We weren’t there, but most of us can imagine how tickled pink Adam, the first man, was when God presented him with Eve, his wife. Genesis 2:23(NLT) tells us a little bit about his reaction, “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” Adam was no dummy. Him being the first man and all, some have presumed he must have been an uncivilized and unintelligent Neanderthal, but the Word makes it clear that this was not the case. Adam was perfect in every way, and until he sinned, he fellowshipped with God every moment of each day. He understood God’s commandment forbidding him to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Adam also understood the consequences that God laid out. Be clear that Eve was the target of the devil, and through her, satan put it into their heads that they could be like God. This arrogance led to their catastrophic down fall, and it will do the same for us.
The pinnacle of arrogance is to think that we can overlook the power of our Creator or be equal to Him and His power. It’s to attempt to compare ourselves to the Great Almighty and All-Powerful Living God who is supreme in every way, and who created all and is in all. God’s Word tells us that satan was once called Lucifer, and he was at one time the angel of light in God’s Kingdom, but he began to think himself equal to his Creator and attempted to overthrow God’s throne. The consequence of satan’s actions was that God banished him from heaven. Jesus Christ declared in Luke 10:18(NLT), “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning!”
As children of God, we are commanded to reject the arrogance and sinful actions of satan, and to reject the actions of Adam and Eve as well. God has given us the distinct and honorable privilege to imitate His love and to live through the power of it. However, we are not God. Jesus Christ taught us in Luke 6:40(ESV), “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Again, we must be like God, but we cannot be God, and we will never be above Him. It sounds redundant to make such a statement, because everyone should know this, but the reality is that most do not conduct their lives as though they do. They make themselves god over their own lives and are attempting to live independent of their Creator. It is a fruitless exercise that will end in eternal death.
God is our Father, and He created us to be His children. Try as we might to be more, we will forever and always be children. God never intended us to live independent of Him and His Word. He created us and He knows how we are to function. We desperately need His love, strength, grace, and power, and we can’t do anything without Him. When our actions convey that we are rejecting God’s sovereignty in the way that Adam and Eve did, we are denying His identity and ours. This is what Eve did in Genesis 3:13(NLT). This verse tells us God’s reaction to Eve’s colossal error: “Then the LORD God asked the woman, “What have you done?” Make no mistake, God didn’t utter these words because He was clueless about what was going on. God knows everything. He always knew Adam would be deceived and that Eve would be the conduit of satan’s plot to cause this deception. In Genesis 3:13, the Lord is conveying to us the magnitude of their loss as well as their unrecognizable spiritual appearance once God’s glory left them.
This question, “What have you done?”, might well be posed to many of us that have overlooked God’s overwhelming generosity and amazing grace. Our choice to deny our identity in Christ and to behave as if we don’t know him renders us unrecognizable. James 1:23-24(NLT) tells us, “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.” When individuals forget what they look like, they don’t remember who they belong to. They don’t see who they really are and walk around feeling lost and disconnected. This isn’t a natural state for us, but many individuals make themselves comfortable with it. When it comes to our spiritual identity in Christ, that’s not going to work.
When someone we know and love makes a mistake that can alter their lives in a very harmful way, our hearts sink because we care about them. This individual had it made. They had a good job, a nice family, good friends, and an all-around stable existence, but they canceled it all by making an unwise and severely costly mistake. It’s not hard to imagine that we, ourselves, might ask them, “What have you done?” They knew better, and we’re shocked over their poor judgment because we understand that the cost for it will be great. If we grasp the disappointment and compassion expressed for a friend who has made such a huge error in judgement, then we should be able to comprehend the heft of God’s disappointment when Eve committed the unthinkable and violated His sovereignty and Word.
God reminds us through Eve that we must be extremely careful not to forget who we are. 1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” Life on earth can be more than challenging, and we must accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, because he will continually lead and guide us to safety. Let’s not be arrogant and think that we can make it on our own. God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save us. We belong to Him, not ourselves. Surrendering to this truth is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and for a future full of hope and love that our Heavenly Father wants everyone to have. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“What Have You Done?”, written for 4theChristianMan.com© 2024. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.