V. In What Way Did Adam And Eve Become Like God? Why Didn't God Want Them To Become Like God?
According to Genesis 3:22, God Himself acknowledged that Adam and Eve had, in some way, become like God, knowing good and evil. But in what way did Adam and Eve, and therefore the human race, become "like God?" Many explanations have been offered. Some say they became "gods unto themselves, deciding for themselves what was right and what was wrong, i.e. good and evil." However, on close examination, this explanation just doesn't hold up under rigid scrutiny, as we've already demonstrated.Others say that because Adam and Eve partook of "the knowledge of good and evil," they were seeking omniscience, wanting to know everything, both good and evil. But God said they had, in some way, successfully become like God. God did not say they tried to become like God but failed. Adam and Eve certainly did not become omniscient.So again, how did Adam and Eve become "like God?" What kind of knowledge did they acquire that God didn't want them to have?
The story of Adam and Eve is part of the creation account. Some say there are two creation accounts: Genesis 1:1-2:3 and Genesis 2:4-4:2.
Although God is many things, God first reveals Himself in these passages as the Creator of Heaven and Earth. It seems logical, therefore, that Adam and Eve, in some limited way, acquired knowledge that allowed them to become creators like God. In other words, the knowledge (yada) they acquired that God did not want them to have was the ability to procreate. Here are two reasons why this interpretaion makes sense:
- When Adam knew (yada) Eve, Eve became pregnant with Cain, the world's first murderer.
- Adam named his wife Eve, "The Mother of All Living" after the fall. Although this does not necessarily prove that Eve acquired procreative powers as a result of sinning with the serpent, it does provide a strong indication.
When God created the animals, he made them to reproduce after their own kind. This is not said of man.
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, "after their kind," and every winged fowl "after his kind:
" and God saw that [it was] good (Genesis 1:21). And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth (1:22, KJV).
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day (1:23, KJV).
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature "after his
kind," cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth "after his kind": and it was so (1:24, KJV).
And God made the beast of the earth "after his kind," and cattle "after their kind," and every thing that creepeth upon the earth "after his kind:" and God saw that [it was] good (1:25, KJV).
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (1:26, KJV).
The command for man to bring forth offspring "after his kind" is strikingly absent. Instead, it is states that man was made in the image of God, after His likeness, after the God-kind. And God certainly doesn't reproduce like animals.
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