EATING THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT

 

EATING THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT 

Westminster Shorter Catechism 15

Quest. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?

Ans. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating of the forbidden fruit.

Introduction

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Having already looked at the question: What is sin? And having seen that sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God, it is with this definition of sin in mind that we are ready to consider Westminster Shorter Catechism 15. We need to keep before us the fact that sin is the breaking of God’s Law. For, in the following we’re going to be looking into how our first parents broke the Law, i.e., God’s Law.

Now, just before we get into the thick of it, we need to state what we mean by God’s Law. By the “Law of God” we mean God’s Law as summarized in the Ten Commandments. Never lose sight of the fact that the Ten Commandments are simply a summary of God’s Law. By definition, to give a summary is simply to give the substance of a thing. A summary is an abridgement, a condensation, and a shortened version of a thing. Therefore, the Ten Commandments are God’s Law in shorthand. So, each of the Ten Commandments is in a sense a “headline” with a more exhaustive story attached, which is to say that each of the Ten Commandments needs to be unpackaged.

Each commandment is a container in which God’s Law is enclosed. Or, to come at it from a different angle, each one of the Ten Commandments has a specific function while remaining inter-connected to the other nine, which is to say that God’s Law applies to every area of our lives. But each of the Ten Commandments addresses a specific area specifically. E.g., “You shall not murder” applies to the sphere of physical wellbeing. Yet you can see how this connects with the 4^th Commandment in which God commands us to have one day every seven as rest in Him.

Man needs rest for his physical wellbeing. Or we can see how the commandment “You shall not steal” applies to private property. God has declared one day in seven as His Sabbath, i.e., day of rest. Therefore, we would, in a sense, be stealing from God if we did not obey His commandment to rest on the day He has provided. And if you work seven days a week for any length of time your own physical and spiritual wellbeing will begin to suffer.

Anyway, I don’t want us to get too bogged down in this at the moment. Suffice to say that all Ten Commandments are interconnected each one with the other. This is on account of the fact that the Decalogue is simply a summary of God’s Moral Law. Sin then, is the breaking of this Moral Law.

This is going to help us understand what we’re looking at in the following.

The Tree

We need to consider the tree that bore the forbidden fruit. The reason we need to do this is because a tree figures so prominently at the centre of our first parents’ sin. That tree is of course the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, there’s no question that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a special tree. The history of this tree is that it was created on the third day of creation week. “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’, and it was so” (Gen. 1:11). So, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was like every other tree in that it could reproduce itself. Part of its reproduction mechanism was its fruit, which could be easily consumed by human beings, even Adam and Eve. So far so good.

Now, in Genesis 2:8 we read, “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” So, possibly Adam got to watch the LORD God plant the Garden of Eden. The idea seems to be that the LORD collected trees, shrubs, plants and so forth from elsewhere, and made a special Garden – a place of special delight. In other words, the trees didn’t just spring up at God’s command as they did on the third day. Rather, they were transported and transplanted to a corner of Eden – as was Adam himself.

And then we read these words, “And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9). The word “Eden” comes from a word meaning “delight”, “pleasant” or “pleasure”. And we see that the trees of the Garden of Eden were pleasant to the eye. This includes, of course, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn’t a grotesque or ugly looking tree. In fact, we read in Genesis 3:6 that Eve found it “pleasant to the eyes.” Therefore, the tree itself was a “good” tree, not a bad tree or an evil tree. For at the end of the 6^th day of creation didn’t God find everything He had made pleasant to His sight when He declared it all “very good”?

So, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had been planted by the LORD in the midst of the Garden of Eden – along with, or beside, the tree of life. Therefore, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a pleasant tree in a pleasant place. But what makes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil such a special tree? Did it have any special qualities inherent in it? Well, again it had an aesthetic beauty. It was pleasant to the sight. But we’ve also seen that it was good for food.

So, what kind of tree was it? An apple tree? We still talk about an Adam’s apple when we refer to a jutty-out bump in the throat of a man. I would imagine that this is alluding to Adam swallowing the forbidden fruit and its getting stuck in his throat. But, contrary to popular belief, the Bible doesn’t state that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple tree.

However, I should point out that the Bible does mention apple trees. E.g. metaphorically in Song of Solomon 2:3, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” You can just about see Adam and Eve in that verse. There they are sitting down in the shade of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil among the trees of the Garden. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6).

To be sure, the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon is talking about her beloved and not an actual apple tree or an actual apple. However, one might wonder if Solomon had the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in mind when he penned the Song of Solomon. But, even if he did, he would most likely have been referring to that other tree in the midst of the garden, i.e. the tree of life.

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My wife loves peaches so much so that she reckons it must have been a peach tree. I usually remind her of the striking similarity (at least to me) between the French words for sin and peach – péché and pêche respectively.

Our first parents sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. But all of this is just fanciful, isn’t it? We don’t know what kind of tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was. All we know for sure is that it was a fruit tree that was delightful to the eye and good for food. So, other than that, there were no special qualities to this tree. Its fruit didn’t contain poison, per se, although the whole of humanity, including you and me, was ‘poisoned’ by the eating of it.

To eat of its fruit was sin. Why? Because God said so! Think about it, God had applied His Moral Law to a fruit tree. He had told Adam that it was His own personal private property. He, as it were, had said to Adam with regard to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “You shall not steal.” But steal Adam did and murdered himself and the whole of humanity with him in the process!

Our first parents coveted what was not theirs to have. They dishonoured God their Father. They were not pure and loyal. In other words, they did not love God and their neighbour (including you and me) as themselves. They proved this by eating the forbidden fruit.

The Treason

Treason is betrayal or breach of allegiance or of disobedience toward one’s sovereign or government. When our first parents started eating the forbidden fruit, they were breaking God’s Law, which is to say that they were breaching God’s covenant. As the prophet Hosea says, “Adam transgressed the covenant” (Hos. 6:7).

So we ask, what covenant? To which we answer, the Covenant of Works (as we call it). God had entered into this covenant-relationship or arrangement with Adam upon his creation. And He gave him the outward command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A covenant as you know, is a conditional promise. Adam was promised or threatened with death if he disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. And conversely, he was promised life, everlasting life in the heavenly kingdom if he obeyed.

So, Adam exercised the free will he had before the Fall and committed treason by choosing death over life. The outward test of Adam’s covenant obedience was centred on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of Every tree in the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Gen. 2:16-17).

To paraphrase a little, “Adam, if you want to show your allegiance to the covenant, don’t eat the forbidden fruit. If you love Me keep My commandments. But if you ever want to break this agreement, just eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But remember that by doing so you will forfeit eternal life and bliss and instead choose misery and death”.

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So, our first parents sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. They broke the whole of God’s Law when they did so. For James says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). So, when Adam sinned, he was guilty of breaking the whole Law. Therefore, the breaking of the Covenant of Works is the same as breaking the whole Law.

So, what on earth was Adam up to? Well, in Genesis 3:5 the serpent says, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So, just as Satan wanted to be like God by exalting himself, so Adam also elevated himself above the Law of God.

But this is treason against the sovereign Lawgiver; the LORD God Himself! The sin was in the fact that God had commanded Adam not to eat the fruit. If God had not commanded or forbidden it, it wouldn’t be a sin, would it? Therefore, it is God alone who declares what is sin and what is not sin.

So, we see then that our first parents sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, not because of anything in the fruit or the tree itself, but rather because they disobeyed a direct command of God. God’s Word is Law and is therefore to be heeded and obeyed! So, our first parents rebelled against their Sovereign when they disobeyed Him. They also aspired to a higher state, namely, to be like God, i.e. as a Lawgiver. Our first parents wanted to set up their own kingdom in which they were the sovereign rulers, where they would make up their own rules about what is right and what is wrong, good and evil.

We see this kind of megalomaniacal desire acted out by the likes of Adolf Hitler. His desire, I believe, was simply an intense twisting and sinful warping of the Cultural Mandate to subdue the earth. But God alone created all things from nothing by His creative fiat. And fallen Man attempts to do likewise in various unlawful ways. E.g. he prints paper money without any real money, i.e. gold to back it. He refers to this paper money as if it were the real money itself!

What was the paper money issued by the Confederate States of America worth when their side lost the Civil War? It wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on because there was nothing to back it! Only God can create something from nothing. Man can’t. It’s all alchemy, isn’t it? At least in the Middle Ages fallen Man tried to make gold from lead. But nowadays they try to make gold out of paper. Alchemy gone awry! It is all part of, and a continuation of, our first parents treacherous and treasonous conspiring with God’s enemy the Devil against God. 

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The Devil was there, wasn’t he? He’s usually depicted as coiled around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He is a constrictor. He put the squeeze on Adam and Eve to join him in rebellion against God. But he did so by painting God as a constrictor! “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree in the garden’?” “What do you mean that you cannot eat of every tree? How narrow, how restrictive! Why don’t you just ignore God’s Law and become a law unto yourselves? Why don’t you forget about God’s Law and just write your own?” And isn’t this where we’re at today in the Western World, even the whole world today? We can be thankful that God’s Law was written into Western Constitutions such as ours (in Australia). But you can see that today we are becoming more and more law-makers and less and less law-appliers.

God’s Law is less and less being applied in the courts of law today. E.g. adultery and homosexuality used to be crimes. But this is no longer the case. Even lying is now being referred to as the less precise terms of ‘spin-doctoring, ‘gaslighting’. But not only did God sovereignly create the universe from nothing, but He also has sovereign providential control over all creatures and their actions.

Fallen Man seeks to be like God by passing laws left right and centre to govern every creature and its actions. If you don’t believe me, just look at tax-law and traffic and city parking laws as a couple of examples. Look at all the political correctness laws that are now cluttering up the law books! To be sure a lot of these laws are designed to help, but these laws are legion! And yet Mankind has the audacity to call the Ten Commandments too constricting!

But all of this just goes to prove that what the Apostle Paul says is true. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). All broke the Covenant of Works. All broke the eternal Moral Law. So, this means that when Adam sinned we all sinned. Or as the prophet Hosea says, “Like Adam they transgressed the covenant” (Hos. 6:7). Which covenant did Adam transgress? The Covenant of Works. Therefore, by our first parents eating the forbidden fruit, all humanity became covenant breakers, setting themselves up as the new lawmaker and giver.

In Romans 1:31 the Apostle Paul speaks of fallen man as “covenant breakers.” You’ll need to look in the King James Version to find those exact words. The New King James Version has the word “untrustworthy” instead of “covenant breakers.” The New International Version renders it “faithless”. But whether you use the words “untrustworthy”, “faithless”, “perfidious”, “treacherous” it all begs the question: with regard to what is fallen Man untrustworthy, faithless etc.? The general answer is of course “God”. But the Greek word used in Romans 1:31 speaks of a pact, an agreement – a covenant! The Greek word is best translated “covenant breakers” as in the King James Version. Therefore, fallen Man is untrustworthy, faithless with regard to God’s covenant.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:28-32 KJV).

To break that covenant was to break God’s eternal Moral Law.

Conclusion

If sin is the breaking of God’s Moral Law, and if all Mankind became covenant breakers on account of our first parents eating the forbidden fruit, then we have to conclude that eating the forbidden fruit involved much, much more than breaking one single command of God. We have to conclude that in Adam the entire human race broke the entire Moral Law when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is to say that Man’s treason infiltrates every sphere of life to which the Ten Commandments may be applied. Which is to say that Fallen Man is at war with God in regards other gods, graven images, taking the Lord’s name in vain, the Sabbath, honouring father and mother, murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting – all Ten Commandments.

In a word, fallen Man is at war with the Moral character of God. For the Moral Law is the outward expression of the inward Moral character of God. The Moral Law is the revelation of who and what God is. Therefore, when our first parents sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they didn’t just steal an apple and eat it – big deal! They actually rebelled against everything that makes God God! They broke God’s everlasting covenant that was being administered by God to Man at that time in the form of the Covenant of Works. So, we see then that our first parent did not like that covenant arrangement and declared their mind on this matter by eating the forbidden fruit. Therefore, an act of outright treason toward God took place right under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But God is full of grace and mercy. The eating of the forbidden fruit wasn’t the end of Mankind. For, our first parents drew blood when they bit into that forbidden fruit, when they bit the hand that fed them. They drew the blood of God’s everlasting covenant. That blood – the blood of Christ’s cross – is the blood that washes away all our sin. Make sure that His shed blood has washed away your sins. Repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We’ve looked at the question: What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created? And we’ve considered something of the answer: The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating of the forbidden fruit.