For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
In the verse above, we have in view all manner of sin in the world today, except for one, which we shall touch on later in this writing. First a brief description of each:
The lust of flesh springs from our five senses which include hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling. These involve the temporary satisfying of urges without respect to others; these urges are never satisfied for the long term.
The lust of the eyes has do with a desire to have something that is not ours, whether it is a thing, a person, or a position. This lust builds and builds as, the more we realize we can’t have something, the more we want it. This lust is also exhibited when we want something before it’s our time to have it.
The pride of life, involves how we view our standing among men, this causes us to despise those who hold positions of authority above us because we believe we are superior to them and deserve the recognition of men more than they.
These sins were first exhibited in the garden of Eden, when after the serpent deceived Eve with cunning words about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was the one tree that God instructed Adam and Eve they could not partake of, we read:
Genesis 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 and he did eat.
Let’s break this down a bit: the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh – it would taste good); it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes – it was visually appealing but the reason it looked so good was because she couldn’t have it); a tree to be desired to make one wise (pride of life – in the verse prior to this one, the serpent had said that Eve would be as a god – knowing good from evil, so we see how that factors in, and she sees herself in a higher exalted position if she partakes of the fruit.)
This manner of sin has befallen men every since then, and the devil uses these patterns to attack non-believers to blind them from the truth of God’s Word, and believers to keep them feeling guilty and keep them out of God’s Word. But before we close we must ask one question, If Eve was the first to sin, then why do we see that Adam is continuously referred to as the first sinner, and the fall of human race and the entire creation is reckoned to him?
The answer to this is found in the original warning that God gave concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
Genesis 2:16-17
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit they died, but this immediate death was spiritual, God’s Spirit that he breathed in them was taken immediately, but the physical death would take longer to manifest. The actual Hebrew words in the above verse translate to, “in the day you eat of it, dying you shall die” this was a Hebrew phrase that signified something immediate and something prolonged.
When Adam saw Eve partake of that fruit, he probably expected her to fall down dead immediately, when she didn’t, at that very point, he had a decision to make. Either believe what he saw and thought he understood with his eyes or believe what God had told him. Belief in God or unbelief in God. As we know, he ate the fruit. In light of all this, how interesting to note the Apostle Paul’s words:
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
So again we must ask, why is Adam reckoned the first sinner? Because Eve was deceived, she wasn’t sinning in willful disobedience to God, she was actually being used by the serpent to get the man to fall. Adam’s sin was willful unbelief in what God told him, he decided to trust in his eyes instead of God. And lest anyone get heady or highminded, we would have done the exact same thing as him.
Friend, do you believe God? When you look at all the sins that we have written about, do you realize that we’re all sinners? The penalty for that sin is an eternity in Hell, separated from the presence of God. God didn’t want this for you though, so the Lord Jesus Christ came and shed his blood and died on the cross, was buried, and was raised from the dead for you. Now God holds out his hands to you with a free gift, if you will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for you, you will be saved for time and eternity. What will it be? Belief in God, or Unbelief. Like the apostle Paul, we beg you to be reconciled to God!
In the Lord Jesus Christ,
Derrick
P.S. When the devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness [Matthew 4:1-11] [Luke 4:1-13], the devil attacks him three different ways, we urge you to prayerfully study and see if these three different attacks are based on the three groupings of sin mentioned earlier. If so, how do they match up?
A study of the Sword 