Why did the serpent say, "You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5)?

But, it is important to observe the mode in which the serpent sought to shake Eve's confidence in God's troth, and thus bring her under the power of infidel "reason." It was by shaking her confidence in God's love. He sought to shake her confidence in what God had said by showing that the testimony was not founded in love. "For," said he, "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." (Ver. 6.) In other words, "There is positive advantage connected with the eating of that fruit of which God is seeking to deprive you; why, therefore, should you believe God's testimony? you cannot place confidence in one who, manifestly, does not love you, for, if He loved you, why should He prohibit your enjoying a positive privilege?'

The first was the questioning of Divine Revelation. "Yea, has God said?" were his words. He knew that if once the word of God were weakened in the woman's mind a breach would be made in the walls of defence. Notice that he misquoted the words in order to question it, "Yea, has God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The woman corrected his misquotation but herself exaggerated the Divine prohibition, adding the words, "neither shall ye touch it," to what God had said. This proved that the poison of doubt had begun to work in her mind.

Following up this initial advantage the serpent said, "Ye shall not surely die," thus denying the threatened penalty of ruin and death and giving the lie direct to God. He represented God's judgment as being but an idle threat.

Thus far the serpent had dealt in negatives, but now he comes to a positive assertion and dangles before the woman's mind a tempting bait. "Ye shall be as gods," were the words by which he asserted deity for man as the result of disobedience, and he insinuated that God knew that this would be the result of their eating of the forbidden tree, and that the real reason why the prohibition was given was that He desired to withhold from them this coveted prize from motives of jealousy.

But knowledge is not truth received in the love of it from God. Eve well knew and could tell the tempter the liberty given as to all other fruit, and the penalty for partaking of the one forbidden tree. Yet she ventured to hear what the serpent had to say when there was already the proof that he was by his question impugning divine goodness. Did not He delight in their happiness? From Whom came their most bountiful provision? Was she cherishing dependence on Him, or confidence in Him? How worthless is knowledge which issues not in grateful praise and simple-hearted obedience! Still more, if it leave one free to distrust Him! Alas! unbelief has grown apace since Eve.

Emboldened by his crafty success the enemy advances. "And the serpent said to the woman, Ye will not surely die; but God knoweth that, in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes will be opened and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil" (vers. 4, 5). It is no longer insinuation against His good will, but open assault on His truth. And it is the same lie which beguiles mankind ever since. Death is hidden diligently from men's eyes; and when it cannot be, its import is explained away. People are willingly ignorant, and are earnest only to enjoy the present. Let us eat and drink, and tomorrow go here or there and get gain. Ah! ye know not what will be on the morrow; but certain it is, now that man is fallen, it is appointed to men once to die and after this judgment. But men lend a ready ear to him who deceived Eve, and, though unable to deny, believe it not: else that dark shadow would paralyse their pursuits and poison their pleasures. For the sting of death is sin, of which all are guilty; and into judgment for all their sins must come those who believe not in the Lord Jesus for remission.

Further, the serpent held out as a bribe the good of evil. In eating the forbidden fruit, your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil. God is jealous; I am your friend. He would keep you ignorant and in leading strings. Take my advice: be independent and know for yourselves as He does. As he veiled the doom of transgression, so did he set off the bribe in glowing colours; and as Eve stayed to listen, she was tainted with his pestilent breath. She received the lying foe as her best friend when his slander of the living and true God entered her heart. Open sin and ruin followed without delay.

Having gained this initial advantage the serpent struck a far heavier blow, as recorded in verse 4. He boldly denied the word of God. God had plainly stated that if man disobeyed he would involve himself in ruin and death as an inevitable consequence. The serpent denied that any such consequence would follow.

Then he supported this denial by the audacious assertion that the real reason for the prohibition was that God knew that if man partook of the forbidden tree he would be immensely elevated — he would have his eyes opened, knowing good and evil and becoming "as gods." Though he would not become the Lord God, yet he would become an independent being and an object of veneration himself. Thus he blackened the Divine character, representing God as desiring to prevent man being a possible rival to Himself, and to keep him from what was to his advantage. He practically asserted that deity in a modified form was a possibility for man.

309 Let us see the next step. God has lost His character in the heart of man; all man's confidence in God is gone: and Satan the liar and arch-deceiver is believed. Now the devil can say whatever he likes, he having the confidence of the heart instead of God "God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, they your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," v. 5. He began by insinuating that God knew the fruit would make her happy, but grudged to give it; then he questioned the truthfulness of God; now he adds, ye shall be as gods," tempting man to assume the privileges of God Himself.*

Let us see the next step. God has lost His character in the heart of man; all man's confidence in God is gone; and Satan the liar and arch-deceiver is believed. Now, the devil can say whatever he likes, he having the confidence of the heart, instead of God. 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" (v. 5). He began by insinuating that God knew the fruit would make her happy, but grudged to give it; then, he questioned the truthfulness of God; now, he adds, "ye shall be as gods," tempting man to assume the privileges of God Himself.

We shall behold, in this transaction, the first Adam denying virtually God's grace, truth, and majesty; and in the second Man we are to see them vindicated and honoured; for "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," the majesty of Jehovah being also manifested in Him. Let us now see how Satan and man dealt with God's truth, love, and majesty. God, as it has been observed, bestowed all favours on this man, made him an example to all the universe of His manifested love, and gave him just one command, that man might have the opportunity of shewing his sense of the favours of God by an easy observance of it. Satan comes and says to this effect: Did God say so and so? Do not you believe Him; He did not tell you the truth. God knows He has kept the only good away from you; do not trust Him. He does not mean it for your good; He means a lie; He means to deceive you. He is only keeping it from you because He knows well that if you eat of it, you will be as God, "knowing good and evil." Here then was the temptation to distrust God, to doubt His love, and to assume the privileges of God Himself: "Ye shall be as gods."

Let us now inquire how far Adam and Eve realised the serpent's promised advantage. This inquiry will lead us to a deeply important point in connection with the fall of man. The Lord God had so ordered it, that in and by the fall, man should get, what previously, he had not, and that was, a conscience, a knowledge of both good and evil. This, man, evidently, could not have had before. He could not have known ought about evil, inasmuch as evil was not there to be known. He was in a state of innocence, which is a state of ignorance of evil. Man got a conscience in, and by, fall; and we find that the very first effect of conscience was to make him a coward. Satan had utterly deceived the woman. He had said, "your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil! But he had left out a material part of the truth, that they should know good, without the power to do it; and that they should know evil, without the power to avoid it. Their very attempt to elevate themselves in the scale of moral existence, involved the lose of true elevation. They became degraded, powerless, Satan-enslaved, conscience-smitten, terrified, creatures. "The eyes of them both were opened," no doubt; but alas! to what a sight! It was only to discover their own nakedness. They opened their eyes upon their own condition, which was "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." "They knew that they were naked" — sad fruit of the tree of knowledge! It was not any fresh knowledge of divine excellence they had attained, no fresh beam of divine light from the pure and eternal fountain thereof — alas! no; the very earliest result of their disobedient effort after knowledge, was the discovery, that they were naked.

God has warned man of the consequences of sin, as Adam, "in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." But Satan, who seeks always to deny the righteousness of God, says to the woman, "ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Nor was this altogether untrue. The fall has rendered man much more intelligent relatively to good and evil. But Satan hid from man that he should be separated from God and have a bad conscience. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons" (v. 7). They acquired a knowledge that shewed them their nakedness, which they strove to conceal from the eyes of themselves and each other. All that is brought near us appears to us more important and greater than what is still far off. The forbidden tree being near Eve, and the judgment of God being distant, she took of the fruit, and ate.

Satan took immediate advantage of the woman's indecision. It might have been different if she had firmly declared just what God had said, but now Satan seizes the opportunity of flatly denying the word of God: "You surely shall not die" (v.4). Then he adds what was at least partially true, "For God knows that in the day you eat from it you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (v.5). In eating of the tree they would be "like God", only in the fact of knowing good and evil, not in the fact of refusing evil and doing only good. Satan himself had fallen simply because of his aspiration to "be like the Most High" (Isa.14:14), so that he knows how to appeal to the pride of the creature.