Was there something different about this tree from the other trees in the Garden of Eden? We do not know. What do we know? We know that God did not want man to be ruled by his soul or by his body. God wanted man to choose through his soul to be ruled over by Him through the promptings of the Holy Spirit through his spirit. We know that God wanted man to have the freedom to choose as to whether he wanted Him to rule over him through his spirit or not. How could God give man this choice? By commanding him to not do something that appealed to his soul: his intellect and feelings and his flesh: his appetites and desires. This is what this tree was all about: a test to see if they would chose to walk in obedience to God through the prompting of the Holy Spirit through their spirit or whether they would choose to walk in obedience to the promptings of their soul and flesh.

Man at this point had no unrighteousness, sin, in him. His soul and flesh where in perfect submission to his spirit. There was nothing in man’s soul or flesh to prompt him to do otherwise. Therefore an outside factor was needed to appeal to man’s intellect and feelings and his appetites and desires rather than his spirit. This outside factor was Satan.

The first thing Satan did was appeal to man’s intellect through Eve. Moses records in Genesis 3:1-5 the following:

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yehovah Elohim had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has Elohim said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden.’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, Elohim has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die."’ And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die! For Elohim knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.’"

First Satan called God a liar and questioned his goodness. Next, he suggested that God was withholding from her and Adam intellectually, He was withholding information from them. Satan appealed to their intellect, their soul. Moses tells us that Eve had the following response:

"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food [appetite & desires], and that it was a delight to the eyes [feelings], and that the tree was desirable to make one wise [intellect], she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband [focus of affections] with her, and he ate." (Gen 3:6)

What happened? Our spirit, through the Holy Spirit, prompts us about what is right or wrong. Satan told Eve to listen to the promptings of her intellect, prompted by Satan’s lies. Eve took the bait and started rationalizing why she should not listen to her spirit and instead listened to her intellect and the appetites and desires of her flesh. The end result was she decided to allow herself to be ruled by her soul and flesh instead of her spirit and she ate of the fruit of the tree God told her not to eat from.

What was the significance of this action? At that moment Eve rejected God’s rule over her and submitted to her rule over her instead. She made her soul, her intellect and feelings, and her body, her appetites and desires god instead. God could have no part in this unholy arrangement and so He severed His Spirit from their spirit, thus disconnecting both His ongoing presence & communication with them and His sustaining life force from them resulting in immediate spiritual death and eventual physical and then soulish death.

The Bible teaches us that Eve was deceived by the serpent, but not Adam. Adam was not deceived. He knew it was wrong to eat of the forbidden fruit. Therefore Adam’s temptation was not about what was right or wrong. His temptation was where his affections were centered. When Eve sinned, because Adam’s affection for Eve was stronger than his affection for God he ate the fruit. As soon as he did, God severed His Holy Spirit from him and his spirit died also. Adam decided to make Eve his god instead of Yehovah God. Genesis 3:7 then says the following:

"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings."

When I went to Sunday School that morning in the college class, as I would talk and share with other college friends, every time I opened my mouth life did not come out but confusion and disorder and everyone knew something was wrong with Dale. So did I. I had not spent time with the Lord to acknowledge Him over my life and day.

Jesus operates by faith just like we do. When I did not spend time with Him, He assumed I did not want Him to rule over me that day and so He withdrew Himself from me. I was left with my own thoughts and reasonings out of my soul. I found myself confused and perplexed and ashamed in front of my Christian associates.

When I got home that afternoon, the first thing I did was have a quiet time with the Lord. After this, when I talked and shared with my associates, life came out of my mouth instead of perplexity and confusion. I knew what to say and do the rest of the day.

Adam and Eve from creation were in perfect harmony and communion with God. They had not experienced separation. After they ate the fruit, initially, they probably were not even aware what had taken place in their spirits, they just new now they were naked, confused and perplexed. The word naked here, more than just their physical appearance, was probably referring more to the fact that the Lord had withdrawn from them, leaving them empty and without the taken for granted moment by moment counsel of the Lord in their spirits which left them confused and perplexed and with feelings of being naked and ashamed. They had not had this experience or feelings before and so not understanding its cause at first sought to remedy it by putting on fig leaves and then attempting to hide from the Lord who had already withdrawn Himself from them spiritually.

This was the reason for the conversation God had with them following. He knew what they had done and what had happened to them, but they did not. Therefore His following conversation with them was for their benefit to give them understanding of what they had done and what had happened to them as a result. As a result of their sin they had been severed from their spiritual source of life and were left only with the reasoning of their own thoughts and feeling, desires and appetites to guide them.

Man has been living by his intellect and flesh ever since. Paul describes it this way in the Epistle of Ephesians 4:17-19

"This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness."

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 21:30, "There is no wisdom and no understanding And no counsel against Yehovah." God in Genesis 6:3, makes the following statement about man’s condition: "My Spirit shall not always strive⁹⁹ with man; in their erring he is flesh⁷⁸." By Flesh God means that not only is man devoid of spirit, but even his soul has sunk into complete submission to the appetites and desires of his body so that he is really nothing more than flesh, completely motivated and controlled by his flesh.

Man’s condition in the world without Jesus is that he is dead spiritually, devoid of spirit, without God and completely in bondage to and motivated and controlled by his soul and flesh. Because this is true, everything that man is and does, all works whether good or bad, are motivated and controlled out of his soul and flesh, not by God’s Holy Spirit through his human spirit. This is why God tells us through Isaiah in Isaiah 64:6 that all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in His sight; it is also why our works cannot save us. Our works come out of the motivation of our soul, not by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit. Because they do, they have no ability to redeem man and bring him back into relationship with God. If left to himself, man is hopelessly lost and has no hope.

Is this the end of the story? Thankfully no. As soon as man fell and died spiritually, God immediately began to take measures to bring man’s spirit back to life and back into right relationship with Him. How did He do this. This is the discussion of Chapter 8 titled Jesus’ Full Salvation for Man.

1. Nee, Watchman. The Spiritual Man.
2. Penn-Lewis, Jesse. Soul & Spirit.
3. Brown, Rebecca. He Came To Set The Captives Free.