GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GENESIS 3:4-5
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not ‘surely die.’ 5 For God knows that the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan lies to Eve. He does it with the curious stroke of quoting God more correctly by saying “You will not ‘surely die.’” (notice the single quotes). His words directly quote God, where Eve had said something a little different. But Satan uses these words and adds, “You will NOT!” He denies what God had promised and threatened, and sets himself above God. He is hinting to the young woman, “I know the real truth, and God has been lying to you.”
He adds to this by saying, “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat the fruit.” What does he mean by “your eyes will be opened”? He means, still lying to her, that she and her young husband have been kept in the dark about something, that God has withheld important knowledge from them.
What is this knowledge? He will circle around back to that in a moment, for first he exclaims the “reason” for this deception on the part of God, this deception that he, the mysterious serpent, has unmasked and knows all about. This “reason” is that “You (the two of you) will be like God!”
Some translations take the Hebrew word “Elohim” here as a regular plural noun, “You will be like gods!” But the devil is claiming that God doesn’t want mankind to be like him, a being who knows good and evil.
The claim seems reasonable. Hadn’t God even called the forbidden tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Eve’s certainty and trust were being picked at by the devil’s half-truths and his confusingly cruel and twisted logic. Professor Gerhard says: “The devil becomes more bold and turns the doubt of Eve into denial, and in verse 4, he completely denies God’s Word and encourages the woman toward pride.” The devil’s attacks are powerful, and they are savage.
How can a Christian stand up under that? Most attacks come from or through other human beings. They will be angry, they will boast, they will say terrible things, they will be cruel. “Be gentle in their wrath. Be humble in their boasting. Pray about their blasphemy. Be faithful under their error. Be gentle under their cruelty. Do not be like them” (Ignatius to the Ephesians 10:2).
But some attacks will be hidden, concealed, shrouded in lies. The devil seems to make a speculation: What if God were lying to you? He moves to a reason: So that you won’t become like him! And then he offers the seeming proof: “By telling you that you will surely die if you eat the fruit!” He has spun the girl around and around to confuse her.
Professor Gerhard again: “In one action, the devil accuses God’s Law of wickedness, prosecutes God for malevolence, falsely denies God’s Word, pretends to wish human beings well, and invites them to sin with a false promise of divine eminence and wisdom. On account of this, a depraved desire overtakes Eve, whose dictate she follows…”
The devil has not just planted doubt in Eve’s heart; he has begun to corrupt the whole world. He had woven a new pattern throughout the world, a wicked pattern of doubt, and disbelief, and corruption. But Paul says to us, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2). The fallen world, which in our text is in the process of falling, was taking on a sin-filled, godless pattern, a pattern that destroys and that condemns people to hell.
We have inherited this fallen, sinful nature from Eve and Adam, we live in the world’s pattern of sin and destruction. But listen to the Gospel proclaimed by one of my college professors, Pastor and Professor John Schmidt (then at Northwestern College): “By God’s grace you and I met a Savior named Jesus Christ, and we will never be the same… God makes us nonconformists (to the pattern of the world)! He renews our minds, he changes our way of thinking when we use his Word. Through his Word his Holy Spirit is able to work in us and move us to believe that his Word is true.”
This is the work of God in the hearts of sinful men and women, people like us. We don’t want to be sinners, but we are. So God sent his Son Jesus to rescue us, to forgive us. And why? Do we deserve it?
No. But don’t despair. We have not earned God’s grace, but what does he say about that? He says: “I, even I, am he who blots our your transgressions, for my own sake. I remember your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25). Don’t worry whether you deserve it, or have done enough. We’ve done nothing at all. We trust in the one who did everything because he loves us.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2026
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Genesis 3:4-5 The devil attacks