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We usually think of Adam and Eve's fall as two people who finally only ate a fruit that was on a tree.
God had told Adam not to eat it, but Adam and Eve did not obey. As a result, a whole series of consequences followed, which continue to this day.
Evil enters into human thought: murder, wickedness, selfishness, thirst for personal glory, etc... so many ways of thinking that have penetrated human thought ejecting them from the position in the image of God to which they were subjected.
Could a tree, a fruit as we know them today have transformed man so much?
Could simply eating, that is, nourishing themselves with fruit, have changed man so much?
Was this fruit poisoned? Did it contain any substance that could have killed humans?
When we look a little closer at the passage from the book of Genesis, we can find some answers that will enlighten us. We can then see that this episode of the fall in the book of Genesis is a little more vivid than we might think.
Would that mean that not everything really happened as the book of Genesis tells us?
Not at all!
The Bible is not a book that tells stories outside of reality. All these writings of books constituting the Bible are the most real and true. In the same way that Jesus sometimes spoke using parables, we can sometimes read passages that were written in a style using images. But these images do not take anything away from the reality and consequences that the story tells.
In this context it is interesting to see that some words can sometimes have several meanings. For example when we read:
Genesis 2: 8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
The word translated as "planted" is in the original NATA. It certainly gives a plantation, but also the fact of establishing something.
The original word translated as "garden" is GAN. This word certainly means garden, enclosure, but also in its figurative form: a bride.
If we continue our reading, we come to the word translated by "Eden" which is also in the original: EDEN. This word gives the notion of pleasure, of delights, something precious, something delicate, like an ornament. This Garden of Eden would therefore not only be a physical place.
Then Moses tells us in his book of Genesis that God planted this garden on the east side. Here again the orient in the original is the word QEDEM. This word certainly describes a terrestrial position (ancient southeast), but it can also mean: what is first, what comes from the past, the beginning.
We can now realize that when God planted a garden in Eden near the east, we can find the image that shows us that God established His bride who is a perfect pleasure, who is precious, delicate, wearing the adornment of God's presence on her. This was the origin of all things, from the beginning of all, God had His wife, His perfect creature.
A little later, we come to the story that interests us: this fruit that has been eaten and that has generated so much harm.
Genesis 3: 2-6 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
The fruit here in the original is the word PERIY. It certainly describes a physical fruit, but also a fruit in the sense of action coming from a thought, a posterity, a progeny.
The tree was translated from the original word ETS. Here again it means a tree as we know it, but also wood in general, such as a gallows, a wooden rod, or man-made construction wood from a tree.
Beyond the tangible and physical meaning of this whole narrative, there is, as it is often the case in the Old Testament narratives, another meaning to give us a precious teaching.
God has established His wife, His bride, at the root of all things. It is the most precious thing He has, overflowing with His divine presence, radiating with His power, with His perfect love. The perfect creation in the perfect image of her spouse, the two are one. Of course man, the human being is this perfect bride, that is how man and woman were created, in this perfect image, being like God their creator.
When Adam and Eve decided to eat this fruit, it was a way of thinking that they adopted, the fruit in the sense of the action that thought generates.
Often the tree bears, presents and supports its fruits. This way of thinking by eating this fruit that Adam and Eve adopted has become irreversible, and has been passed on to all future generations. This fruit, this way of thinking that generated actions outside the nature of God is now in them and in their descendants. God no longer has His bride as He created her, perfect, radiant with His power and love. The human race, the bride of God, is corrupted by evil. She has chosen to adopt a thought that is not part of the nature of God in her.
Over time, this way of thinking has become more and more deeply entrenched. It is easy to see the various negative fruits that it still bears today in the human actions around us.
But God did not say His last word. After a whole series of periods, called dispensations, He planted a new tree with a new fruit, which is a perfect antidote to the evil that gnaws at the human being.
Jesus said: “Take this is my body, this is my blood, eat it, and do this in memory of me.”
Here again there is an image, because no one drinks the blood of Jesus or eats His flesh. This tree, which is the cross, on which Jesus was offered, represents this fruit that we must eat to find what we have lost, just as Adam and Eve ate from this fruit in the Garden of Eden. They saw their way of thinking change in evil after eating this fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.
In the same way God planted a tree in the east, He put a fruit there that He proposes to eat in order to change our way of thinking, and find this perfect bride position. Jesus on the cross is the fruit on the tree which is the antidote to this poison that Adam and Eve agreed to eat.
In practice, Jesus proposes to us to become again this perfect bride, this half of God, radiant with His power, His love, perfectly in His image as He created her at the beginning of all things.
When we accept to change our way of thinking to adopt Jesus' teaching (repentance), we eat this fruit on the tree that is Jesus on the cross. Then everything is new, what is old is past, definitely finished, everything is new because we have found our position in His image. Everything happens at the level of the thought. Jesus allows us to change our minds, we just have to cooperate by believing Him firmly without doubt. We are then engaged in a process of transformation, eating this fruit regularly, i.e. changing our way of thinking in more and more areas, to adopt His.
And in order not to forget it, we regularly take bread and fruit from the vine, to remind ourselves that we ate a fruit that cancelled the effect of the first one in the Garden of Eden. We are then in a transformation that pushes us more and more in His image.
Bye for now.
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