Bible Questions and Answers

There was a reason why the creation was described as "good" and "very good". It was not described as perfect.

Perfection would have been achieved, I think, when Adam and Eve consciously decided to obey God of their own freewill. Enter the Serpent. It was a specially created serpent with the ability to reason and speak - Genesis 3:1.

The serpent represented the thinking of the flesh which is always at enmity with the things of the Spirit. See Romans chapter 8. The fleshly thinking of the serpent was inserted to provide Adam and Eve to choose.  Note that the elements of the temptations are precisely the same as those that afflict us today:

Genesis 3:6 compared with 1 John 2:15-17

• the tree was good for food (the lust of the flesh)
• pleasant to the eyes (the lust of the eyes)
• a tree to be desired to make one wise (the pride of life)

Genesis 3:6 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.

1 John 2:15-17 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Jesus redressed the balance in that, like Adam (see Luke 3:38), he was the son of God, he did not strive for "equality with God." He turned from the flesh and in trials and tribulations infinitely more difficult than that presented to our first parents, overcame the flesh and so made it possible for us to have an opportunity of life.

Philippians 2:5-11 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6  who, though he was in the form [i.e. image... like Adam] of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [like Eve taking the fruit], 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I hope you have found this helpful.

God bless,
Mike