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Continuing our discussion from part two, I have wondered if up until that point in which God created Eve, Adam may have been a little saddened after having come to the realization that he was the only being of his kind. There was no other creature exactly like him in the entire Garden of Eden. Did Adam feel alone? Would you if you were in his situation? All of the animals had a mate, yet he did not. Coupled with the realization of his own limitations compared to the amazing abilities of some of the rest of the creatures in Eden, the Lord must have gotten him in the right frame of mind so that when Eve was finally presented to Adam, he must have been extremely overjoyed and very appreciative.

Imagine the thoughts that may have run through Adam's head: "Wow! She looks just like me! Well, almost! Man oh man is she gorgeous! What a knockout!" Please notice also that Eve was made from Adam's side. Perhaps the Lord did this as a sign that Eve was to be Adam's equal and a copartner in the Lord's creation, and not someone over whom Adam was to be a lord. She wasn't made from an arm, or a leg, or a foot bone, but rather from a rib near to Adam's heart. We are then told that the Lord made Adam and Eve to have dominion over the rest of His creation, as we see by the following verses:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."


After having made Adam aware of his proper relationship with his fellow creatures, the Lord made him and Eve the stewards of creation. As the previous verses indicate, even before He had actually created them, the Lord knew exactly what He had planned for them. In spite of the fact that they weren't the biggest, or the fastest, or the most powerful of the Lord's creations on the Earth, nevertheless, God still chose Adam and Eve from before the foundation of the world to become the dominant species on this planet.

In short, for His own divine reasons, God chose human beings to rule over the rest of His creatures. We might say that He purposely ordained Adam and Eve to be the king and queen of the prediluvian or antediluvian creation, meaning before the Genesis Flood occurred. However, as I have already pointed out, they were both merely human beings, and not gods. They also had the ability to choose between good and evil. They were free will beings, just as Satan and the other Angels were likewise free will beings. Having said that, I suspect -- but cannot conclusively prove -- that evil may possibly have already begun working in their hearts, even before their fateful encounter with Satan in Genesis chapter three.

As I said earlier, I believe that it is possible that Adam's pride and vanity may have already begun working against him the minute he came into contact with the other creatures and saw that they could do things which he couldn't. While we do not know the precise size of the Garden of Eden, doesn't it make you wonder exactly how it was that Adam and Eve were so close to the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on that rather fateful day? Did they want to be tempted?

While the previous thought may surprise some of you, let us not forget that even though Satan himself was created by the very hand of God, nevertheless, he still had free will, he had his pride, evil was found in his heart, and ultimately, he chose to rebel against the Lord. I am reminded of what the Prophet Ezekiel said in the twenty-eighth chapter of his Book regarding Satan's sin, and likewise of what the Prophet Isaiah wrote as well. Consider the following group of verses:

"Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, TILL INIQUITY WAS FOUND IN THEE."


"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit."


As I point out in the articles "Satan: His Origin, Purpose and Future", "Satan: King of Tyrus, King of Empires", and "When Was Satan Cast Out of Heaven?", we discover that in three of the Gospels, Jesus likewise spoke of how the Devil was cast out of Heaven, and cast down to the Earth. Consider these astounding verses. Notice in particular how the Lord says "now shall the prince of this world be cast out" -- meaning cast out of Heaven -- and "for the prince of this world cometh" -- meaning to the Earth -- thus becoming the god of this world, exactly as the Apostle Paul wrote, and exactly as we read in the Book of Revelation:

"And he [Jesus] said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."


"Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out."


"Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."


"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."


"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."


"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:"


Tying all of these thoughts together, the key point I wish to make is the following. If it was possible for the Devil to rebel, even though Adam and Eve were also created by the very hand of God, they too possessed this same potential for rebellion. I am reminded of what the Prophet Jeremiah wrote regarding the wicked nature of the unregenerate human heart:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"


In fact, only three chapters later in the Book of Genesis, we find Moses writing the following regarding conditions on the Earth prior to the Genesis Flood:

"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."


As I have shared in a number of other articles, in two of the Gospels, we also find Jesus saying the following with regards to the evil nature of the unregenerate human heart:

"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man."


"And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man."


At any rate, by the time we arrive at the opening events of Genesis chapter three, wicked Satan has apparently already accomplished his rebellion against God, and has already been at work endeavoring to foil God's plans for His creation. In Genesis chapter three we read about the fateful encounter between Eve and that vile serpent, as we see by this verse:

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"


Thus we behold the first part of the Devil's attack, when he purposely causes Eve to doubt God's Word. Satan already knew the answer to the question. However, he had to begin slowly by causing dear Eve to stop and think on her own, instead of continuing to trust in the Lord. As the Apostle Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans, and as we also find in the Book of Proverbs:

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."


"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."


Thus, instead of just ignoring Satan, resisting his wicked, fleshly temptation, and running the other way as she should have done, Eve leaned to her own understanding and basically invited the Devil to pull up a chair and have a conversation with her, as we see by these next two verses:

"And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."


Clearly, Eve was very much aware of God's rule concerning the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So did she explain this to Satan due to her innocence? Or was she actually hoping to be tempted by him? That's a good question to which none of us know the answer. I am reminded of the wise counsel we find in the first two verses of Psalm 1, as well as in a number of other verses which are found in the Old and New Testaments. Consider the following verses and be warned:

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."


"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."


"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for HE IS A LIAR, AND THE FATHER OF IT."


"Neither give place to the devil."


"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."


"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices."


"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ . . . And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."


"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"


So once dear Eve had clearly explained to the Devil what he obviously already knew in the first place, that vile serpent then proceeded to tell her an outright lie in direct contradiction to what the Lord had actually said, as we can determine by the following two verses:

"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 gods, knowing good and evil."


And there it is! A direct hit on Eve's womanly pride and vanity! "Hey Eve, baby! You won't die, honey! You will be just like Him! You'll be a goddess!" Yes, I realize that I am being a bit dramatic here, but it is to make a point. I imagine that Satan must have really been lusting after Eve. After all, having been made by the very hands of God, maybe even modeled after one of His angelic entities, Eve must have been an absolute dream! She must have made ole Satan's heart go pitter-patter.

In case you are not aware of it, there are those people who actually believe that there is much more to this seduction story than what we currently find in our modern Bible. More to the point, some of them -- such as the Jews in their work "Legends of the Jews" -- claim that Eve actually engaged in sexual intercourse with Satan -- or some other Fallen Angel -- and that this illicit act resulted in the birth of Cain. The Wikipedia website notes the following regarding this particular theory:

----- Begin Quote -----

In one of the Legends of the Jews, Cain is the fruit of a union between Eve and Satan, who is also the angel Samael and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Eve exclaims at Cain's birth, "I have gotten a man through an angel of the Lord."

In Jewish tradition, Philo, Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan asserted that Adam was not the father of Cain. Rather, Eve was subject to adultery having been seduced by either Sammael, the serpent (nahash, Hebrew: נחש) in the Garden of Eden, or the devil himself. Christian exegesis of the "evil one" in 1 John 3:10–12 have also led some commentators, like Tertullian, to agree that Cain was the son of the devil or some fallen angel. Thus, according to some interpreters, Cain was half-human and half-angelic, one of the Nephilim (Genesis 6). Gnostic exegesis in the Apocryphon of John has Eve seduced by Yaldabaoth. However, in the Hypostasis of the Archons, Eve is raped by a pair of Archons.

----- End Quote -----

As I point out in articles such as "The Book of Enoch: Truth or Heresy?" and "Nephilim: The Giants of Genesis", one thing I will agree to is the fact that some of the Angelic Beings -- meaning the Fallen Angels -- definitely longed for human women because they found them very beautiful. Furthermore, their sexual union with human women did result in the birth of various races of giants, or Nephilim. However, aside from that, personally, I am not aware of any direct evidence in the Bible of this claim of Cain being fathered by the Devil. One set of verses which some of these people seem to pervert in order to supposedly support their theory are apparently the following ones:

"In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brothers righteous."


However, please note that the phrase "of that wicked one" does NOT literally mean that Cain was born as a result of a sexual union between Eve and the Devil. If for the sake of argument we accept their wayward interpretation, should we likewise believe that when the Lord told the unbelieving Jews in John 8:44 "Ye are of your father the devil", He was saying that they were literally and physically born of the Devil? Or should we also believe that when Jesus calls them the children of hell in the twenty-third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and likewise "the synagogue of Satan" in Revelation chapters two and three, He also meant that they were literally born as a result of an actual sexual union with Satan? I think not.

My personal belief is that the Lord was simply saying that they were being influenced by the Devil in their thoughts, and that Satan was blinding them to the truth. As we read earlier, the Apostle Paul wrote "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not." It is for this very same reason that in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul also advises his readers to control their thoughts, as we see by the following verse:

"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;"


The truth of the matter is that the Book of Genesis very clearly informs us that Adam was the biological father of Cain. Let me mention here that in the following verse, the word "knew" is actually a euphemism for engaging in sexual intercourse in certain places in the Holy Scriptures:

"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD."


But returning to the account of Eve being deceived by Satan, doesn't it seem strange that this is all it took, only three verses in the whole Bible, and Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan's lies? The very next verse tells us the following:

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


Thus we see that without a second thought, Eve, and then her husband Adam -- who just happened to be right next to her -- took of the forbidden fruit and caused the downfall of the human race. Due to their pride and vanity, which must have been steeping for some time prior to the event, they ignored the Lord's very clear warning, and turned their backs on the wonderful relationship they had with Him, and the blessing of living in the Garden of Eden. Towards the very end of the Bible, the Apostle John really exposes the tactics that Satan used to tempt and deceive Adam and Eve. Consider this group of verses:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."


Sadly, because Adam and Eve did NOT do the will of God, but chose to rebel against Him, they did NOT abide forever, as the Apostle John writes. Instead, not only were they doomed to die physically, but their close relationship with God was broken that day as well.

Notice how similar the above verses are to Genesis 3:6. The very same three elements are present in both verses. That is to say, the lust of the flesh -- "the tree was good for food" -- the lust of the eyes -- "it was pleasant to the eyes" -- and the pride of life -- "a tree to be desired to make one wise". Satan knew EXACTLY how to lead Adam and Eve into sin, thus breaking God's law. As the Apostle John writes, that is precisely what sin is, as we can determine by this verse:

"‭‭Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.‭"


At this point in our discussion, you may possibly wonder how the story of the fall of Adam and Eve relates to our primary discussion regarding the salvation of animals. Well, let me tell you. The point is that The Fall didn't just affect Adam and Eve and their offspring. It in fact affected the entire creation, including the animal kingdom. It threw EVERYTHING out of balance. For example, prior to The Fall, the Book of Genesis indicates that both man and beast were vegetarians, as we can easily determine by the following two verses:

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so."


Animals did not kill each other for food, and man did not kill animals for food. As I explain in other articles, the first clear reference we find where the Lord permitted the eating of meat, is after the Great Deluge which occurred in Noah's day. Some Bible students -- myself included -- hold the view that it was quite possibly the removal of the canopy of water which surrounded the Earth -- as a direct result of the Flood -- which contributed to the acceleration of the aging process in human beings.

In other words, the canopy of water acted as a filter. Once that canopy was removed, there was a sudden increase in the intensity of ultraviolet rays striking upon the world. I am not a scientist or a doctor, but it seems to me that it thus became necessary for our bodies to absorb more protein in order to counteract this harmful affect upon our frail human flesh. Following the Flood, we find God saying the following to Noah:

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."


Notice that it is at this point that animals first become afraid of man because the Lord lets them know that they are now fair game to be caught, killed and eaten by humankind. Before The Fall, this was not so. Adam and Eve lived in communion with the animals. They were friends. Who knows, maybe they could even talk to each other. Is that too wild of a speculation for you? Well, what if that serpent in the Garden really was a serpent, and not symbolic of something else as some of us like to think? The main point to consider here is that the disobedience by Adam and Eve caused a major breach in creation. They totally upset the applecart. They threw things off balance; and the Lord has been working ever since to repair the damage which was caused by their foolish rebellion.

Notice that in the previous pronouncement to Noah and his family, the Lord sets three conditions: First, they must remove the blood from the meat before consuming it. Second, any animal which kills a human will be held accountable by God. Third, any man who kills another man will also be held accountable by the Lord. So again, because of the original transgression which had been committed by Adam and Eve due to their pride and vanity, all of creation has been put at our mercy. All animals have been, and will remain, under our human subjection until God grants them freedom from bondage and their full salvation, just as He will do with us as well.

Until that day arrives, those of us who eat meat will thus continue to go to the grocery store without a second thought or feeling of guilt and buy our pound of ground beef, or our hot dogs, or our roasted chicken, or our steak, or our spare ribs, or whatever it is that appeals to our taste. One thing we all need to remember, whether we are meat eaters or else vegetarians, is that God receives us all by our faith in His Son, and not by what we put into our mouths. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Mark:

"There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man . . . Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?"


The Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Disciples at Rome, also expounded upon this very same topic. In Romans chapter fourteen, Paul writes in part:

"Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him . . . Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind . . . Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. Let not then your good be evil spoken of: For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost . . . For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me."


Please go to part four for the conclusion of this series.

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