What's Good?

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Gen. 3:6, NIV).

I have probably read Genesis 3:6 dozens of times. When I read it recently, though, I was stopped dead in my tracks. How could Eve’s perception be so misguided? Adam and Eve had been given full reign of the garden. They could basically do whatever they wanted. They were simply given one area of boundary. God said, “‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 15:16-17). It’s so simple . . . yet, Eve couldn’t help but see the fruit as being good, pleasing, and desirable. She believed a lie, and she justified her decision by mentally wrapping the fruit with pretty paper. God said not to eat, but it was seen as being good, pleasing, and desirable. 

Now, because of the account recorded in Genesis, mankind has a sinful nature. This means that we are going to fall into the same trap that Adam and Eve fell into. We are going to see things in the world that are going to make sense to us as being good, pleasing, and desirable, but in reality, those things may be the very sinful things that will harm us most. If only Adam and Eve had trusted in their God. We look at Adam and Eve, now that we know the outcome of their decision, and we want to do everything in our power to stop them and make them aware of the magnitude of the mistake they were going to make. While there are many things to learn from this account in the garden, I find that we must notice that not everything that seems good, pleasing, and desirable really is. Instead, we should have faith in our Creator and in His definitions of things.

When Jesus died on the cross He showed the depth of His love for us. We can now know that Adam and Eve were failing to see that God really desired for both of them to flourish by trusting Him. Similarly, when Jesus shows the way to live a Godly life, He wants us to flourish. He certainly showed that He cares for us by dying for our sins! The beginning of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, however, makes it clear that because of our sinful nature, God’s ways will seem counterintuitive . . . they simply may not make sense to us. However, when we love Jesus, for who He is and what He did for us on the cross, we can desire to see things in their correct light. We can then, and only then, finally, see the things that are truly good, pleasing, and desirable