Episode 2316 - Lesson 9 - Monday - Feb. 24 - The Origin of the Controversy on Earth

Parallel to the question in the parable—about why there is bad seed in the field if the owner planted only good seed—is another question: if God created the world entirely good, how did evil arise here?Read Genesis 1:31. What do God’s words reveal about the state of creation when God finished creating, and why is this answer important?According to Genesis 1:31, when God finished creating the world, it was “very good.” In Genesis 1, there is no hint of evil in God’s creation of this planet. How, then, did evil come into the human experience?Read Genesis 3:1–7. What does this tell us about how evil got here on earth? What light does this shed on the nature of the cosmic conflict? (See also Rev. 12:7–9.)In this narrative, we see lies about God’s character raised by the serpent, identified as the devil himself (that “serpent of old” [NKJV]) in Revelation 12:7–9. The serpent first uses a question to cast doubt on God’s command, nearly reversing what God had commanded in his question. Then, the serpent directly challenges what God had said, saying to Eve, “ ‘You will not surely die’ ” (Gen. 3:4, NKJV).Someone, either the serpent or God, lied to Eve, who now has a choice to make about whether she will believe what God told her or what the serpent did.Here and elsewhere in Scripture, the nature of this conflict is primarily over what and whom to believe, which is itself integrally related to love. And that is because your beliefs about someone, the kind of person that he or she is, and whether he or she can be trusted, deeply impact whether you will love and trust that person and, in this case, listen to what that person tells you.Read Genesis 3:15. God’s statement to the serpent that the Seed of the woman, referring to the Messiah, would crush the serpent’s head is often identified as the first gospel (protoevangelium) in Scripture. How does this both reinforce the reality of the conflict and yet provide hope for us in the midst of it?