Two lies are stated in Gen. 3.4-5, both of them subtle. The first is explicit but technical so as to deceive: “you shall not surely die” (KJV). While the pair, after eating did not die physically at once, that very day they died. Here are two reasons: 1. They needed a remedy since they were now alienated from God (by hiding) and from themselves (tried to cover their nakedness). After this sin, and the subsequent judgment of 3.14-19-(notice the Lord is speaking to them as normally as any earthly judge-a preincarnate theophany of the Eternal Son), in His mercy He clothed them with animal skins which involved an innocent victim (the foreshadowed substitute). 2. Paul tells the Christians in Eph. 2.1–“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” Here the apostle says to the living before they believed, they were in some sense “dead”, so a death occurred at the fall.

The focus of this post is another lie, though even more subtle, implied in vs. 5: “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The hint is ‘that God is holding out on them’ with the idea that God is not sharing, or put another way, that God is not all good. God’s ultimate goodness is in question. It’s an accusation against God. This was the first accusation and all others follow. The devil is not merely “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12.10).