Monday
Monday
Denying God’s Goodness
The serpent … said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened.”
Genesis 3:1–5
The second element in the subtlety of Satan was that he denied the goodness of God. Not only would disobedience bring no penalty (“you will not surely die”), but it would bring a positive blessing (“your eyes will be opened”). Further, God knows this, and (the devil insinuates) that is why he forbade you to eat the fruit. He is deliberately withholding from you the knowledge you would get if you ate. He is seeking not your welfare but your impoverishment.
In his original instructions about the fruit of the garden, God had been absolutely straightforward. He had clearly distinguished between the “may” of their freedom and the “must not” that limited it. In this the devil conveniently ignored God’s ample provision of fruit that Adam and Eve might eat freely. In consequence they lacked nothing. But Satan twisted this. He made the permitted things seem unsatisfying and the forbidden things seem desirable.
Still today one of the devil’s favorite occupations is to make God’s permitted things tame and his prohibited things attractive. He portrays God as an ogre who is denying us what is good.
We need the discernment to “test everything” and then to “hold on to the good” and “avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21–22). We also need the assurance that “as for God, his way is perfect” (Ps. 18:30).
For further reading: 1 John 2:15–17