THREE THINGS EVE DID TO THE WORD OF GOD
Gen. 2:16-17; 3:2-3
Morning Meditation 4/26/17
Gen. 2:16-17 says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Eve’s interpretation of what God said is in chapter 3:2-3: “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
The Bible is God’s infallible Word. It is the verbally inspired Word of God. There will be no attempt in this meditation to prove that. I am simply stating what I believe to be a fact taught in the Bible itself and on which this meditation is abased. If what I say about the Word of God is right, I can show you where Eve was wrong. If what I say about the Bible being verbally inspired is wrong, then the points I make are not necessarily valid. There are three things about Eve’s interpretation of what God said that is wrong and is still being done by those who do not respect the accuracy of the verbally inspired Word.
FIRST, EVE TOOK FROM THE WORD OF GOD
God said to Adam, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat . . .” Eve took from the Word when she answered the serpent, “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden .. . .” She left the word “Freely” out.
You say, “What difference does it make that that simple word is left out?
Let me give you the following references and ask you to decide how important the word “freely” is and the difference it would make if one just simply left it out:
Ro 3:24 Being justified FREELY by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Caps mine for emphasis).
Rom. 8:32 says, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also FREELY give us all things? (Caps mine for emphasis).
1 Cor. 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are FREELY given to us of God. (Caps mine for emphasis).
Re 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life FREELY. (Caps mine for emphasis).
Re 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life FREELY.”(Caps mine for emphasis).
Eve dropped a word. It is a serious mistake and changes the interpretation of each of the above references if one would drop the word “freely” from the text.
God created Adam and Eve and gave them life freely. Life is a free gift from God. Not only did God give life to Adam and Eve, He gave support for that life and it was FREE. This is also true in the Spiritual life. God FREELY gives the believer eternal life and He FREELY gives support for that life. Faith is necessary to receive that free gift. But faith is a non meritorious act. You can’t brag on a man’s faith without questioning the one in whom he has his faith. God is no risk. He is faithful to keep all his promises.
I believe the same thing Eve did is being done in the modern translations where an attempt is being made to make the Bible more readable. I suggest that it would be better to put up with the obsolete words in the KJV and stay with a tried and true translation of the right manuscripts than to take a chance on getting one word wrong in the reading of the Bible.
SECOND, EVE ADDED TO THE WORD OF GOD
God told Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (2:17).
Eve said to the serpent, “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” (3:3).
Eve said God said, “Neither shall ye touch it.” God didn’t say that. God said nothing about touching it. You say, “Preacher what possible importance is attached to this addition to what God said? It is simply this. If we do not stay with what God actually says, who has the right and authority to say this should be added or that should be added. The scholars don’t qualify. Modernism and liberalism comes from the scholars. I certainly do not want to say scholarship is wrong. I am not saying that. But I believe I can say without exception that liberals in schools for the training of the ministry are the source of the wide spread questioning of the Word of God. For years fundamental Bible believing Christians have sent their young people away to Bible schools to have the professors deny the very faith of the churches that sent them. It is a betrayal of trust and it should never have happened but it did. The result is that there are preachers in pulpits across this country that do not believe that the Bible is the verbally inspired inerrant Word of God, and because they are unbelievers in verbal inspiration, they are constantly correcting the Bible and saying things like, “This is a bad translation of the word here. It should be translated . . .” and off they go doing the same thing to the Word of God that Eve did.
Eve added to the Word of God. No one has the right or scholarship to do that. For instance, Paul was not great in his writings because he was a scholar (and he was that), his writing were great because God inspired him to write the very WORDS he wrote (1 Cor. 2:13).
THE THIRD THING IS THAT EVE ALTERED THE WORD OF GOD
God said, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (2:17).
Eve said, “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
Even altered the Word of God from, “Thou shalt surely die” to, “lest ye die.” The word “lest” could suggest a possibility but “surely” removes all doubt. God knows how to put it to remove all doubt.
Satan in the person of the serpent said, “Ye shall not surely die.” Eve altered the Word of God and the serpent questioned the Word. He is all the time casting doubt on the Word.
Now when the Word of God is altered today and the people who do it feel good about it, I wonder who makes them feel good? Satan in the serpent definitely was on the woman’s side and encouraged her to stay with her alteration of God’s Word.
Jesus is called the Word of God (John 1:1). He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). God’s Word is forever settled in heaven. Psa. 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” God is not going to change His word. What we need is not a Bible that is easy to read. We need people who are qualified to read. Let me give you some qualifications:
1.The New Birth. 1 Cor. 2:14 says, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” This is how an unsaved man treats the Word of God. God said this. An unsaved scholar cannot understand the Word of God and he will have no conscience about changing it to make in understandable to the natural man.
2.The Spiritual. 1 Cor. 2:15 says, “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.” The word “judge” means to be able to discern and make a proper analysis and come to a correct understanding. This is speaking about a saved person who is under the control of the Holy Spirit.
Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:16: “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” Paul is saying the Word of God is the mind of Christ and we have it. To alter the Word of God like Eve did is to attempt to change HIS MIND. We do not need a change in the Scriptures, they were right to start with. And the Bible does not change to adapt itself to different times and different cultures.
Eve did three things to the Word of God. She took from it, she added to it, and she altered it. People are doing the same today.
We have God’s authoritative Word in our Bible. Let’s love it and stand on the truth of it (the very words). God will feed us and sustain us in our pilgrim journey as we feed off it.
May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.
In Chirst
Bro. White
