Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
While all sin shows that we all need a Savior since sin separates us from a Holy God, not all sin affects us the same way. We all fail daily to live up to God’s perfect standard, but there are practiced sins listed in the Bible where practicing such sins will remove us from the kingdom of God.

So my concern lies in Cheryl believing that Eve could have stayed in the garden because she wasn’t a threat. This is disagree with.

Mark, where do you get the idea that the garden was where God lived? The garden was man’s home, not God’s home. God met man there because this is where man was. It is very important to pay attention to the text because it will correct our errors.

The issue is why was Adam kicked out of the garden? It wasn’t because God walked with Adam there and so Adam needed to be away from the presence of God. The text specifically says that Adam had to be kept from the tree of life so that he would not live forever in his sinful state. The text does not say that he had to be kept from the garden because that is where God was.

Eve was not kicked out of the garden because her sin separated her from God so that she could no longer be in the garden. Keeping people away from God is never, ever said in the text. I challenge you to read it again and show me where God separated Himself from man. Remember it is the man and the woman who hid from God, not the other way around. God did not hide Himself from them. He came into the garden to talk to them and confront them even though He knew that they had sinned. God did not separate Himself from their sin. He confronted them and He provided a covering for their nakedness.

So the issue of whether Eve was kicked out of the garden has to center around eating of another now forbidden fruit. It has nothing to do with walking with God or forgiveness. It has to do with obedience. Adam was willfully disobedient with the first tree that was forbidden. The very fact that God did not say that Eve may reach out her hand and take of the fruit of the tree of life reveals that there was no rebellion in her heart. Now that Eve knew the truth of her deception, there would be no problem of her obedience in obeying God’s command to not eat from the tree of life should she have stayed in the garden.

Again, please note that the issue was not the garden home. The issue was eating the fruit of the tree of life when God told them that they would die if they ate of the forbidden fruit. There was no need to banish Eve unless she had a rebellious nature. The fact is that she did not. The rebellion did not come into the world through the man and the woman. Scripture is very specific that it came through the man alone. Each was treated as an individual and if sin came through the woman as an inherited rebellion, then the Scriptures would have told us this truth.

If i understand that Eden was where God dwelt on earth with perfect sinless people, then it is incomprehensible to think Eve ‘could’ have stayed in the garden as a sinner in the presence of God.

Where do you get this from? God has always showed Himself to sinful man since all men are now sinful since the fall. The Scriptures teach us about many humans who walked with God. God did not stay away from them just because they were sinful. That may be a tradition, but it isn’t the truth of Scripture.

If God could not walk with man at all if man is sinful, then the last episode of God walking in the garden calling for the man and then speaking to Adam and Eve would not have happened. God does not hide Himself from sinful man.

You say that Eve was banished from the garden, but reason alone will not do to prove your point. Where does the text say that Eve was a threat to the tree of life or that Eve was banished from the garden? I don’t think that we are allowed to bring on Eve restrictions that God didn’t give her. The issue of restricting women outside of the text starts right from Genesis. This is one of the reasons why this blog exists. Tradition tells us that Eve was kicked out of the garden, that Eve deceived Adam into eating of the forbidden fruit and that Eve was just as sinful as Adam was. This is tradition, but it is not Scripture.

It seems far more reasonable to me that ‘the man’ is spoken to for the precise reasons we have already discussed. He ‘listened’ to his wife instead of God.

The problem with this view is that Eve is not said to have spoken to Adam when she gave him the fruit. The only voice of Eve’s that is recorded is when she was talking to the serpent. Adam “listened” to Eve talking to the serpent and he listened while she was being deceived, but he did not “listen” to his wife while she tried to convince him to eat. Adam did not say that Eve begged him to eat or convinced him to eat when God questioned him on what he did. He merely said that she gave him the fruit and he ate. If we add to the text, then we add a sinful action that is not recorded in the Scripture.

He indeed is the ‘head’ of Eve if i can throw that in. As such God deals with him in this way as the leader.

God says not one word about Adam being the leader. If this was true, then please tell me why Adam was not called to account to speak for Eve? Surely if we can add to the Scriptures that Adam was the “leader” then why did Adam not act as a leader and why did God not hold him accountable for anything other than his own sin? This is a very important point and needs to be addressed.

Thanks for your consideration in proving your view from the Scriptures. I look forward to hearing what else you have to say and the Biblical proof that you have for your view.

And yes, if anyone should be thinking why I am not sleeping, I am sleepless tonight. Hubby woke up with feeling sick from a cold and he is here reading a book while I am typing. I think this is going to catch up to us for the weekend. Hopefully we can sleep on the plane.