We Need to Stop Using "Did God Really Say ..." As a Shorthand for Moral Permissiveness

Revisiting the Context of Genesis 3:1

Eve, by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

Do you have one of those “pet peeve” Bible verses? Not that the verse itself is peeving, but that almost every time you hear it referenced, you know that it’s about to be co-opted to make a fantastically different point than its context supports? I do. My pet peeve verse is one that I hear tossed out in both casual and academic contexts. From anonymous Twitter accounts to respected seminary professors, I’ve heard this verse used over and over again as a shorthand for the soft-pedaling of Biblical commands that is popularly associated with theological liberalism. The verse is Genesis 3:1. Or rather, it’s a fragment of Genesis 3:1: “Did God really say . . . ?”

Conservative evangelicals of the Biblical inerrantist persuasion (of which, full disclosure, I am one) tend to really, really like Genesis 3:1. They like it because it seems like the serpent is saying the same kind of thing that they perceive modern, theological liberals as saying: “Did God really say that about homosexuality, or divorce, or women in ministry? Did God really say that He made man male and female, not a spectrum of genders that we can choose from? Did God really say that there is no other name besides Jesus by which men may be saved?” In short, did God really make that unpalatable demand or politically incorrect assertion that I would be embarrassed to admit in front of my unchurched friends? Or can we maybe massage it into something a little less rough around the edges?

I share the concern of other conservative evangelicals that we may put the sensibilities of the broader culture above God’s Word. I just don’t think that taking a verse out of context is a very promising way to express that concern. The Bible, by its own testimony, certainly has truth in it that is hard to swallow. Remember that one time that Jesus said people were going to have to eat His body and drink His blood if they wanted to live? He lost a lot of followers over that one. If we’re going to follow Jesus, we can expect to hear some things that will be difficult for us to accept at first. But in Genesis 3:1, the context surrounding these four words - “Did God really say” - is not one in which the speaker is saying, “Oh, I’m sure a loving God couldn’t have meant that!” In fact, the opposite is true.

As I mentioned before, “Did God really say” isn’t a whole verse; in fact it’s not even a whole thought. Here is the entire verse as the NKJV renders it:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

I think a lot of people misremember this verse and assume that when the serpent starts out saying, “Did God really say … ?” he’s going to finish by asking “ … that you couldn’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” But that’s not what he actually asks. The serpent asks Eve if God really said they couldn’t eat from all the trees in the garden. The ESV and NASB put the tempter’s question in even clearer terms: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”

Let’s back up to Genesis 2. We focus a lot on the prohibition that God gave to Adam (and by extension, Eve) in verse 17, but God actually begins by making a very broad statement of permission in verse 16. Adam and Eve were expressly permitted to eat of every tree of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Let’s look at 2:16 and 3:1b together:

“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat …” 2:16

“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” 3:1

Of course the serpent knew that God had given Adam and Eve permission to eat from every tree in the garden except one, but he purposely exaggerates God’s prohibition to the point that it is actually the opposite of what He said, because he wants Eve to see God as unreasonably restrictive. Derek Kidner comments on Eve’s response: “Eve is duly drawn, and by adding neither shall ye touch it she over-corrects the error, magnifying God’s strictness (she was to have many successors).” The first step towards disobedience that Eve took wasn’t “loosening” the commandment, it was putting fences around the commandment: she turned “don’t eat” into “don’t even touch.” It’s a subtle capitulation to the serpent’s suggestion, but it quickly snowballs into full-fledged rebellion.

Why is exaggerating God’s commandments effective in tempting us to disobey? Because all disobedience comes from mistrust. A God who creates an entire world for humans to rule and enjoy, who provides for their every need, is clearly generous, kind, loving and trustworthy. Any rule that a God like that gave you, you would assume was for your own good. But a god who would create humans with bodies that need to eat, then say, “Don’t eat anything from the trees in the garden that I put you here to tend and cultivate” would be the opposite of trustworthy. He would be unfair; diabolical even. You might obey a god like that out of fear, but if you had the opportunity to get the upper hand over him, you probably would. Trust naturally produces obedience; mistrust naturally produces disobedience.

In Romans 7, Paul writes that even though God’s commandments are good, sin exploits the opportunity that the law opens up:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. (Rom 7:7-11)

This could be a direct commentary on Genesis 3:1-6. The serpent seizes the opportunity created by God’s prohibition, and deceives Eve by magnifying it to the point where it makes God seem like the enemy of her freedom and well-being. Once he convinces her of that, it’s an easy sell that God is also a liar who just invented the consequence for disobedience (death) to scare her.

The way that Genesis 3:1 is usually deployed, you would expect that the correct response to the question, “Did God really say … ?” would be “Yes, God really did say that, so don’t try to worm your way out of it!” But in Genesis 3, the correct answer would actually have been, “No, God really didn’t say that at all.” The correct response would have been to counter the serpent’s suggestion that God is a controlling miser with a robust affirmation of God’s kindness and liberality. This fundamental kindness of God is the foundation of our confidence that His commands - even when they don’t immediately seem beneficial - are for our good. But all too often, we actually think we’re honoring God by exaggerating His commandments; by putting fences around them until there’s no room for freedom anymore.

A draconian reading of Scripture may not appeal to our fleshly appetites, but it very much resonates with our view of God under the influence of sin. In our sin nature, it is natural for us to think of God as a controlling, unfair and unfeeling deity who just likes to boss us around. This is as much to be guarded against - maybe more - than the opposite temptation to imagine God as a jolly, Santa Claus figure who just wants us to have a good time. The more we think of God as a egotistical, controlling tyrant, the more we will feel that it is justifiable to rebel against Him.

I believe that we can trust in God’s word, and that His commandments are always for our good, but I worry that the way Genesis 3:1 is often applied will scare people away from interrogating overly-restrictive interpretations of Scripture that actually should be challenged. “Did God really say … ?” isn’t an automatically bad question to ask. Since time immemorial, people have been co-opting the legitimate authority of God’s word to their own ends by interpreting Scripture with an eye to control others. Sometimes we very much need to go back to the Scripture and double-check if a commandment is really in the Bible, or if it’s simply the commandments of men masquerading as the doctrine of God.

When someone lobs a Bible verse at us like a brick instead of handling it carefully and considering its context, it’s good for us to remember that the devil has been co-opting God’s word, and specifically God’s commandments, for his own purposes, literally since he showed up in the garden. It would be a very sad thing indeed to come to the end of one’s life and realize that you won the battle against the culture, but lost the war against sin. It behooves us to go slow as we interpret Scripture and not assume that defaulting to the most restrictive, unpalatable interpretation is “erring on the side of caution.” If we think it honors God to magnify His restrictions and downplay His liberality, we’ve already fallen into the trap of Genesis 3:1, and disobedience, in some form or another, probably isn’t far behind.