Why Did Adam Eat the Fruit His Wife Gave Him?
You might think this is impossible to know but it is possible! It is amenable to Biblical discernment. As we elaborate the answer we will see that many verses in the Bible encourage by agreement our developing conclusion. This is how we can know that we are still on the right track. And of course the answer to a question as fundamental as this will tell us a lot about the world, the state of fallen mankind, and most importantly, about Christ in His difference from the first man Adam.
This study is particularly for those who are already familiar with the Bible, and have true faith in Christ. Otherwise there's no way you're going to agree.
We start not in Genesis but in 1 Timothy 2:14!
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."
The key here is that Adam was not deceived. That means he ate the fruit knowingly. Now we must go back to Genesis. When God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Eve had not yet been made. God never told Eve directly not to eat the fruit and I believe this is how it was possible for her to be deceived. The Bible also does not tell us that Adam conveyed this commandment to Eve. Perhaps what we have is a principle similar to the discussion of tithing in Hebrews, where Levi is said to have paid tithes in Abraham because when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, Levi was yet in the loins of Abraham. Like Russian nesting dolls, Levi was in Abraham before he was born so when Abraham paid, Levi might be said to have paid also. Eve was not a descendant of Adam and she had also not yet been made by God, but the rib which God would make into her was yet in Adam. So might the same principle apply? That God, in commanding Adam, also commanded Eve who was in Adam? This concept is preserved in our English language, or at least it was until recently when feminism worked to change things. When we speak of "man" we mean men and women collectively. Man is a collective term but it is also a particular term, a man. In Greek, "man" and "a man" are identical since there is no definite article. The absence of the definite article serves the function of the indefinite article. Thus "man" and "a man" are identical. This is interesting because we find the number of the beast is the number of man/a man, which fact I am sure contains a hidden treasure of understanding. Adam means man in Hebrew. So Adam can certainly refer to both Adam and Eve in one ("man" in the sense of mankind) and Adam as a male person ("man" in the sense of "a man"). So this fits the interpretation of God's command being to "mankind" including Eve before she was made, and, in fact, to all subsequent people! Jesus went back to the Garden when teaching about divorce, therefore could this be the summation of the law of faith that applies even today? An original point at which law and faith converge since this command is essentially to believe God rather than lean on one's own understanding and try to chart one's own course by means of the knowledge of good and evil.
Anyway, Eve was deceived but Adam was not deceived and this brings us to our central question. If Adam was not deceived, why did He choose to disobey God and eat the fruit that the woman gave him? He was not deceived so he knew that it would bring death of a certainty, and he also knew that the woman had already eaten of it. So she was a goner and he knew it. So we, as men, can understand the only reason he would have eaten it.
To save his wife.
Adam thought to become the Saviour of his wife. But he knew it would also mean disobeying God and dying himself. So he might have thought he could grab his wife in death, in some way absorb her back into himself, and then raise himself and her up together.
And isn't this the Gospel? But that was done by the last Adam and not by the first man Adam! The first man Adam must have learned to his great disappointment that it is impossible for him, without God, to raise himself from the dead. So the alternative is to avoid bodily death. Perhaps there is still some necessary component of absorbing or combining the male and female, and this certainly puts the transgender movement in a new light of significance, but the key, and the mark of the beast, will have to do with bodily immortality.
"And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgement:" Heb 9:27
If Adam (man) can avoid death, he can avoid judgment and live with authority from the devil over the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matt 4:8-9). But God's appointment can't be evaded (Matt 4:10).
It reminds me of how John in heaven saw the sealed scroll and "wept much". It is as if he saw the present evil world continuing without an end, sin and corruption mounting up endlessly, because man did not die bodily and was not judged. But Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, overcame, and He is worthy to unloose the seals and to read the scroll. What is on the scroll? The judgments of God! If not for Jesus' overcoming, the judgments of God would remain sealed forever!
That is why John "wept much" before the victory of Jesus was revealed. The book of Revelation truly tells us that Jesus has destroyed the devil.
But to go back to the first man Adam. You see there is a choice, to repent to God or to continue on. Once Adam realizes he cannot raise himself from the dead, he cannot restore his wife and himself to God as he originally intended, he can either repent or harden his heart and come up with a plan B. The plan B is the plan of the antichrist to avoid death and judgment and live forever in the flesh with the woman, alienated from God. These are the children of wrath and we are all born into this pathway and the way of thinking it entails. But there are those who repent and realize, "I never should have thought I could save her and myself. I never should have eaten the fruit. I never should have disobeyed God." And these trust in the goodness of God and wait for the revelation of His salvation. Even though I have sinned and died to God, yet God will save me because He Is Who He Is. These are those who have heard and learned of the Father, and come to Jesus that they might be saved (John 6:45)!
So we see the first man Adam and the last Adam. Those in the last Adam shall be saved, but those who remain in the first man Adam shall die the second death.
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Mark 8:35
Again considering the first man Adam, as soon as he went into death as a result of eating the fruit, things turned out in a way he had not anticipated. His wife, whom he had died to save, did not agree with him or see him as her saviour. She would not follow him but subtly worked against him as an enemy or an oppressor, making him bitter against her. Why would this woman not understand his good intentions towards her and his mission to save her? She saw his effort to save her as an offense against her, since it implied she needed saving and was a second class citizen compared to him. She had been deceived but except for those women who become fellow-heirs of the grace of life, she never overcame that deception, but still believes that the fruit makes her wise, conscious, and like a god.
It is interesting that as God spoke to Adam but not directly to Eve, so the serpent spoke directly to Eve but not to Adam. If Adam represents spirit and Eve, flesh, then we see the importance of the headship of Adam. God is Spirit and communicates by His Spirit to our spirit, but the devil communicates to our carnal mind. So the Spirit must lead the flesh, as the Scripture says, they that are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. Yet it is not man who is the Spirit but the Lord Christ. He is the head of the man. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes the man's spirit free from the dominion of sin in the flesh, and thus the man's spirit can rule over his flesh in headship (Rom 8:2).
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal 2:20
So the woman will not submit to the man who wants to save her, and the man becomes bitter against the woman for this very reason. So we see in Revelation the ugly picture of how this works out. The Whore of Babylon, the ultimate feminist, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and the Beast, whose horns hate the Whore, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire (Rev 17:16). This is the picture of the outworked and soon-coming state of man and woman who remain in the first man Adam. Not to say that women only compose the Whore and men only compose the Beast--no. Many men are Jezebel's eunuchs and they are part of the Whore. I have seen a video on youtube of a conflict between the Beast and the Whore, and both sides are represented by individuals who are men in the flesh. Likewise, many women are part of the Beast rather than the Whore.
The burning of the Whore is the judgment of God (Rev 18:8), though it is effected by the horns of the Beast. God has put it in their hearts to agree, to bring about His judgment. It seems to me that this is result of the bitterness of man at the contrariness of the woman whom he tried to save. He is so bitter at the fact that he failed to save her, and he believes he failed to save her because of her. So he turns against her and then he tries to make himself life forever in the body so as to escape the judgment of God.
But even after his original sin of eating the fruit against God's commandment in order to try to save the woman himself, he should have recognized that the reason the woman turned against him is because she herself had eaten the fruit! That is what her death looks like: she desires to rule over her husband, she sits upon the beast and it carries her. So the fault belongs to Adam that he would be bitter against his wife! If he wanted to save her he had to realize that part of what he is saving her from is within her, controlling her to make her want what makes her his enemy! But the first man Adam did not have the power to bear her sins and to lay down his life and take it up again. This commandment, to lay His life down and take it up again was given to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord from heaven who was sent by His Father. But the first man Adam who was of the earth and earthy, sinned against God, and did not receive this commandment and so he could not bear the sins of his wife unto death as Jesus Christ bore the sins of the whole world. We experience this power of sin in the lives of unbelievers when we preach the Gospel to them. We know that people oppose the Gospel right up until they get saved! That's why we must love our enemies. They are under the power of the devil, and until they believe the Gospel, they walk according to the course of this world, obeying the lusts of flesh and mind. Jesus came to set the captives free (Luke 4:17-22).
Thanks and Praise be to the Lord Jesus that He overcame and is worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof (Rev 5:7-10), to bring the judgment of God so that this present evil world may pass away and the new world come, wherein will be peace like a river and righteousness as the waves of the sea.
This study is particularly for those who are already familiar with the Bible, and have true faith in Christ. Otherwise there's no way you're going to agree.
We start not in Genesis but in 1 Timothy 2:14!
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."
The key here is that Adam was not deceived. That means he ate the fruit knowingly. Now we must go back to Genesis. When God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Eve had not yet been made. God never told Eve directly not to eat the fruit and I believe this is how it was possible for her to be deceived. The Bible also does not tell us that Adam conveyed this commandment to Eve. Perhaps what we have is a principle similar to the discussion of tithing in Hebrews, where Levi is said to have paid tithes in Abraham because when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, Levi was yet in the loins of Abraham. Like Russian nesting dolls, Levi was in Abraham before he was born so when Abraham paid, Levi might be said to have paid also. Eve was not a descendant of Adam and she had also not yet been made by God, but the rib which God would make into her was yet in Adam. So might the same principle apply? That God, in commanding Adam, also commanded Eve who was in Adam? This concept is preserved in our English language, or at least it was until recently when feminism worked to change things. When we speak of "man" we mean men and women collectively. Man is a collective term but it is also a particular term, a man. In Greek, "man" and "a man" are identical since there is no definite article. The absence of the definite article serves the function of the indefinite article. Thus "man" and "a man" are identical. This is interesting because we find the number of the beast is the number of man/a man, which fact I am sure contains a hidden treasure of understanding. Adam means man in Hebrew. So Adam can certainly refer to both Adam and Eve in one ("man" in the sense of mankind) and Adam as a male person ("man" in the sense of "a man"). So this fits the interpretation of God's command being to "mankind" including Eve before she was made, and, in fact, to all subsequent people! Jesus went back to the Garden when teaching about divorce, therefore could this be the summation of the law of faith that applies even today? An original point at which law and faith converge since this command is essentially to believe God rather than lean on one's own understanding and try to chart one's own course by means of the knowledge of good and evil.
Anyway, Eve was deceived but Adam was not deceived and this brings us to our central question. If Adam was not deceived, why did He choose to disobey God and eat the fruit that the woman gave him? He was not deceived so he knew that it would bring death of a certainty, and he also knew that the woman had already eaten of it. So she was a goner and he knew it. So we, as men, can understand the only reason he would have eaten it.
To save his wife.
Adam thought to become the Saviour of his wife. But he knew it would also mean disobeying God and dying himself. So he might have thought he could grab his wife in death, in some way absorb her back into himself, and then raise himself and her up together.
And isn't this the Gospel? But that was done by the last Adam and not by the first man Adam! The first man Adam must have learned to his great disappointment that it is impossible for him, without God, to raise himself from the dead. So the alternative is to avoid bodily death. Perhaps there is still some necessary component of absorbing or combining the male and female, and this certainly puts the transgender movement in a new light of significance, but the key, and the mark of the beast, will have to do with bodily immortality.
"And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgement:" Heb 9:27
If Adam (man) can avoid death, he can avoid judgment and live with authority from the devil over the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matt 4:8-9). But God's appointment can't be evaded (Matt 4:10).
It reminds me of how John in heaven saw the sealed scroll and "wept much". It is as if he saw the present evil world continuing without an end, sin and corruption mounting up endlessly, because man did not die bodily and was not judged. But Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, overcame, and He is worthy to unloose the seals and to read the scroll. What is on the scroll? The judgments of God! If not for Jesus' overcoming, the judgments of God would remain sealed forever!
That is why John "wept much" before the victory of Jesus was revealed. The book of Revelation truly tells us that Jesus has destroyed the devil.
But to go back to the first man Adam. You see there is a choice, to repent to God or to continue on. Once Adam realizes he cannot raise himself from the dead, he cannot restore his wife and himself to God as he originally intended, he can either repent or harden his heart and come up with a plan B. The plan B is the plan of the antichrist to avoid death and judgment and live forever in the flesh with the woman, alienated from God. These are the children of wrath and we are all born into this pathway and the way of thinking it entails. But there are those who repent and realize, "I never should have thought I could save her and myself. I never should have eaten the fruit. I never should have disobeyed God." And these trust in the goodness of God and wait for the revelation of His salvation. Even though I have sinned and died to God, yet God will save me because He Is Who He Is. These are those who have heard and learned of the Father, and come to Jesus that they might be saved (John 6:45)!
So we see the first man Adam and the last Adam. Those in the last Adam shall be saved, but those who remain in the first man Adam shall die the second death.
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Mark 8:35
Again considering the first man Adam, as soon as he went into death as a result of eating the fruit, things turned out in a way he had not anticipated. His wife, whom he had died to save, did not agree with him or see him as her saviour. She would not follow him but subtly worked against him as an enemy or an oppressor, making him bitter against her. Why would this woman not understand his good intentions towards her and his mission to save her? She saw his effort to save her as an offense against her, since it implied she needed saving and was a second class citizen compared to him. She had been deceived but except for those women who become fellow-heirs of the grace of life, she never overcame that deception, but still believes that the fruit makes her wise, conscious, and like a god.
It is interesting that as God spoke to Adam but not directly to Eve, so the serpent spoke directly to Eve but not to Adam. If Adam represents spirit and Eve, flesh, then we see the importance of the headship of Adam. God is Spirit and communicates by His Spirit to our spirit, but the devil communicates to our carnal mind. So the Spirit must lead the flesh, as the Scripture says, they that are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. Yet it is not man who is the Spirit but the Lord Christ. He is the head of the man. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes the man's spirit free from the dominion of sin in the flesh, and thus the man's spirit can rule over his flesh in headship (Rom 8:2).
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal 2:20
So the woman will not submit to the man who wants to save her, and the man becomes bitter against the woman for this very reason. So we see in Revelation the ugly picture of how this works out. The Whore of Babylon, the ultimate feminist, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and the Beast, whose horns hate the Whore, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire (Rev 17:16). This is the picture of the outworked and soon-coming state of man and woman who remain in the first man Adam. Not to say that women only compose the Whore and men only compose the Beast--no. Many men are Jezebel's eunuchs and they are part of the Whore. I have seen a video on youtube of a conflict between the Beast and the Whore, and both sides are represented by individuals who are men in the flesh. Likewise, many women are part of the Beast rather than the Whore.
The burning of the Whore is the judgment of God (Rev 18:8), though it is effected by the horns of the Beast. God has put it in their hearts to agree, to bring about His judgment. It seems to me that this is result of the bitterness of man at the contrariness of the woman whom he tried to save. He is so bitter at the fact that he failed to save her, and he believes he failed to save her because of her. So he turns against her and then he tries to make himself life forever in the body so as to escape the judgment of God.
But even after his original sin of eating the fruit against God's commandment in order to try to save the woman himself, he should have recognized that the reason the woman turned against him is because she herself had eaten the fruit! That is what her death looks like: she desires to rule over her husband, she sits upon the beast and it carries her. So the fault belongs to Adam that he would be bitter against his wife! If he wanted to save her he had to realize that part of what he is saving her from is within her, controlling her to make her want what makes her his enemy! But the first man Adam did not have the power to bear her sins and to lay down his life and take it up again. This commandment, to lay His life down and take it up again was given to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord from heaven who was sent by His Father. But the first man Adam who was of the earth and earthy, sinned against God, and did not receive this commandment and so he could not bear the sins of his wife unto death as Jesus Christ bore the sins of the whole world. We experience this power of sin in the lives of unbelievers when we preach the Gospel to them. We know that people oppose the Gospel right up until they get saved! That's why we must love our enemies. They are under the power of the devil, and until they believe the Gospel, they walk according to the course of this world, obeying the lusts of flesh and mind. Jesus came to set the captives free (Luke 4:17-22).
Thanks and Praise be to the Lord Jesus that He overcame and is worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof (Rev 5:7-10), to bring the judgment of God so that this present evil world may pass away and the new world come, wherein will be peace like a river and righteousness as the waves of the sea.
