e would lead them to disobey God’s commands, and then
make them believe that they are entering a wonderful field
of knowledge. This is purely supposition, and a miserable
deception. They fail to understand what God has revealed, and
disregard his explicit commandments, and aspire after wisdom,
independent of God, and seek to understand that which he has
been pleased to withhold from mortals. They are elated with
their ideas of progression, and charmed with their own vain
philosophy; but grope in midnight darkness relative to true
knowledge. They are ever learning, and never able to come to
the knowledge of the truth.
It was not the will of God that this sinless pair should have
any knowledge of evil. He had freely given them the good, but
withheld the evil. Eve thought the words of the serpent wise, and
she received the broad assertion, “Ye shall not surely die; 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”—making
God a liar. Satan boldly insinuates that God had deceived them to
keep them from being exalted in knowledge equal with himself.
God said, If ye eat “ye shall surely die.” The serpent said, If ye
eat “ye shall not surely die.”
The tempter assured Eve that as soon as she ate of the fruit she
would receive a new and superior knowledge that would make her
equal with God. He called her attention to himself. He ate freely
of the tree and found it not only perfectly harmless, but delicious
and exhilarating; and told her that it was because of its wonderful
properties to impart wisdom and power that God had prohibited
them from tasting or even touching it; for
37
he knew its wonderful qualities. He stated that by eating of the
fruit of the tree forbidden them was the reason he had attained
the power of speech. He intimated that God would not carry out
his word. It was merely a threat to intimidate them and keep
them from great good. He further told them that they could not
die. Had they not eaten of the tree of life which perpetuates
immortality? He said that God was deceiving them to keep them
from a higher state of felicity and more exalted happiness. The
tempter plucked the fruit and passed it to Eve. She took it in
her hand. Now, said the tempter, you were prohibited from even
touching it lest you die. He told her that she would realize
no more sense of evil and death in eating than in touching or
handling the fruit. Eve was emboldened because she felt not the
immediate signs of God’s displeasure. She thought the words of
the tempter all wise and correct. She ate, and was delighted with
the fruit. It seemed delicious to her taste, and she imagined that
she realized in herself the wonderful effects of the fruit.
She then plucked for herself of the fruit and ate, and imagined
she felt the quickening power of a new and elevated existence
as the result of the exhilarating influence of the forbidden fruit.
She was in a strange and unnatural excitement as she sought
her husband, with her hands filled with the forbidden fruit. She
related to him the wise discourse of the serpent, and wished to
conduct him at once to the tree of knowledge. She told him she
had eaten of the fruit, and instead of her feeling any sense of
death, she realized a pleasing, exhilarating influence. As soon as
Eve had
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disobeyed, she became a powerful medium through which to
occasion the fall of her husband.
I saw a sadness come over the countenance of Adam. He
appeared afraid and astonished. A struggle appeared to be going
on in his mind. He told Eve he was quite certain that this was the
foe that they had been warned against; and if so, that she must die.
She assured him she felt no ill effects, but rather a very pleasant
influence, and entreated him to eat.
Adam quite well understood that his companion had
transgressed the only prohibition laid upon them as a test of their
fidelity and love. Eve reasoned that the serpent said they should
not surely die, and his words must be true, for she felt no signs of
God’s displeasure, but a pleasant influence, as she imagined the
angels felt. Adam regretted that Eve had left his side; but now the
deed was done. He must be separated from her whose society he
had loved so well. How could he have it thus? His love for Eve
was strong. And in utter discouragement he resolved to share her
fate. He reasoned that Eve was a part of himself; and if she must
die, he would die with her; for he could not bear the thought
of separation from her. He lacked faith in his merciful and
benevolent Creator. He did not think that God, who had formed
him out of the dust of the ground into a living, beautiful form,
and had created Eve to be his companion, could supply her place.
After all, might not the words of this wise serpent be correct?
Eve was before him, just as lovely and beautiful, and apparently
as innocent, as before this act of disobedience. She expressed
greater, higher love for him than before her disobedience, as the
effects of the fruit she
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had eaten. He saw in her no signs of death. She had told him of
the happy influence of the fruit, of her ardent love for him, and
he decided to brave the consequences. He seized the fruit and
quickly ate it, and, like Eve, felt not immediately its ill effects.
Eve had thought herself capable of deciding between right
and wrong. The flattering hope of entering a higher state of
knowledge had led her to think that the serpent was her especial
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friend, possessing a great interest in her welfare. Had she sought
her husband, and they had related to their Maker the words of the
serpent, they would have been delivered at once from his artful
temptation.
God instructed our first parents in regard to the tree of
knowledge, and they were fully
