In fact, let’s consider an example of a woman who has four children, in which she experienced 12 hours of “labor pain” with each birth, and then combine this with the 70 years of physical life God has allotted mankind. Yes, the “physical pain” of labor can be very intense, but its impact upon suffering over a lifetime is quite small.
With such an example of a 70-year lifespan, the actual experience of pain would constitute far less than .001 % of a woman’s life. Said another way, it is experiencing suffering 2 days out of 25,550 days of life. Experiencing such labor pain within a woman’s physical lifetime is so negligible that it becomes more like trying to compare 70 years of human life with ever lasting life in God’s Family. Although there really is no way to compare such a small figure to everlasting life, the point of the comparison should ring true in the sense that such moments of suffering compared to the “whole” life experience of someone isn’t really a great concern in one’s life.
From the outlook of most people, the “experience” of carrying a child and then giving birth through a “short” time of actual physical labor is not looked upon as a “curse.” On the contrary, giving birth is considered a great blessing in life. The desire to have a family and children in that family (if a couple so chooses) often involves much planning, excited anticipation, and tremendous joy. Once a woman then passes the “time experienced” in actual pain of labor, a very great excitement and happiness enters life upon the birth of one’s own child. It is a very unique and incredibly miraculous experience of human life, and it is not to be viewed in any context as having any relationship to a curse.
Healing
Although the experience of physical pain in human life can be very unpleasant, the actual pain from suffering within the human mind can be much greater. Mental and emotional suffering come from a vast array of causes, all of which stem from sin and the curses that mankind has brought upon themselves. Many of these are simply passed down generation to generation or have even come as a result of what has been handed down from degenerating bodies (genes) as a result of curses and sin.
Although it is only very partial, the following list shows the kind of depth for causes and effects to human suffering and wrong experiences in life that cause such suffering (mental, emotional, and physical): betrayal, angry encounters, jealousy, envy, loss of the life of loved ones, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, arguments, false accusations, racism, robbery, countless diseases, cheating, adultery, fornication, HIV, rage, cancers, financial loss and struggle, obesity, depleted and contaminated foods, countless additives and chemicals in foods, indebtedness, divorce, unemployment, hostile work environment, oppression, murders, thefts, warfare, gossip, gambling addiction, oppressive government, corruption in government and business, false accusations, being maligned, daily pressures and stress of life, bloggers who lie, disloyalty, bad relationships, drug addiction, alcoholism, road rage, terrorism, pornography, greed, misuse of the Internet, malnutrition, deformities, bullying, controlling, fearfulness, phobias, evil, etc., etc. How many of these have been part or much of your experience in life? There seems to be no end to the means for human suffering that occupies so much of life. The real curses of life are overflowing, especially in this age of technology where sin is so easily multiplied.
There is countless suffering that can occupy much of one’s experience in human life. It can be so adverse and intense against one’s well being that it can and does affect one’s actual physical health in such a negative manner that it can lead to greater susceptibility to diseases, immune deficiencies, circulatory and heart problems, digestive problems, mental disorders, alcohol and drug abuse (which in turn cause physical disorders), etc. Mental and emotional suffering interferes with the proper functioning and balanced harmony God created to exist in the human body. The “way we think” does quite literally affect the state of our health.
So far we have only scratched the surface of what we can learn from what happened in the beginning with Adam and Eve. It is important to dig deeper into what is said about this account of the first sin in human life. Sin “infects” the way we think. It is a spiritual matter, just as when Lucifer first sinned and God said that he had basically destroyed (perverted, diseased) his own precious mind that God had given him when he was created. Like a physical disease, sin sickens the mind and adversely spreads into one’s life by producing curses due to the “way” one thinks and then lives life according to that wrong thinking. Only when God “calls” someone into His Church can one begin to “come out” of sin – to come out of bondage from spiritual Egypt.
When God begins to transform the mind by bringing one out of sin, He actually begins the process of healing the mind. God speaks of this healing in different ways, and there is one location in scripture where this process is well defined:
“I (the Eternal) have seen his ways (pride-filled mankind, whose ways are not God’s), and will heal him (the mind must begin to be healed in order to develop right thinking), and I will also lead him (in His true ways), and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners (God’s plan is to heal the mind in order to produce blessings – comforts – in life and to remove the suffering and mourning that is produced from sin – from curses). I create the fruit of the lips (God’s transformation and creation of Elohim produces good fruit – blessings – that are reflected in all that is spoken from the lips, which reveals the thinking of the mind). Peace, peace to him that is far off (to those who will be called later in time, especially those in the Great White Throne period), and to him that is near (called now and being worked with now), and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest (sin never satisfies but leads to greater lust and sin, and it never produces good results, but unrest), whose waters cast up mire and dirt (those who live in sin cannot have true peace and blessings in life, but cast up more sin and filth into life). There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked (to those who live in their own way – in sin)” (Is. 57:18-21).
Sin begets more sin and produces more suffering and sorrow in life. Satan sinned by influencing Eve to turn against God and disobey Him. Eve sinned and that influenced Adam to sin. The choice of sin led to even more sin in their thinking. Only God can reverse this spiritually cancerous state of wrong thinking in mankind. But sadly, people become accustomed to suffering in human life as though it is “normal,” but it is abnormal and not what God desires for human life. God’s desire is the way that produces peace – spiritual Jerusalem.
God reveals the kinds of curses that result from sin – that result from disobedience to His ways. He also reveals the kinds of blessings that result from obedience. Both are opposite to each other, just as good is to bad, or righteousness is to wickedness.
The vast majority of curses that have come upon mankind are a direct result of disobedience to laws that are in motion in life; however, there are curses that are the result of God’s intervention and direct punishment because of overflowing sin. In like manner, there are blessings in life that result from obedience to God’s laws (even when people are ignorant of those laws, but happen to “live” something that is in agreement or unity with God), and there are also blessings that result from God’s direct intervention upon His people when they have received some “special” favor from Him. The blessings poured out upon the scattered nations of Israel over the past few centuries are the result of promises God made to those who did receive special favor (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph) as part of His purpose to be worked out before His Kingdom would be established. These nations of people did not receive these blessings because of any “good” they lived by being in agreement with God.
The main point of all this is that there are blessings and cursings reaped in life because of how people choose to live life. There are laws in motion that produce specific results that come from the way people think and then choose to live. Then there are also blessings and cursings that God sometimes gives by His direct intervention in life.
Sin Infected the Mind
As it was stated earlier, sin infects the mind and spreads into “life” like a disease. So what happened after Adam and Eve sinned?
Any who actually give consideration to this account do not dig very deep nor do they consider the deeper matter of the consequences of sin. In addition, when considering what God said to Eve after she sinned, the account is generally seen as “physical” in nature. Focusing on such things from a “physical” viewpoint is all mankind can actually do. They cannot see what is spiritual. So when it came to what was said to the woman, it is taken to be primarily speaking physically as a matter of physical labor pain at birth, but this account goes far beyond such “limited” thinking.
This inability to “see” what is spiritual is similar to the example I often reference when Christ was speaking to the woman at the well. Christ spoke of being able to give her “living” water, but she only saw it as physical and of her no longer having to fetch water daily at the well.
In this account of the first human sin, there is another matter that is addressed first before God pronounced what the curses were that resulted from their sin. It has to do with what happened in their mind – in their thinking – once they had sinned. As soon as they had sinned, right away something happened in their minds. By sinning, they had polluted, damaged, and adversely infected the precious mind God had created in them.
Right after it states that they took of the forbidden fruit and ate of it, it goes on to say what happened next – the beginning result of sin:
“And the eyes of both of them were opened…” (Gen. 3:7). They “saw” something different from “the way” that God had created them to see – in unity with Him. They began to “see” in their “own way” which was different from God. Their mind was diseased and defiled as it turned from God. What happened next? “And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew (began to believe something different) they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves a covering” (Gen. 3:7).
The result of the very first sin was that their thinking became distorted and it turned them more inward in matters concerning self. Sin created a sense of shame and embarrassment. It is good to consider the dictionary definition of some words used here that help to illuminate this condition.
Embarrassment: perplexity; a confusion or discomposure of mind.
Perplexity: A confused or disturbed mental condition.
Shame: A painful (adverse) emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety in one’s behavior.
These words help clarify the reality of something that is experienced in the mind. It is the result or affect upon the mind from sin. These explain quite well what happens to a mind that engages in sin. However, mankind does not like the experience of such emotions or feelings, so the carnal tendency is to distance one’s self from God – to hide from God. Another perverse solution of mankind is to plunge oneself more deeply into sin and do so repeatedly in order to not have a sense of wrongdoing or in order to grow in the ability to ignore such responses. It is in this manner that mankind actually sears their thinking – their mind. Paul speaks clearly of this very thing: “Who by speaking lies in hypocrisy have their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:2). This word for “sear” in the Greek means to brand (cauterize) in the sense of rendering insensitive.
Why Naked?
As soon as they sinned, the mind of Adam and Eve turned to what might seem to be a rather perplexing response. They knew they were naked. But before they had sinned they were naked – they had no covering on their bodies. So what changed in their thinking (mind) and why did they have such a response of now seeing themselves without a covering over their bodies? More to the point, what did they seek to cover and from whom?
This was not about any concern they had toward Satan, but toward their Creator God. They knew they had disobeyed Him. They knew He had told them they should not eat of the forbidden tree. The shame and embarrassment of sin and of having to possibly face God in this matter is something that human nature responds to in a rather predictable and expected manner. This is much like how a child will respond to a parent when they know they have done wrong. The response is to hide or try to cover up what actually happened. This is very basic to a normal carnal response.
However, with this being the first sin in minds that had been created pure, their initial response was magnified many times over. Adam and Eve did not have the experience of life from an infant forward, but they began in adulthood with pure, uncorrupted minds. They did not have the time and experiences through childhood and teen life to “learn” how to ignore the conscience (wrong doing) in order to please self and get one’s way. For Adam and Eve, this first carnal experience in sin so disturbed and confused their emotional and mental reaction (brought such disorder to their thinking) that they turned to the one thing that unsettles the human mind most in the way God created man and woman. It is indeed a matter of sex.
[Part 4 will continue next week]
The Church of God - Preparing for the Kingdom of God