Genesis 3 - Note 1..Misery Loves Company

At 48 I've watched very, very many movies and television programs. Perhaps because I am male and wired for these things most of them have included varying levels of suspense, danger, action, and yes, murder/killing. I probably do not want to know how deeply these programs have informed my own world view and proclivities for lust, anger, rage, or revenge.

Many have featured usually a villain, but sometimes a "hero" who, when faced with their unavoidable death, have declared with inspiring heat some variation of " If I'm going, then I'm taking as many with me before I go!". This, as far as I can tell, is a dramatization of the old saying "Misery loves company".

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil."

The Satan, the Accuser, the Adversary, the Devil...appears from scripture to have been the first of God's creation to desire self over God, and to have rebelled against Him in his disobedience.

In the perfect beauty of the Garden, understanding fully choice and consequence, he possesses all he needs to lead God's highest creation, who also has free will, formed in some regard in God's own image, into the depths of his own misery.

No wonder the most excoriating judgements in the New Testament are reserved for those who knowingly set before others the traps they themselves have fallen into.

Genesis 2:18-3:6 (selected) The Power of Loneliness

When I was in high school I read a series of books by Stephen R. Donaldson titled "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" in which a formerly well known and therefore wealthy writer had developed leprosy which ultimately led to his wife and children leaving him alone in his rural home.

He was afraid to venture out in case an unknown scratch led to gangrene (leprosy damages peripheral nerves and without the pain from injury registering, the smallest injury can lead to infection therefore gangrene), but also afraid to be cut off from his fellow man. The power of loneliness finally drove him to walk into town both to overcome fear of injury, and to prove that he was still part of humanity.

Loneliness, the absence of "one like me", is a powerful motivator. Apparently God did not like loneliness.

"And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him."
"...but for man there was not found a help meet for him. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:and they shall be one flesh."

The value of this gift was inestimable.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."

The gift of "one like me" was perhaps so highly valued that, fearing to lose companionship and be lonely again, Adam ate. I have done likewise on many occasions to avoid being "left out".

Ironically, choosing the gift over the Giver will ultimately lead to a much greater separation. All other right relationships are derivative of the one we have with God and reach there fullest potential as a result.