Page 120 - Foundations

Mark 7:21-23
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders,
adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and
foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."

The word “devil” in the New Testament is translated from the Greek “diabolos” which means
“slanderer.” Slander is of the devil. Everyone who aspires to be found pleasing to God must have no
part in it. Can there be a more serious slander than to accuse a man or woman of adultery, bestiality,
homosexuality, or some other gross form of immorality when they in fact did not commit such a
wicked deed? For this reason, every Christian should tremble at the thought of errantly embracing and
disseminating a doctrine that constitutes an egregious form of slander.

A good place to begin in seeking to establish the correct understanding of what took place in the
Garden of Eden is to look at the Biblical passage that we might have in mind a coherent image of
what is being described. I will not cite the entirety of the first three chapters of Genesis, but will list
those verses that have direct bearing upon the fall of the man and woman in the Garden of Eden and
the birth of their sons.

Genesis 1:26 - 4:3
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image
of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to
them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said,
“Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every
tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you...”

And Yahweh God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He
had formed. And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight
and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil...

Then Yahweh God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And
Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you
shall surely die.”

And Yahweh God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her
to the man. And the man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” For this cause a man shall leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife
were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he