The First Sin: Part 3 of 3
“Eve,” Adam called out again.
She didn’t answer.
This wasn’t unusual. The Garden of Eden was much larger than its name implied. The inner perimeter alone was thousands of acres. She could be anywhere. He smiled. Her favorite spot was the golden pond. He turned in that direction. Then a sensation filled him that was totally new. It was alarm.
He stood motionless, wondering at this new feeling. Then a memory hit him that increased its intensity. A few days ago he had found his wife in a surprising place.
“Eve, where are you?”
“Over here,” her voice and thoughts carried.
Adam paused, wondering. She sounds like she’s in the Center Garden. “Over here, where?”
“In the Center.”
“Where in the Center?”
“The pond. Near the cinnamon flowers.”
Adam jogged the five miles to the pond. When he got there, his wife’s gaze was on the large tree located in the very center of the Garden of Eden. “It’s the one ugly thing in all of God’s creation,” he said.
“You’re kidding, Adam. How can you say that? It’s beautiful — glorious!”
“I don’t mean how it looks. I mean what it represents.”
“Why do you think He made it the most beautiful tree in the garden?”
Adam looked at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “I don’t think it’s beautiful at all. Come on, Eve. Let’s get out of here.”
He recalled how she had lingered just a moment too long before breaking her attention from the tree. The image of his wife looking at that hideous tree with innocent interest had troubled him then, but not as much as it troubled him now. He wanted to dismiss the foolish thought that was trying to turn his head eastward. But was it really foolish?
Adam turned and gasped. He didn’t know what that thing was, but it was ominous. He had never seen anything like it. A whirlwind of thick, swirling smoke filled with fire was slowly descending from the sky. He followed its length upwards until it disappeared into the heavens.
Lightnings flashed out of the dark smoke. Thunders boomed one after the other. Then the sound of a trumpet within the smoke drowned out the booming thunder.
Adam watched in awe. This must be God. But why — ?
His head whipped to the left, toward the Center Garden. He looked back at the approaching mass of darkness and fire. It was still high enough that it could touch down anywhere. But his broken heart knew where it would land. He cupped his ears in futility, trying to keep his bones from rattling, and ran as fast as he could toward the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
“Eve,” yelled Adam, as he raced through the woods under the thick canopy of trees. He was not subject to death, but every time his feet landed on the earth, he felt life leave his body. His precious, innocent wife would be lost forever. “Eve!”
She didn’t hear the thunders or the heavenly trumpet. She didn’t hear the long, mournful cries of her name being carried on the winds of her husband’s agony. Nor did she hear them in her mind. For her body and mind belonged to the pleasures and power of the fruit.
Adam burst through the trees. He looked at the menacing approach of the fiery smoke as he ran. There! He could see the shape of the Creator in the fire. He looked across the expanse of grass toward the tree. Maybe I can stop her before it’s too late. I have to run faster.
He did. Faster than he knew he was able to run. Shock almost stopped him rigid in his tracks when he saw her standing under a branch of the cursed tree. When he saw her drop to her knees as she cupped a piece of the tree’s fruit to her mouth, he yelled, “Eve, no!”
Faster. Faster. Faster, he ran. But even at so great a distance, his eyes, created directly by the hands of the Almighty, confirmed that the amazing speed at which he was running was futile. For he could not turn back the hands of time. He could not reverse the certain doomed future of his beloved wife.
He swung angrily at the low branch with its fruit that changed its course to meet him as he approached. The branch snapped under the blow and fell to the earth with its beautiful fruit rolling in the soft grass. He reached his wife before coming to a full stop, dropping to his knees and skidding into her, knocking her over onto her side.
He snatched her shoulder to the right. She looked up at him. Her hands still pressing the cursed fruit into her mouth. “What have you done?” he lamented, trying to literally dig the poison out of her mouth.
She turned her head from side to side in playful defiance. “Adam,” she answered, like a giddy child. “Oh, Adam, the Creator was wrong. You have to taste this! It’s…oh, it’s divine.”
He gripped both shoulders and tried to shake her out of this stupor. “Eve, do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what you’ve done to yourself? To me? To us?”
“He was wrong, Adam. I feel so good.”
“The pleasures of sin last only for a season, Eve. Then judgment. Do you understand, Eve? Then — judgment.”
“No, Adam, you’re wrong. The Creator said that if we ate of the tree, we’d die. That very day. Isn’t that what he said? That. Very. Day. Look at me. Do I look dead to you? I’ve never felt more alive.”
Adam looked up at the approaching whirlwind of smoky fire. The trumpet’s sound wasn’t painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. To cover his ears, he’d have to remove his hands from his wife. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. Not when she needed him the most.
“Eve, sin is deceptive. It doesn’t make a difference how it makes you feel. It leads to death. This…what you have done…you’re going to die.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Her voice no longer jubilant and playful, but instead defiant.
“Look at the sky, Eve,” he yelled. “Do you see that? That is God. Why do you think He’s coming in fire and lightnings and thunders? Why is there the sound of the trumpet of war?”
Eve looked at the sky. “What are you talking about? I don’t see or hear anything — except you talking nonsense.”
Adam was stunned. It had begun. She was blind to God. No matter how good her sin was making her feel, death was already at work in her. His soul went hollow. It truly was too late.
The Spirit of prophecy overshadowed Adam, filling him with the thoughts of God.
“Eve, oh Eve. My precious Eve. You’ve opened the door to darkness and death. You lusted after the tree because it was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to make you wise. Oh, dear Eve, do you not know that you are a slave to whatever you obey? Don’t you know that the idol becomes the master?
“You desired unholy food to satisfy fleshly hunger. Now you shall forever seek to satisfy a hunger that will refuse to be satisfied. You desired the forbidden fruit because of its beauty. Now you will spend your days chasing a beauty that will forever be out of your grasp. You desired the promise of a snake to make you wise. Now that snake and his wisdom will hunt you all the days of your life.”
Adam stopped speaking when the sudden inspiration just as suddenly stopped. He wondered in fatalistic horror at the words that had come out of his mouth. I can’t let her face this alone.
“No, no, you’re wrong, Adam.” She thought of giving him some of her fruit, but selfishness had already begun its work. Instead, she picked up one of the fruit that he had knocked to the ground and offered it to him. “We can experience this beautiful new life together.”
Adam turned and looked at the outline of God in the fiery smoke that was landing among the trees in the garden. He watched the landing until he made the fateful decision. He turned back to Eve with a grim expression of complete understanding of what he was about to do. He would choose his woman over his Creator, the One who had given him life.
Adam took the fruit and bit it.
The effect was immediate, thorough, and chilling.
“What happened?” asked Eve. “What…? I don’t feel it any more. The beautiful feeling, Adam, it’s gone. Your face? Your body. Where’s your light?” She looked at herself and screamed. “Adam, what happened?”
A foreboding silence filled the garden. No refreshing breeze coursing through the trees. No birds singing harmonious melodies. No water rolling over rocks in the brook. Anger for the woman boiled in Adam’s newly darkened soul. “We’re naked.”
“Naked?”
“Yes, naked.” His words were bitter. “I don’t know how long we have, Eve. We have to get something to cover ourselves. We have to face God soon, and we can’t do it like this.”
For the first time in her life, the sound of facing God terrified Eve. “We have to face God? Soon? How soon? Where is He?”
“He’s in the bushes. I saw Him land.”
“Adam, I’m afraid.”
“You should be afraid. Both of us should be afraid. He arrived in a whirlwind of fire.”
Several hours later, in the cool of the day, Adam and Eve heard a great sound moving toward them.
“Adam, what’s that terrible sound? It sounds like something is destroying the forest.”
“Trees, Eve. The voice of the Lord strips the forests bare. The trees are snapping before Him as He gets closer to us. And fire. He’s in a whirlwind of dark fire. It’s consuming everything in His path. God is a great consuming fire.”
Then they both heard a voice come from the fire. “Adam, where are you?”
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Then the LORD called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you.’”
Genesis 3:8–9
Eric writes fiction and nonfiction Christian books. You have just read a spiritual warfare short story. Eric is best known for his full-length spiritual warfare novels. They are available in digital and print versions on Amazon. He is also an active member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
