did they eat the forbidden fruit?
A: Because they did not believe what God had said.
(Genesis 3:1–6; cf. Hebrews 11:6)
As we look at genesis 3:1-6, we find a conversation between Eve and the Serpent about the truthfulness of God. This conversation goes back to Genesis 2:16-17. In the context of placing Adam into the garden to live in, work, and keep it, and then giving him every tree of the garden to eat, God gave Adam the command to refrain from eating the fruit of one tree, the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
When the Serpent went about his work of tempting Eve to rebel against God and take the fruit anyway, he attacked the basic trustworthiness of God, and what he had said. First, the Serpent questions, “Did God actually say…” Then he disputes God’s word directly, saying, “You will not surely die.” Then in verse 5 the Serpent implies that God’s words are bad because He speaks with bad motives. At last, in verse 6 we see the deed done. Eve believes her senses and the serpent above the Sovereign One, leading her to take the fruit from the tree, to eat it, and then share it with her husband, Adam.
Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Eve did not fail to believe that God is, she simply failed to believe that He is good. She did not believe that He is good. Rather, she believed the Serpent’s lie that God was holding out on her. She believed the lie that there was no penalty for defying God, and not only that, she and her husband would be like God if they ate the fruit. No risk, all reward.
Except we know that is not how it worked out. Instead of making us like God, it made us less like him than we already were and created a rift that only God could mend. Adam and Eve did not believe God or else they would never have taken and eaten he fruit.
Here then is the root cause of sin, not only theirs, but ours as well. When we transgress the law of God, it is because we are not believing what God has said. We believe the lie that we are more capable than God to assess what is good. We believe the lie that, “If God only understood my circumstances, he would approve of what I am doing.” We believe the lie that there will be no consequences to our sin, in this world or the next. We believe the lie that God is holding out on us and the perceived payoff is better than the commendation of God. Stop for a moment and ponder the truth, when you sin, it is because you did not believe what God has said.” For a Christian, this is a sobering reality to recognize. For the Christian who recognizes the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures, it is gutting to have to say, even if only to yourself, “I sinned because I did not believe what God has said.” Sin in our lives would be effectively eradicated if we would consistently believe what God has said.
Yet only Christ has lived consistently believing what God has said. If we are to have any victory over sin, it will be first as beneficiaries of His ultimate victory over sin, by believing what God has said about Him. Then, in humble reliance upon the work of Christ and the aid of the Holy Spirit that we then press on in life believing what God has said in every area of our life.
Yours in Christ,