Mike,       
I apologize for not answering your questions. I’m sure it made it seem like we were not getting anywhere. I didn’t answer because your responses usually cleared up any loose thoughts I was having trouble discerning.  I really enjoy conversing with you, and I do find however email communication is difficult to view a person’s progress. To answer your question about needing help: Yes, I truly delight in your help and am very grateful the Lord has introduced me to you.   I’m not sure why it took two emails to discern free will but 20  to see the truth in the Garden.  I guess I just wanted to see the deepest meaning of every verse on this topic. I do have this last question I’m confused about on this issue:

Gen 3:6    And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food , and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Gen 3:22   And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

How did Eve know the fruit was good if she didn’t know what good was? Was the knowledge they acquired of good and evil just what was good and evil
spiritually in the sense God is good and they were evil, or does this mean they were ‘bird brains’ before they acquired that needed knowledge?  I’m not sure why it took so long to discern the spiritual things inside of this topic!
Thank You.
M____

Hi M____,
You ask how Eve knew that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good for food? The answer is that she believed “her Father the devil.” It was at that moment that both Eve and Adam, while being the children of God (Luk 3:38), were also the seed of the serpent. It was at that moment that the serpent had “bruised the heel of Adam.”

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Now Adam and his seed will all be born of the serpent before they will be born of their heavenly Father. It was a second spiritual birth to which Christ referred when speaking to Nicodemus.  We all have to be “born again” in order to bruise the head of the serpent.

Gal 4:19  My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Paul’s experience was no different than Christ’s. All the people who first heard and accepted his gospel forsook him:

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia [ the seven churches of Rev 2-3] be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
2Ti 4:10  For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
2Ti 4:11  Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.
2Ti 4:12  And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.
2Ti 4:13  The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring [ with thee], and the books, [ but] especially the parchments.
2Ti 4:14  Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15  Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
2Ti 4:17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

The apostasy was complete, and the apostles were not even dead.

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

“The knowledge of good and evil has nothing to do with the knowledge of spiritual good or spiritual evil. The spirit excels what is good and the good is the enemy of, and “has no glory by reason of that which excels.”

2Co 3:10  For even that which was made glorious [ the law, which is good] had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
Rom 7:12  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

I recently saw a story on the educational channel in our area about beauty. As it turns out, the appreciation of beauty is universal and innate in all of mankind. This program demonstrated that even little babies respond more favorably to a beautiful baby sitter than they do to a less beautiful baby sitter. Christ is the ‘tree of life.’ We must all “eat his flesh and drink His blood,” before we can have life:

Joh 6:54  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

What are we told of Christ?

Isa 53:2  For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

If that was true of Christ in the flesh, why would it not also be true of Christ being portrayed as “the tree of life?”
Here, right in the middle of the garden of Eden, are two trees. One is beautiful and full of beautiful fruit which we have been told was good for food. The other tree has no beauty and even its fruit has “no form or comeliness that we would desire it.”

Now what is any untried, uneducated, “marred clay vessel… shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin” going to do under such circumstances? The results were so certain that a sacrifice for sin had been “slain from the foundation of the world.”
While “bird brain” is not a scriptural phrase, it is the very animal used to portray those who are the most spiritually poor:

Lev 5:6  And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.
Lev 5:7  And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.

I hope that helps you to see that Adam and Eve knew nothing until they were told about it by either the Lord or by the serpent. They were like babies in a toy store and were programmed “(marred in the Potter’s hand) to believe the serpent. Above all, I hope that God has given you the spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear what the spirit is telling you and me about ourselves as Adam’s offspring.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike>