We have seen that after God made man, He placed man in front of the tree of life, that man might contact the tree of life and receive His life which is the uncreated life. But before man could contact the tree of life and join with God in life, Satan took the opportunity to come first. He tempted man to contact the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and caused man to have an illegal union with him. This became the first step of man’s fall.
According to the record in Genesis 3 through 11, mankind had four steps of the fall. The first step is the fall of Adam, which is recorded in chapter three; the second is the fall of Cain, recorded in chapter four; the third is the fall of the crooked and perverse generation before the deluge, recorded in chapter six; and the fourth is the fall of the whole human race rising up collectively to rebel against God, which is recorded in chapter eleven. These four steps of the fall continued one after another. In these four steps, Satan’s subtlety was exposed to the uttermost.
If the serpent had not come to deceive and tempt man, man would not have fallen. The tempting serpent is the incarnation of Satan. The evil one was crafty; he came in stealthily. Instead of coming in openly, he hid himself in the subtle serpent to tempt man. Thus, Revelation 12:9 says that Satan (the ancient serpent) deceives the whole inhabited earth.
The way Satan tempts is to ask man questions (Gen. 3:1, 4) causing man to doubt God’s word. God clearly commanded man, saying, “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” (Gen. 2:17). But Satan said to the woman, “Hath God said?” Again, he said, “Ye shall not surely die.” After Eve received Satan’s proposal, she began to doubt God’s word. Thus, she took of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate. Even to this day, Satan still uses the same method to tempt man into sin or to instigate him to reject God’s salvation. However, the Bible tells us that heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Lord’s words shall by no means pass away (Luke 21:33). The Lord’s word is not yes and no (2 Cor. 1:18).
The proposal made by the serpent also caused man to doubt God’s heart. The serpent said to the woman, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). The serpent wanted man to think that God was trying to deceive him when He prohibited man from eating the tree of knowledge because He was afraid that man would be like Him in knowing good and evil. This is also one of Satan’s most frequently used malicious stratagems. Today man is far from God and not willing to come to God’s presence, because he has been deceived by Satan. Thus, he misunderstands the love of God and does not know God’s heart.
Another cause of man’s fall was the woman’s assuming the headship (Gen. 3:2-3, 6). Originally, God created only one man. There was only one head, not two. Adam was the head; Eve was not. Eve was built out of the rib from Adam’s side (Gen. 2:22). Eve’s head was Adam. The reason Eve was tempted by the serpent was that she assumed the headship, made the decision on her own, and fell into Satan’s snare. Even before she ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she was already ensnared by the evil one. She passed over the man and assumed the headship to deal with the situation. This resulted in her being deceived. Thus, the Bible says that Adam was not deceived, but the woman being quite deceived was in transgression (1 Tim. 2:14).
Here we see a great principle. In the universe the unique Head is God Himself. Whenever we assume the headship in dealing with any situation, denying the headship of God and of Christ, we will surely be deceived.