In our conversations of Adam and Eve, we often see the first sin as the partaking of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. However, if we believe in a fortunate fall, then partaking of the fruit was the progression that God desired, not something in opposition to Him. Also, it seems that they could not sin while in the Garden (see 2 Nephi 2:23; Moses 5:11) which implies that anything that happened before and up to the partaking of the fruit could not be a sin. When we look at the next few acts of Adam and Eve after they partook, we see a few actions with a consistent pattern. They planned their lives in mortality outside of a relationship with God; they planned their life in connection to the flesh and Satan.

Can we see this concept in Elder M. Russell Ballard’s description of Adam and Eve’s fall?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discounts the notion of Original Sin and its ascribed negative impact on humanity. Indeed, we honor and respect Adam and Eve for their wisdom and foresight. Their lives in the Garden of Eden were blissful and pleasant; choosing to leave that behind so they and the entire human family could experience both the triumphs and travails of mortality must not have been easy. But we believe that they did choose mortality, and in so doing made it possible for all of us to participate in Heavenly Father’s great, eternal plan. Our Search for Happiness

Their ‘wisdom and foresight’ created the space for all of us to ‘participate’ in an authentic relationship with God and our fellow man.

Seeing all sin and repentance as relationship

Repentance is no more than a passionate intention to know all things after the mode of heaven¹ God is not arbitrary. He commands us to avoid sin because there is no sin that is not relational. Sin is sin because it wrecks relationships.²

By partaking of the fruit, they change and see their surroundings differently. In this change, each choice is about relationship. First, they redefine their relationship based on covering themselves. Second, they define their relationship with God by hiding from Him. I believe that both of these choices were based on Adam and Eve choosing a relationship with Satan over God. Isn’t it interesting that Adam and Eve had a long relationship with a loving Father in Heaven, but their first acts after partaking of fruit are based on believing that God is a ‘big bad meanie God?’

Sin: the act of pushing away from others

I love Greg Boyd’s ability to describe scripture. He is the lead pastor at Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota. He recently shared a sermon titled ‘We will not be played’ that had some insightful commentary on the story of Adam and Eve.

The first thing that happens when they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is they judge themselves; they’re embarrassed or ashamed that is judgment turned inward. So they want to cover up, and then they judge God. They hide from him; they are saying God is a monster he’s going to come out and get us he’s a big bad meanie God because they’re buying into the lie that the serpent gave them. And so they judge God. And then, when God starts talking to them, they continue the judgment. Adam blames Eve and God when he says, ’the woman that you gave me, she’s the one who tripped me up.’ See, what’s good for Adam, what he prefers, is to look less guilty. And so the way to look less guilty is to make Eve look more guilty. He passed the buck. That’s the essence of all judgment. I increase my worth by stealing a little bit of your worth.

We have the opportunity to choose family, to choose friends, to choose God. It is in those choices that we can come to know ’the mode of heaven’ that we call Zion or Celestial life. Sin and repentance are understood by our relationships. Relationships that build on each other as exemplified by the Godhead instead of competing, ranking, and judging others.

Greg Boyd’s Transcript from ‘We will not be played’

For reference, I have included a partial transcript and more context around the quote from Greg Boyd above.

(34:49) Take a look at the first sin in the Bible found in Genesis 3 … Then [Satan] gives her this other alternative way of looking at things. Imagine this; this is why we have free will, we can imagine alternative realities, and then we choose which one we’re going to go at. And so he’s saying Imagine if you can see yourself doing better than you’re doing now you’re walking with God in the cool of today, but that’s something a household pet does, you could be like God! You can do better, realize your potential.

Imagine this Eve, can you just see what you’d be like if you had eaten and you were wise like God. He appeals to her senses to do it, what he’s saying, ‘Eve, there’s a more preferable reality that you could be moving towards, wouldn’t you prefer to be wise like God?’ You think God’s got your back, but in fact, he insinuates that God is threatened by that tree. The reason God said, don’t eat that tree was because he didn’t want any competition. So he paints an alternative picture of God, which then leads to an alternate picture of who Eve is and what her potential is, and she eats of it, and the rest is history.

He succeeds in getting Eve to believe in and then act on an alternative reality, alternative to the reality that God created. The reality is that if you eat of this tree, you’re gonna die. The reality is that God is love. God’s got your back; God is on your side. Whatever he says, he says for good reasons. The reality is that that tree will not make you wise it will make you stupid. But she believes in this alternative reality, so she acts on this alternative reality, and all the while, he leads her through pleasure, by the sensation.

Look, the delight of the eyes. Oh, it looks like it would taste so good. It looks like you can make us wise it looks so promising. That’s the deception of the enemy, and see this is at the root of all sin. This is why I think this story is so profound. In every sin, if you think about it, every sin presupposes an alternate reality, other than the one that God says is real. Every time we sin, we act as though we act as though no God was watching and no accountability, we act as though Jesus didn’t die for our sins. We have unsurpassable worth; we act as though we’re not children of God who are filled with the Spirit and have the potential to say no to that sin. No, we adopt an alternative reality, at least for a moment, so that we can engage in the sin that we want to engage in. (37:16)

What we’re doing in all of this, we’re really saying, and this is the essence of what the enemy is doing with Eve, is that wouldn’t you prefer this reality, as opposed to that one. Doesn’t this stimulate more isn’t this more exciting? Isn’t this better than what real reality is, or at least what God told you was real? And that’s what we do every time that we sin. So, we enthrone ourselves, virtually, as Lord, we get to define reality according to our preferences, which is really saying we’re mini gods. We’re like, God, we get to define reality. (37:53)

And the minute we influence ourselves as Lord of our own life. Boss of our own life definer of truth. Well, we, we end up enthroning ourselves as Judge. Because, see if one person has this alternative interpretation of things, and this person has this alternative interpretation of things, and both of them are based on their preferences. Well, what happens when your preferences collide with my preferences, or when your alternate reality collide with my alternate reality since we’re both defining truth on the basis of our own preferences. We’re under the deception of a serpent here. Well, we have a collision here and see if what you call good is bad for me and what I call good is bad for you. Well, then I judge you as being bad. You’re not what I prefer; you’re getting in the way of my preferences. And this is how the accuser Satan, the accuser that’s what he’s called in the Bible. He makes us mini, mini accusers. He makes us into His own image; he makes us little mini judgers. The result is that we get our life, to some degree, from our comparative assessment of others. It feeds us. It makes us feel good. We prefer that; we’re superior. We belong to the team that is superior. We become judges. (39:08)

The first thing that happens when they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is they judge themselves. They’re embarrassed or ashamed that’s judgment turned inward. So they want to cover up, and then they judge God. They hide from him, which is they’re saying God is a monster he’s gonna come out and get us he’s a big bad meanie God, because they’re buying into the lie that the serpent gave them. And so they judge God. And then, when God starts talking to them, they continue the judgment. Adam blames Eve, and God he says, ’the woman that you gave me, she’s the one who tripped me up.’ Because he sees what’s good for Adam, he thinks what he prefers is to look less guilty. And so the way to look less guilty is to make Eve look more guilty. He passed the buck. That’s the essence of all judgment. I increase my worth by stealing a little bit of your worth. Make me thinking that you’re less than well; that feeds me at least I’m not like that. And then Eve blames the sermon, and we’ve been judging ever since.

We are little mini accusers behind all the violence in the world throughout history is this, this judgment. Before someone kills someone, you have to judge them as not worth living. So, the strategy of the enemy now we can see is twofold. First, the enemy deceives us into thinking that we have the right to define reality according to our preferences. He leads us by appealing to our preferences down a track where we begin to believe in and act on an alternative reality. And then, step two, He takes these alternative realities and puts them in a collision, and that’s how he divides - conquer and divide that’s always the strategy.

As ambassadors of the kingdom, we have to know what the enemy is up to; we can’t be ignorant of his designs Most fundamentally, our job is to get our thinking and are living to line up with what is true, as defined by God. Our job is to get our preferences, to be conformed to the truth as defined by God so that what we end up preferring is what God prefers. That’s our job to be in this alignment. It’s not to try to use our preferences to decide what is true. No, we decide what is true first, and then we get our life to conform to that. But to do that, we have to resist the pull of the powers. We have to resist the pull of the demonic forces that are always driving us into alternate realities. Then, pitting our alternate realities against one another, that pull is always there. But you will only feel the pool when you begin to resist it. If you’re not feeling the pull, you’re being pulled by the pull. And that feels normal. Start to resist it, and you’ll feel the pull. (42:08)

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