Only One

"Only One would stand there."

THE DEVIL deceived Eve, and she began worshipping a tree. Man was made in God’s image, after His likeness, then Eve was made from man, of the breath of God in man, to be His perfect helpmeet. They walked with God, spoke directly to God, so filled with God they didn’t recognize their nakedness. The devil’s question was meant to trip them up. We are told Eve was and Adam wasn’t (1 Timothy 2:14). He sinned to be like Eve. She sinned, enamored of the false image of the tree.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:6)

It wasn’t a tree to make one wise. It was a tree of knowledge. There is a difference. They gained the knowledge. In Genesis 3:22, we read that God said, “Man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” We must keep this in its place. Sin was not a surprise to God, nor was He having to cope with it. He wasn’t angry because of it and casting a curse on mankind in a temper tantrum. All of these are incorrect. The curse came because of sin. Outside of God’s Presence, by disobeying and partaking of sin, there is no goodness of God. God told Adam this when He warned him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). If he ate of it, he knew he would die.

To give this a bigger picture, consider: God created trees bearing seeds to fall to the ground and die (John 12:24). That is how a seed grows. But at that moment of creation, there was no death on the earth. We know this because God saw the earth was VERY GOOD (Genesis 1:31). Nothing was made to die, yet God prepared it for death. Including the human body, which was designed for the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus came to earth, as a man, to give His life in order to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

What, then, brought on death? Why was Satan tempting Eve? Here is where we circle back to some uncertain time at the beginning. Because for Satan to choose to deceive Eve in order to cause her to sin, he had to have deceived himself and fallen from heaven because of sin. No perfect being, created by God, would deceive anyone without himself sinning, as God is true and perfect Truth. Jesus called Satan the father of lies (John 8:44), meaning no other being caused him to think like he did. We read his words of sin, recorded in Isaiah 14:12-14. He actually thought he would ascend to a place higher than God then sit down and rule things. Jesus told His disciples that He saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18). Here is how it worked out for him: God said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14)

Nothing gets past Almighty God, who had the plan of man’s rescue in place before man was even created. And all of it, the entirety of the plan, the weight of it, the perfection it required, was sustained by God. So confident was He, if we could put it this way to clarify it in our thinking, that even if He had to be a man, subject to death, and be put to death by man filled with sin, there was no chance of failure. He wasn’t worried about becoming an infant, dependent upon man, about growing up and learning all He needed to know, nor about what would cause His death and set Him up for Resurrection.

“He chose to reveal the truth about God—to be the Remedy—before the world was even created, but it was in these last days, for your sake, that he accomplished what he had previously chosen to do.” (1 Peter 1:20, Remedy)

And we come to the Truth of Scripture. Psalm 24:3-4 says: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” Here is the image of God that contrasts sharply with Satan’s self-deception. He had no clean hands, no pureness of heart, but was filled with vanity and deceit to think he could ascend into the hill of the Lord at all. Only One would stand there, the One who created it for His own victory, and He’d lift up man, made in His image and after His likeness, to be with Him.

“Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what He has done for us.” (Ephesians 1:3, VOICE)

Cross Image by Leo from Pixabay
Background Image by Julius H. from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com