“a murky spring and a polluted well” (Prov. 25:26, NKJV)
Both God and snake were speaking truthfully when they mentioned what would happen if man chooses to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The snake had said: your eyes will be opened, and God had said: you will surely die. What the snake had not mentioned was that man’s spiritual dimension would become dormant, and that his soul dimension would now be subjected to death.
The first people in the garden of Eden were thus created without self-awareness. It was not so much an issue of good and evil as it was about the knowledge thereof. The only knowledge that Man and Woman gained after the fall was an acute self-awareness that brought about shame and fear. Think for instance about how a baby is unaware of its nakedness and can thus function without any shame, and how, over time, an awareness of itself and its body develops. The opening of the eyes is often linked to sight, but in the original Hebrew it is also a metaphoric way of suggesting that it is a fountain (The Complete WordStudy Dictionary).
This image gives us a better understanding of this awareness of the self that develops, as there is an anchoring point in the self from which all kinds of things can flow, but the source only functions within the parameters of the self. The fountain is also a place where one can look at your own image as it is reflected in the water. There is thus a lot of space for distortions, interfering ripples, illusions, wrong perceptions, and more. This knowledge which is brought about by the awareness of good and evil WITHIN man, carries the fruit of the self, but in the sense of self-obsession, egocentrism, selfishness, self-interestedness; literally everything speaks only of the self. Because man loses the essential perspective of his Maker and Source of Truth when his eyes are opened, he and his distorted echoes of the self become the only reference point. And thus man’s heart has become “a den of thieves” (Mark 11:17), “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6), a spring from which both fresh and bitter water comes forth, a fruit tree that bears the wrong fruit (James 3:11-12), “a refuge of lies” (Isa. 28:17, ASV). One could also summarise it as “a murky spring and a polluted well” (Prov. 25:26).
This selfishness and self-obsession carried the seed of death. The snake had said: your eyes will be opened, and God had said: you will surely die, and both were saying the exact same thing. This awareness they developed decimated the innocence of their pre-fallen state, rendering the human condition cursed and wounded.
Thus we can understand how important this suspenseful drama in the Garden of Eden has changed the nature of man. It is the story of Adam, the first man, and the corporate father of humanity (1 Cor. 15:22a). But it is also the story of Every Man, every living soul on this earth, who choked on the fruit of selfishness and rebellion, before time. The Every Man who fell.
- Selah: Do you have any awareness of your fall, which took place before time?
- Read: 58-60
- Memorise: 58:12
