Sex or Fruit?

The Shepherd's Chapel and other proponents of this doctrine have an idea that the specific trees in the garden are also symbolic of either Jesus, the tree of life, and Satan, the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:17 - "men as trees walking."

Genesis 2:17

"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."

"The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness."

While someone objected that there are other references elsewhere in the Bible to trees as symbolic of people, the main difficulties in applying any passage to this specific case is this: will the real Satan please stand up... Is it the snake or the tree? While there are other references in the Bible where trees are symbols of personages, in this case the two - the tree and the snake - are very much distinguished in this particular story. In the actual context, the snake symbol is the only one carried through the rest of the story as Satan. It is the snake that is punished, not the tree. It is the snake that is identified as a "shining one" in the KJV Companion notes, not the tree. It is out of the mouth of the snake that the temptation is spoken, not the tree. It is the snake that is referred to as having "seed" in Genesis 3:15, not the tree.

In Revelation, it is the snake symbol, not a tree, that is explicitly defined as Satan - but where else is a tree explicitly defined as Satan? Where Jesus was raised up on the cross, identifying that moment with the bronze snake from the time of Moses, it is our Christ taking on the sins of the whole world - the sins of the snake that we have followed and copied - on the cross for our salvation.

I went back to look at God's command to Adam in Gen. 2:16-17 after some other questions about "touch and eat..." It is thought the "touch" is another sign of the sexual nature of Eve's encounter.

"The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

If eating is symbolic for sex and tree symbolic for a person then what he really saying is

You can have sex with all the other "trees" out there but you can't have sex with that one...."

God would never say that, unless polygamy is really His plan.... These new symbols seem to create all kinds of awful convolutions in the same story. (The convolutions get worse in the Babylonian Talmud... keep reading!)

Eve says in 3:3 "You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" - here she is combining the eating with the touching. God never mentioned touching - so we know she is already screwing up the exact command from God so we cannot rely on her words anymore than we can believe Satan's false hope... It's a bit like Chinese whispers... someone whispers something in your ear and you whisper it on and by the time it gets to the end it's a completely new thing.

The act of eating is simply disobediance. It doesn't have to be any more gigantic than that. It is choosing one's own morality and path away from God.

As a side observation - Satan never uses God's exact name either - what if Satan is implying that it's some other god...

In any case, the Bible says of Eve that she became "knowing" (Genesis 3:5) of good and evil. When Adam "knew" Eve (Genesis 4:1) and conceived - it means Adam had sexual relations with Eve therefore, it is thought the earlier "knowing" of good and evil was also a carnal - sexual - knowledge. In Genesis 4:1, we know the word "knew" is a sexual reference and so this is applied also to the "knowing" of good and evil. The Hebrew root is the same: Yada' - so couldn't it be carnal knowledge in both cases?

If the act of eating the fruit from the tree (representing Satan) is the sex part then how is knowing good and evil also the sex part? Let's quickly check the context:

Genesis 3:5

"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Emphasis mine).

Firstly, God never said that if they ate of the tree they would "know good and evil." God said they would surely die. The above quote is straight out of the snake's mouth so if this argument is based on the word "know" in this context, we are basing it on Satan's words, not God's words. That should be enough to make us stop in our tracks. Any time we base doctrine on any of the things that Satan says, we need to be careful!

Secondly, it is given as a secondary condition of eating the fruit. The snake uses the temptation of the knowledge of good and evil as a result of eating the fruit. But if we presuppose the actual eating of the fruit to be sex, and the resultant "knowing" is also sexual (in the same way that it is used later in Genesis 4:1), that would render the meaning: If you have sex with Satan, then after that you will be gods and have sex with Satan. Huh?!!

Thirdly - and this harkens back to the first point - Satan is represented by the snake. Eve would need to have carnal knowledge of the snake (Satan), not the tree or it's fruit.

This point convinced me Eve's sin was sexual in nature:

Genesis 3:7

"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

The Hebrew translated as "aprons" in the King James Bible means "girdle, belt, loin-covering, belt, loin-cloth, armour." If the disobedient act involved eating fruit - wouldn't it make better sense to cover their mouths rather than their loins? Doesn't the loin covering underline the fact the sin was sexual in nature rather than digestive?

So what's the answer? I prayed about it, and Ephesians popped into mind. Jump ahead to Ephesians which tells us about God's spiritual armour for Christians. One of the pieces of armour is as follows:

Ephesians 6:14

"Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth..."

Is this a coincidence? Adam and Eve cover their loins after acting on Satan's lies, the Christian spiritual armour covers the loins with truth after the Christian acts on God's truth that Christ is our redeemer king.

The term "beguile" is also in dispute - that Eve was beguiled by Satan - her words in Genesis 3:13 and the reference to 'beguile' in 2 Corinthians 11:3.

The word 'beguile' in 2 Corinthians 11:3 means to decieve. Now look at the wider context for a moment:

2 Corinthians 11:3-4

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

The context in Corinthians is nothing to do with actual sex - there are plenty of passages elsewhere it could have been mentioned if it was remotely related to sexual sin of any kind! But it is never mentioned - not even once! It is only mentioned in relation to the corruption of the mind and following false doctrine. Christ as husband expects virgins brides. This is using flesh terms to explain a spiritual matter.

Jesus returns to us the ability to say no. Not 'no' to physical sex but no to Satan's spiritual adulteries. Satan is so clever - he tells people to sell their souls for power in return but the Bible says all souls belong to God - so Satan runs around selling what isn't his just to get people into a position of despair.

On the other hand, Jude doesn't mince words when relating fornication and the going after strange flesh in Sodom & Gomorah to Genesis 6:1-9 and the arrival of the Nephilim as a result. Nothing is said of Eve and Satan where sex and going after strange flesh is concerned - absolutely nothing. This would be the perfect opportunity for its inclusion.

In Genesis, the word "Nasha'" in the Strong's Concordance, consists of Hebrew letters nun, shin, and aleph. "There appears to be two roots with these root letters, one with a basic idea of lending and the other with the basic concept of giving a false hope. The context would seem to indicate that this is an example of the second case. It is *not* plural, however. It is Hiphil Qatal, 3ms, with the 1cs suffix."

"In the hiphil, the stem means to trick or deceive, so a translation would be, "he deceived me" or..... "He was the deceiver of me..."

"...The word is used some fifteen times in the Tanakh [old testament], most of which deal with prophets (like Hezekiah) being charged with "deceiving" or "giving false hope" to their listeners. Cf 2 Kings 18:29, Jeremiah 4:10."

The serpent certainly preached (2 Corinthians 11:3) a false message and hope to Eve. From another source:

"From the NEW CENTURY DICTIONARY, a two volume set gives the definition:

"seduce (se-düs'), v. t.; -duced, -ducing.[L. seducere (pp. seduct us), ducere, lead.] To lead or draw away, as from one's chosen course, accepted principles, faith, allegiance, etc., by persuasions or inducements (as, "Cecilius... seduced others from the religion he had left," J. H. Newman's "Cellista," viii.; "The French King attempted by splendid offers to seduce him from the cause of the Republic," Macaulay's "Hist. of Eng.," ii.); win over or beguile (as, "Condé, won over and seduced by the Sirens of the Court, signed it (a peace]": Besant's "Coligny," viii.); entice (into, to, etc.: as, "Or if not drive, seduce them to our party," Milton's "Paradise Lost," .ii 368); lead astray, entice away from duty or rectitud, or Corrupt (as "Celius... tried to seduce Cesar's garrison, and was put to death for his treachery"; Froude's "Cesar," xxii.); specif, to entice (a woman) to a surrender of chastity. -- seduce'ment, n. The act of seducing, or the state of being seduced; also, a means of seducing.-- se-du'cer (-du'sêr), - se-du'ci-ble, a. Capable, of being seduced.

"We see from this definition that the Word "seduce" has to do primarily with changing ones path by deception, and can and does apply primarily to many more things than to just tricking a woman into sexual relations, which you can see here is almost a "by the way addition to the definition. The first paragraph gives the meaning and the rest are examples. Now We see in the definition below of "beguile" from the same English dictionary used above, what it's meaning is. We see here that this definition has the same meaning as does the Hebrew word nasha' (Strong's #05377) used in Genesis 3:13 and translated as "beguiled". They both mean deceived. The reference to seduction shown in Strong's is clearly referring to the deception used in seducing one and not to the act of sex itself

"be-guile (be-gil'), v. t. To work upon by guile; delude; cheat; disappoint or foil; deprive artfully (of) ; draw (into, out of etc.) as by wiles; charm or divert; while away (time) pleasantly. - be-guile'ment, n. The act of beguiling; the state of being beguiled; a beguiling agency or influence.-- be-guil'er (- gi'ler), n. -- be-guil'ing-ly, adv.

A major point for the serpent seed doctrine that comes from the Genesis section is that Satan the snake has "seed" or offspring. This underlines the fact again that Satan is the snake and not the tree.

Genesis 3:15

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed..."

It is believed through this literal seedline we have the Kenites, the sons of Cain, the son of Satan. Now look at what is missing. Let me show you the complete verse. I never noticed this before until I started to think about Satan's strategy with using scripture to decieve. He adds or subtracts from the word of God.

Genesis 3:15

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Let's take out the thy's and thous for a moment and bring them up to date:

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shalt bruise his heel."

Did you notice that? The woman's seed is referred to twice but the snake's seed only once. In the second half, it is not the seed of Satan that bruises the heel of the seed of the woman - it is Satan ("you") himself. This bears repeating for it is such an easy to miss point:

it [Christ, decended from Eve - her "seed"]
shall bruise your head [Satan's head - not the head of his descendant or "seed"],
and you [you - Satan - not his descendant or "seed"]
shalt bruise his [Christ, the seed of the woman, Eve] heel."

It is Satan who goes after Christ - the promised seed - Satan directly - not his genetic inheritance.

Why didn't I see that earlier? I was so fixated on the first part I never noticed the second part? That's what Satan does - he gets us fixated on the one forbidden tree when we have so many other trees to choose from!

So what is the seed mentioned in the first part?

Mainstream Christians argue the seed is a spiritual inheritance through the fleshy inheritance of our fathers. As I am born into this world into a flesh and blood body, going all the way back to the beginning, I am linked spiritually and physically to sin - to the original sinners that ate up Satan's lies of disobedience, pride and self-exaltation. Before regeneration in Christ, I was born in sin, and I did have Satan's spiritual inheritance in my physical body. Furthermore we know the old self and the flesh is still at war with the new spirit until Christ finally redeems our fleshly bodies too - just as His body was raised imperishable. Christ's Father is God so he is not born of a human fallen "seed". Adam was also made directly by God and did not arrive in a fallen state. Only God can plant brand new seeds to give birth to the new kingdom. Only God can raise us up like Christ with imperishable bodies.

If this isn't enough, here is another logic problem that occurred to me earlier but I mostly ignored it because the sex with Satan thing already sounded so much more logical than eating a piece of fruit. It is a little harder to understand if you do not already understand what Nephilim are.

Now, in Jude, we learn that angels who went after "strange flesh" are tied up in everlasting chains until judgement. The comparison of going after strange flesh is linked to Sodom and Gomorrha - all considered sexual in nature:

Jude 6-7

"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

What is this strange flesh? In Genesis 6:1-9 we learn that angels impregnanted human women creating a hybrid race called Nephilim. Jude also directly quotes the book of Enoch which details the origin of angel-human hybrid nephilim in Genesis 6:1-9. These hybrids were so awful that God chose to destroy all life as a result and Noah was said to be "perfect" in his generations - and there is a suggestion that it means physically (i.e. genetically) perfect for the sake of the Messianic seedline for humanity's redemption.

One more objection is that this line of thinking (the sex part) was accepted by the Jews for years.

I have discovered that the Bablyonian Talmud does follow this type of thinking - but is shown by apolagetics to be a shocking discourse of satanic deception. Why? The Babylyonian Talmud records the tradition of the elders as above other scripture but other quotes that might shock you:

"Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night (Talmud, Midrasch Talpiothe)."

Talmud, Sepher or Israel 177b: "If a Jew kills a Christian he commits no sin."

All Jewish writings are not good. The Kabalah for example is said to be a combination of Judiasm & Babylonian witchcraft - a favored book by the Mason cult. A Messianic Minister of Jewish background confirmed "the talmud is of hell. yes. I agree."

Other quotes:

"Rabbi Eleasar further stated: "What is meant by the Scripture text, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh?' This teaches that Adam had intercourse with every beast and animal but found no satisfaction until he cohabited with Eve (Talmud, Yebamoth, 63a)."

"Now it is alleged that Adam and Eve were given permission by God to freely "eat" [have connection] with these non-human beasts, but told not to "eat" or have connection with the beast that was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. "

"This means God approved sex with animals, adultery and or free love."

It seems someone else is finding the same horrible convolutions of scripture that I am once you start accepting this doctrine! The Nazis dipped into this book (Bablyonian Talmud) so I have serious problems with this as a valid source!

The Companion Bible notes says the "snake" was probably a shining angel - I have no difficulty with that. It doesn't say Eve had sex with him. You'd be more easily deceived by a shining angel than a snake but again it is a separate entity from the tree.

Joseph Smith saw the angel Moroni and created Mormonism. Muhummad obtained the Koran from angel "Gabriel" - Which shows us in utter clarity that Eve isn't the first to see a powerful figure such as an angel, and be convinced by its words alone. This is why the writers in the Epistles warn that if even an angel should preach another gospel - do not believe them. Remember all the times in scripture an angel appears and the humans bow down to worship?

You see - it's the knowledge of good and evil that is the real focus - the defining feature compared to the other trees. It's about opting for a morality that is not God's morality - one's own creaturely morality.

Complaint: So they ate a piece of fruit and mankind is doomed... how lame is that?

Think about this question: how did Satan become Satan? What made him fall? If you can solve this mystery, you can probably solve the symbolism of the fruit. It occurred to me that the fruit could also be symbolic, but not of sex - rather of believing lies based on self-perception and a preference to have one's own creaturely mortality, separate from God. "I'm a good person, I don't need God."

Proverbs 18:8 compares gossip (which can be spoken slanderous words) to food - "choice morsels." Jesus says nothing that a man eats makes him unclean (Matthew 15:11a).

We also know that man cannot live by bread alone but by everything that comes out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)... So if we are feasting on Satan's lies and our own desire to be our own number one, instead of the words of God, we will surely die! It is possible we already knew good from evil before Satan suggested it. Isn't it just like Satan to take something we already have and dress it up in lies? He offered Christ all the kingdoms of the world - but how dumb is that? Christ is God - ruler of the whole universe! I bet you he'd sell the Brooklyn Bridge or the stars in the heavens if you're willing to pay!

In which case the covering up is also primarily a spiritual problem rather than purely physical - otherwise Adam and Eve would have been too embarrassed to have children later on... (and every husband and wife since, not to mention all the porn stars and all the folk that hang out on nude beaches). God covers them instead with animals skins and some suggest this represents the first animal sacrifice or shed blood for their sins (by the later Mosaic law - a mere temporary measure of animal sacrifice until Jesus comes as our perfect sacrifice). Another symbol.