Genesis 3:22 “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:”
Is God saying that at least the last half of what Satan said to the woman was true? It almost seems that way. Satan had alleged “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” (Gen 3:5).
“To know good and evil” is the sense in which God says that “the man is become as one of us.” Technically, considering His foreknowledge, God had always known evil, even before it was born in the mind of Lucifer. Knowing evil by practice, however, (Satan’s accusations to the contrary), is antithetical to the nature and character of God. Practical knowledge of evil was exclusively the realm of its author Satan, until he successfully marketed it to his fellow angels and then to mankind as something wonderful that God was holding back from them. As the created being nearest to God, Satan aspired to God’s privileges while rejecting His obligations which he styled as oppressive and arbitrary rules rather than the DNA of the divine character.
I think it’s worth noting that God doesn’t say that the man had become like Himself, rather, “like one of us.” Does the “one of us” refer to one of the Godhead, or does it refer to “one of us present here”? If it is the latter, then God is simply saying that man has become like his new master, the Serpent, the wannabe God. Or as Jesus said much later to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). If, on the other hand, God is saying that man has become like one of the Godhead, in what sense could that be true? God had already made man in their own image. Rather than enhance that image, the first sin set off a degrading sequence that divested us of all righteousness. Perhaps the only divine-like knowledge of evil that mankind obtained through the fall was a taste of the pain it causes and the price it costs. God knows the painful cost of evil better than anyone, and in His infinite compassion and ability to suffer He chose to take on that load even before it came to exist, and by that commitment make provision to limit evil’s extent.
On that note, it should be easy to see both the justice and mercy of God in what He says next: “and now, lest he put put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:” Can you imagine the desperation and anguish of immortalized suffering? The possibility of sinners eating from the tree of life presented an immediate crisis. Thankfully, God refused to allow for immortalized torment, a fact for which we should all be forever grateful.
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