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Being subtle when writing fiction or trying to pass legislation may or may not be a virtue. When the fallen angel was subtle in the garden it was evil, sinful, rebellious, and, of course, a lie. Perfection needs no use of artifice or manipulation because Perfection is Truth: Truth is! The great "I AM" is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Eve was made in the image of the Holy Trinity when she was carved from her Lord's rib cage. She was the Holy Bride typifying the Holy Church. The Church only has life when it comes from the flesh and blood of its Lord and Groom. Eve and Adam had been made with the ability to "not sin." This was the same quality which the angels had first been endued with. They both had all that they needed, and all that their perfect natures wanted. They had full communion with the Lord and they ate His Word-for did not His Word make all that was made? They were not vegetarians for political reasons or sentimentality but rather because all the good joy from feasting with the Trinity came from the varied and perfect fruits of the Garden. Eve had the ability to refrain from speaking, from even answering the serpent. She could have walked away; she could have told Adam; she could have asked the Lord to send the snake thing far, far away. Eve had the in-born ability to answer the serpent with the Word of God-the Truth. So did Adam. Where was "the Man?" Moses doesn't tell us. His absence speaks legions. At the least, his silence, if present, tells us a lot about headship and shirking its responsibilities.

Satan lied to Eve. If she had desired to compare his lies with the Word of the Lord she could have said: "you lie, be gone." When you listen to lies, when you participate in slander, gossip and backbiting, when you endure false doctrine, when you entertain (even for the sake of argument) heterodox and heretical words about the Word made Flesh, you sin like Eve was on the cusp of doing. The Word of the Lord comes only from the Word. The Word is only Jesus. Jesus comes only, and is published only, in His Scriptures and in His Sacraments. These were both to have been typified in Eve, the Church, the Bride, the beloved of the Man.

You also sin when you try to use your opinions of fallen human nature and your curious reasonings to explain what you call the "seeming" paradoxes and logical inconsistencies of Genesis 3. Your opinions about Adam and Eve are not important. When you try to "sort it all out" it's not that you just want to "better understand the Bible," it's that you too are listening to the snake. You are to fast on sin by fasting on self. You are to eat the Word of God. The Truth exists in Genesis chapter Three, the revelation that God wants you to have is there; believe it!

Sin causes one to stop listening to God. Self causes one to make up reasons, excuses and justifications. Why do Christians commit adultery? Because they want to. Why do say horrible things about other people (people made by God, people for whom Jesus died for)? Because you want to. Sin can't be reasoned with, debated with, or convinced. Sin must be drowned. Trespasses must be paid for. An "old nature," like Adam's, must be covered with blood.

Don't ask why? Look to the Word. Who was in the Garden? Who came to Eve and Adam to fix things? Even after they mocked Him by following Satan's bidding; even after they spit on the Lord by mixing their spittle with the forbidden fruit; even after they pounded the spikes into His pure wrists and shoved the thorns of the fruit deep into His sacred head; he came to find them and-love them.

Yes, Adam and Eve lost their perfect communion with the Godhead, but not their communion. The Trinity remained perfect but now that the first man and woman were corrupted, then of course, the fellowship was tainted and would not be as it had. The Truth had to be the Truth. In the day that you eat of it you will die spoke the Word. Eve and her spouse had indeed died to perfection, sinlessness, and eternal banqueting in Eden-BUT-that's not the end of the event. As Truth is Good so too the Lord is Good. He came to find them even as they hid themselves in sinful shame. He dressed them in skins. He allowed His beautiful animals to shed their blood so that the man and woman would have protection over and on their now decaying bodies. No doubt it was a lamb that was slain.

The Lord cursed the serpent. The Lord cursed the earth. The Lord did not curse the man and woman. To be sure, the child-bearing was now in pain and distress. Though the man remained the "head," now the woman's sinful self would constantly be struggling to usurp the man's proper role (her desire would be for the man, i.e. to be in place of the man). But in all this chaos of eviction from paradise, banishment by cherubic fire, and exile into sweat and hard-scrabble, in all of this the Lord loved and forgave His beloved children. He gave them Good News of a Redeemer to come, of a Savior who would bring them from the dust of their graves back to a heaven even greater than the first garden.

The Word triumphs. The Word wins victory not by overwhelming power and omnipotent awesomeness. The Word defeats Satan, sin and your selfishness not by Sovereignty by your choice to help get the battle won, but by obedience and suffering and abandonment and death. Jesus the Second Adam pays for Eve's sin and for Adam's sin. Jesus the Perfect Adam pays for your daily stains and soilings. The Word told the devil to go away-by-by quoting the Word, the Scriptures. Truth always chases away lies and Light always banishes darkness. The Easter Lilley always scents the room with Life as the halitosis of Hades fades into nothingness. Jesus let Eve's sin be smacked onto Him in the Praetorium and Herod's palace. Jesus let your dalliances, perversions and treasons be whipped into His back. The Adam of Perfection, the Seed of the Woman, took all your "can't, won't, and "Please help" and carried them to the Tree. His tears of pain soak up yours. His blood gives you a transfusion that makes you immortal. His Body embraces you in a hug that carries you past flames, over Cherubs, and deposits you in the Bosom of Abraham at the right and left hand of the Father. In Jesus' Adams fall is reversed and Adam's descendents are back in paradise. In Jesus' passion and death Eve's shame is wiped away and the Woman, the Bride, is now you the virginally immaculate Church. You wear the robes of the Groom. You smell His fresh breath of forgiveness and joy: Peace. You are forgiven. You are loved. Your Lent is almost over and your Promised Land waits in anticipation.

In the Name + of Jesus