Not
by John Sainsbury
When the LORD God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15), God gave him the freedom to enjoy the fruits of all the trees in that garden, bar one. That surely is still God’s heart for us; that we might be free to enjoy the goodness and bounty of all that God has made.
Yet there are limitations. In that first garden there was just one. Adam was told not to eat the fruit of one particular tree. Why does God tell him not to eat that fruit? Because, if he does, there will be catastrophic consequences. “You will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). God’s instructions seem clear enough. Adam knows what he can do and what he must not do to enjoy life in this blessed garden. All is clear. But …
In the next chapter we meet another character, the serpent, ‘more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made’ (Genesis 3:1). When he quotes God’s commandment back to the human pair, this freedom is subtly, but devastatingly reversed. He said to the woman, Adam’s fellow image bearer (Genesis 1:27), “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1).
What the serpent does is to deliberately misquote God’s original word. He turns the freedom and generosity of God into something that sounds like a mean-spirited restriction, simply by the addition of the simple word ‘not’. One simple twist of ‘free’ into ‘not’ completely reversed the original intention of God and changed the reality of his undeniable generosity into apparent stinginess.
Why do I share this profound insight? Because it shows just how easy it is for us to take God’s word and, by misquoting it, in ever so simple ways, distort the truth about God and give a completely false view of who He truly is!
We’re told later in the Bible that those who seek to teach God’s word bear a tremendous responsibility (James 3:1). Why would this be? Because those who teach God’s word can have a profound effect on the impression of God that their hearers receive.
Yet we, the recipients of Bible teaching, have a responsibility too, to check out what we are hearing against the truths of God’s word. The Bereans of Acts 17:11 personify this approach most excellently.
If there is a lesson from this first example of this misquotation, maybe it’s simply this: Beware of the ‘nots’!
John Sainsbury and his wife Sue are part of the leadership team at Ellel Grange. John has served as a church leader for many years, most recently as Lead Pastor of the Garstang Free Methodist Church. He has a passion for seeing many brought into the fulness of life that following Christ brings.
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