Genesis gives us the in-your-face picture of God’s authority. He is the one in the beginning and only from Him does everything else come. He is the Creator who can rightly affirm that all that He has made is good. This is repeated over and over in the narrative. “God saw that it was good.” That is God’s Word on His creation. It is the declaration of His authority. He made it and saw it was good. Who else was there to make such a judgment? He owned that position as well. He was the only One who had the power to create and He was the only One who had the knowledge and authority to see it as good and declare it so.

God created Adam and Eve and he put them in the Garden under His authority. In chapter three is where we find the temptation and fall. The prohibition of 2:17, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” is the test of whether they will submit to God’s authority. In agreement with Goldsworthy, nothing in the text should make us think that the fruit of the tree itself possessed some magical quality that gives the knowledge of good and evil to whoever eats it. Do not be distracted by a picture of a shiny apple hanging from a naughty tree. The issue is authority. God clearly said “freely enjoy all of these, do not eat this one.” There is the good and evil—obey God or turn against Him.

We see this in the text. For the first time since the repetition in chapters 1-2, someone saw that something was good. However, the someone was not God, and the something was not good. The creature saw what God prohibited to be good. This is a clear, definite denial of God’s authoritative judgment and goodness. Adam and Eve became their own ‘gods’ and saw and called for themselves what was good. This is the Fall.