WG-09-10. "FIG LEAVES"

10. "FIG LEAVES" THE promise of Satan began immediately to be fulfilled, though not, we may be sure, in the manner understood and expected by his dupes. The woman ate of the fruit, and the man, who apparently stood by during the colloquy (for the account says that she gave unto her husband, who was with her), immediately followed her example. The man apparently was prudent and willing to listen to, without taking part in, the discussion between the woman and the first higher critic of the Word of God. Apparently he watched her experiment, and, seeing that no visible harm followed, imitated her action. Have we here the explanation of woman’s influence over man in spiritual matters and in affairs wherein the affections are concerned? The result was, indeed, the immediate acquisition of knowledge. “The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

Moreover, this newly-acquired knowledge was immediately applied to practical use, and mankind forthwith entered upon its career of activity. “And they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons.” In this short sentence the Divine source of the narrative may be clearly perceived by all who have eyes to see. The two concise statements of this sentence set forth the subjective and objective consequences flowing from man’s disloyalty to God and his acceptance of the leadership of Satan. Contained within this brief sentence, which is devoid of comment and phrased with superhuman simplicity, is an epitome of human nature and human history. What the man and woman immediately acquired was the now predominant trait of self-consciousness. “They saw that they were naked.” Previously they were naked, but “were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25).

God-consciousness has now been lost, and in its place has come self-consciousness; and henceforth self-contemplation is to be the characteristic and bane of mankind, laying the foundation for those inner feelings or mental conditions comprehended under the term “unhappiness,” and for all the external strivings whereby effort is made to attain a better condition. And what are all these efforts and activities but further endeavors of the same 6ort as the very first human effort, which history has thus recorded for us, after man’s departure on his career of self-reliance? Is it not plain that the act here recorded is the germ of all subsequent human activities? Becoming conscious of self, and of his deficiencies, no longer having a present God to supply all necessities, and being, moreover, under the delusion of the possibility of better conditions, man begins to invent and contrive. He makes himself an apron to cover his nakedness; and this has been the occupation of his descendants to the present day. The occupation thus handed on from generation to generation takes a great variety of forms, but through them all the nature and object of the occupation remain the same.

Man was obviously not made for self-contemplation, but rather to look away from himself. This is apparent from his very anatomy. Man is, as to all his vital organs, practically hidden from himself. The important functions of the body are carried on by concealed apparatus and engines, marvelous contrivances whose operations and processes still, after all these centuries of self-examination, remain unsolvable mysteries. The processes of the mind are absolutely inscrutable to the mind itself. The senses are adapted to giving man information con­cerning external things; but concerning themselves, or how they transmit information from without, they can tell him practically nothing. Conscious­ness, that mysterious reservoir wherein is gathered all man’s knowledge, contains no knowledge whatever of its own nature. What a calamity, there­fore, has befallen a creature so organized, in becoming self-centered and addicted to self-contemplation! To this cause we may trace all morbid, unwholesome, and depressing mental states. This is commonly recognized, and yet despite his own efforts and despite all the manifold contrivances wherewith the world is equipped, how difficult it is for the natural man to avoid lapsing into self- contemplation! Indeed, knowing nothing better, nothing higher and more important than self, his thoughts must naturally gravitate to that object as a center when released from the control of the will. There is nothing more attractive than. child­hood in its freshness and unconsciousness of self; but when self-consciousness begins, the charm disappears. Do we not see in this the profound reason why the Lord Jesus Christ pointed to a “little child” as the type of those who shall compose His Kingdom? And what is it that spurs men along the many lines of human activity? Is it not the same sub­jective condition which prompted the making of the apron of fig-leaves—namely, man’s consciousness of some deficiency, and the desire to supply it by his own efforts? This is only putting in another form the oft-stated incentive to human exertion—namely, the so-called “duty” of the individual to develop what is in him, and thus to rise to his “highest possibilities.”

There is, indeed (and it must not be ignored, because it comes from God Himself), another reason for activity on man’s part—namely, the daily recurring needs of the body. God declared it as one of the consequences of man’s disobedience that in the sweat of his face he should eat bread. But this is not the career, nor was it included in the career, Divinely appointed for man. On the con­trary, it is a penal consequence of his departure from the Divinely appointed career. Man does not by any natural impulse accept, nor does he without protest accept, the “gospel of work.” It is not God’s Word that declares incessant toil to be the purpose for which he was created. This, again, is a doctrine which proceeded from a very different source.

Moreover, it is one thing to labor for the necessities of the mortal body, and it is another and very different matter to labor for the success of Satan’s world-scheme. Following but a short way down the stream of human history which had its source in the Garden of Eden, we observe that it was Cain’s descendants who built a city, who invented metal-working, who devised musical instruments, and who first composed poetry in praise of the doings of man (Gen 4:17-24)

Those whose occupation is “to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven” (1Th 1:9-10) have no share in the occupation which absorbs the great mass of humanity—namely, the futile attempt to make earth a satisfactory habitation for man apart from God. Recognizing that the experiment to which Adam committed his family was the attempt to achieve a destiny without Divine aid, those who have received the truth of God into their hearts, and have been made thereby wise unto salvation, understand that the end will be a failure which will be recognized by all in the light of His presence, and the destruction of all the works that men have so laboriously wrought.