Did God Really Say?
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” — Genesis 3:1 (NIV)
The first words we hear from the serpent in Scripture are four words that have been remarkably effective ever since: “Did God really say?”
He doesn’t slither into Genesis 3 and tell Eve, Go eat the fruit. He doesn’t begin with, God is lying to you, or even, You shouldn’t trust God. That would have been a little obvious. Instead, he asks a question.
Genesis tells us that the serpent was “crafty.” The Hebrew word is ‘arum, and there is an intentional wordplay happening between Genesis 2 and 3. Genesis 2:25 has just told us that Adam and Eve were “naked”—‘arummim—and unashamed. Then Genesis 3:1 introduces the serpent as ‘arum—crafty. The words sound strikingly similar in Hebrew, and the contrast sets the scene. The man and woman are naked, innocent, and unashamed; the serpent is crafty, subtle, and deceptive. They have no reason to suspect what is coming. He knows exactly what he is doing.
And what he does first is attack their confidence in God’s Word.
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1, NIV).
Well, no. God had said almost exactly the opposite. His command began with generosity: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden” (Genesis 2:16, NIV). There was one prohibition concerning one tree (Genesis 2:17). An entire garden was theirs to enjoy, and Satan managed to frame God as stingy because of the one thing He had withheld.
It is a very old trick, and, if we are honest, we remain very susceptible to it.
The serpent wants Eve looking at the one boundary instead of the abundance surrounding it. He wants her wondering whether God is keeping something good from her. Because if he can make God’s command look less like the instruction of a good Creator and more like an unreasonable restriction, obedience starts to feel a lot less necessary.
Then the attack becomes more direct. When Eve repeats God’s warning that eating the fruit will result in death, the serpent answers, “You will not certainly die” (Genesis 3:4, NIV).
There it is… God has spoken. The serpent says God’s Word is not true.
Then he supplies an alternative explanation:
“God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5, NIV).
In other words, God has an ulterior motive. He is withholding something from you. You would actually be better off if you stopped listening to Him.
Notice how quickly the question has moved. Did God really say it? Did He really mean it? Is what He said actually true? And even if it is, is obeying Him really best for you?
Genesis 3:6 tells us what happens next. Eve “saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (NIV). Adam was there with her, and they ate.
They stopped allowing God's Word to interpret what they saw and began allowing what they saw to determine whether God's Word could be trusted.
We still do this. God says one thing, but then we look around and the circumstances appear to say something else. God’s way looks restrictive. His timing looks wrong. His command seems unnecessarily difficult. Someone else appears perfectly happy ignoring Him. The thing He has forbidden looks pretty good from where we are standing. Or the thing He has promised seems nowhere to be found.
And somewhere in there comes the age old question: Did God really say?
Did God really say He would provide? Did God really say obedience is better? Did God really say I should forgive them? Did God really say this is sin? Did God really say I can trust Him? Did God really say He is working even here?
Sometimes the competing voice is the culture. Sometimes it is social media, where thousands of strangers are available around the clock to tell us what should make us happy, what we deserve, who we should become, what our lives should look like, and which biblical convictions are terribly outdated. A tremendous resource for recipes and dog videos; perhaps a less reliable authority on eternal truth.
And sometimes the loudest competing voice is simply our own — We look. We feel. We reason. We decide what makes the most sense to us, and before long we have put ourselves in the same position Adam and Eve did: standing in judgment over the Word of God instead of allowing the Word of God to judge what is true.
James describes the progression of temptation this way:
“each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin” (James 1:14–15, NIV).
The fruit did not suddenly become good because Eve wanted it. Desire simply made the serpent’s lie easier to believe. That is why what we do with God’s Word matters so much.
When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus answered him with Scripture: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, NIV). Where Adam and Eve questioned God's Word and reached for what looked good to them, Jesus trusted the Father and stood on what God had said.
The answer to “Did God really say?” is not found by staring harder at the fruit— It is found by knowing what God actually said.
We need Scripture when circumstances agree with it, and perhaps even more when they don’t. We need it when obedience makes sense and when we cannot understand why God would ask this of us. We need it when every other voice is telling us that surely God could not have meant what He said.
Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17, NIV).
Not Your Word feels true when everything around me confirms it.His Word is truth.
The serpent’s question has not changed much since Eden. Neither has the temptation behind it. We can trust what God has said, or we can decide that what we see, want, feel, and understand is a more reliable authority.
Adam and Eve chose the second…We know how that went.
bytaylormcgee
