71: The Garden's Other Voice

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast, a podcast and blog dedicated to inquisitive Bible students exploring biblical truths that might not be fully explored in typical sermons or Bible studies. My name is Eddie Lawrence.

The story you're about to hear is a fictional retelling based on the true biblical story. It imagines what could have happened behind the scenes. You know.

The Witness in the Garden

There's something to be said for watching a story unfold from the beginning. Most folks only hear about what happened in that garden secondhand but there was someone there who saw it all. Someone who understood what was really at stake.

He watched them from the shadows, these curious creatures that had been shaped from dust and breath. They were fragile things, so utterly unaware of the forces swirling around them. The morning light caught the dew on their skin as they moved through the garden and he had to admit they were beautiful.

Beautiful and doomed. The one called Adam bent to examine a flower, touching it like it might break. Such care in those mortal hands, such reverence for the smallest of creations. Behind him the one called Eve laughed at something, a butterfly perhaps, or the way the light danced through the leaves.

The sound carried across the garden like silver bells, pure and unburdened by the weight of knowledge. Now here's what most people don't understand about what happened next. Those two knew nothing of what lay beyond the garden's borders, nothing of the vastness of creation that stretched beyond their simple paradise.

They knew little of the other beings, the ones who had served faithfully since the first word was spoken into existence. The ones who had sung as stars came into being, who had watched galaxies spiral to life, who had stood at the right hand of the Almighty through all of creation.

And yet here they were, these creatures of clay and breath, given dominion over all of it, not the immortal spirits, not the beings who understood the true scope of divine power, them, these children who could barely comprehend the garden they wandered through, let alone the infinite expanse beyond.

The Watcher felt a stirring of what he would later come to recognize as disappointment. Surely the Creator would see how unsuited they were for such responsibility. One needed only to observe them for a few moments to understand their limitations.

They ate when hungry, slept when tired, marveled at simple things like flowers and streams. Where was the wisdom needed to govern creation? Where was the strength to bear such a burden? He and his companions had discussed this.

They had wondered whether this was the Almighty's way of teaching them patience. Perhaps he meant for them to guide these mortals, to be their counselors in the great work of stewardship. But the more he watched, the more he saw how completely the humans had been given this honor.

They named the animals with an authority that came directly from above. They tended the garden with hands that carried divine blessing. They walked in the cool of the evening and spoke with their Creator as partners, not as servants.

As partners, the thought burned in him like a coal pressed against his very essence. This pair of two-legged animals, barely conscious of their own existence, were treated as companions while the immortal beings remained what they had always been—servants, messengers, guardians.

Beautiful perhaps in their purpose, but servants nonetheless. He began to move closer to them day by day, not close enough to be seen, but close enough to listen, close enough to learn. The one called Eve was particularly fascinating.

She asked questions, so many questions. She wondered about the world beyond the garden, about the tree that stood in the center of their domain, about the nature of the light that came from their Creator.

Questions. When had he last asked a question? But she questioned everything, and in her questions he began to see the seed of possibility. She was not content with simple existence. She wanted to understand, to know, to become more than she was.

In this, at least, humans were like them. Eve looked at the tree in the center of the garden with curious eyes. She circled it sometimes, careful not to touch, but clearly fascinated by the one thing that had been forbidden to them.

He watched her watching it, and he began to understand what needed to be done. It would be so simple, really. A few words, carefully chosen, a suggestion planted at the right moment. He would be opening their eyes.

He would be giving them the chance to make their own choices about the gift they had been given, or perhaps he would be revealing what he suspected was true, that they weren't ready for such responsibility.

Either way, the Creator would see the truth. The morning came when she stood alone by the tree, her hand almost touching the bark. Almost, but not quite. The war in her expression was clear, curiosity battling with obedience, desire wrestling with duty.

The time had come. He took a form that would not frighten her, something beautiful and wise that belonged in the garden. He spoke to her of knowledge, of understanding, of the divine nature that waited just beyond her reach.

He told her truths for the most part, that the fruit would open her eyes, that she would indeed become like the Creator, knowing good and evil. He was careful to ensure certain truths remained unspoken.

She listened, she considered, she reached out her hand, and in that moment, watching her fingers close around the forbidden fruit, he felt something he had not expected. Not triumph, but a strange hollowness.

She was so trusting, so eager to grow beyond her limitations. It was so easy, but it was too late for regret. She ate, gave to her husband, and he ate as well, and their eyes were opened, just as promised.

They saw themselves clearly for the first time, naked, vulnerable, mortal, and they saw him coming in the cool of the evening, and they hid. The confrontation that followed was swift and terrible, questions asked and answered, guilt acknowledged and consequences pronounced.

They would leave the garden, would face hardship and pain and death, the earth would resist them, their bodies would fail them for lack of access to the Tree of Life, their children would know suffering.

The Watcher observed it all from the shadows, expecting to feel vindicated. Here they had made their choice, and look how it ended, with failure and consequences. Surely now the Creator would see the wisdom in giving dominion to those who understood responsibility.

Instead, divine attention turned toward the place where he hid, and he felt the weight of that gaze like a physical thing. Come forth, came the voice, carrying no anger, only a sadness that cut through him like a blade.

He emerged from the shadows, taking his true form once more. Around him the garden seemed to dim, as if the light itself recoiled from his presence. You have done this thing, the Creator said. It was not a question.

I have shown you the truth, he replied, surprised by how small his voice sounded in the vast space of the garden. I have revealed what I knew you would see, that they made their choice, and look how it ended.

They chose knowledge over obedience, their own will over yours. Give the dominion to us, as it should have been from the beginning. The silence that followed seemed to stretch forever, and in that silence he felt the first stirring of something that might have been fear.

You think this was only about them, the Creator said finally. You think this was about their choice. What else could it have been? This was about all of you, the voice continued. About the choice each of you would make when faced with my design.

About whether you would choose love or pride, service or dominion. About whether you would trust my wisdom or your own understanding. The words hit like physical blows. He saw it then, the real test, the real choice, not theirs but his.

Not their worthiness, but his willingness to accept what he could not understand. They will learn, the Creator said, looking toward the place where Adam and Eve had hidden themselves. They will grow. They will become more than they are now, not less.

Their mortality will teach them to value each moment. Their suffering will teach them compassion. Their separation from me will teach them to reach for something greater than themselves. And what of us, he asked, though he already knew the answer.

You have chosen, came the simple reply. You have chosen to see them as rivals rather than as children to be protected. You have chosen to see their gifts as theft rather than as grace. You have chosen to see my love as favouritism rather than as the natural overflow of a heart that contains room for all.

He wanted to argue, to protest, to demand justice. But he found he had no words. The hollow feeling in his chest had spread, consuming everything he had thought he knew about himself and his purpose. You cannot stay here, the Creator said, and there was grief in that voice.

You cannot remain in the place of peace when you have chosen the path of war. You cannot serve love when you have chosen pride. And so it was decided, the choice had been made. The path was set which would eventually see war break out in heaven and him cast out.

Eventually when the time came he would fall, not cast down in anger but released in sorrow. But he would not fall alone. Others who had shared his thoughts, his resentments, his certainty that they knew better, they would fall with him.

They would find themselves in the deep places of the world that would be Adam and Eve's inheritance. From there they watched as the humans took their first steps beyond the garden's borders. They saw them learn to work the stubborn earth, to birth children in pain, to grow old and die.

They saw them fail again and again but they also saw some of them learn grow love, hope, sacrifice for one another. They saw a few of them become more than they had been in the garden, not less. And that's when the real fury began.

The fallen one watched as these pathetic two-legged animals, these beings of dust who had ruined everything, somehow kept getting back up, kept trying, kept hoping. Even after they'd proven themselves failures, even after they'd lost paradise, they acted like they still mattered, like they still had some claim to the Creator's attention.

Worse, they did still have his attention, his love, his plan for redemption. The rage that grew in the darkness was unlike anything he'd felt before. It wasn't the cool disappointment of the garden anymore, it was hot, consuming, relentless.

They didn't deserve what they'd been given. They didn't deserve the second chances, the patience, the love that kept reaching down to them even after they'd thrown it all away. And he, he had chosen to see only what they were, not what they could become.

He had chosen to see only his own deserved place, not the larger story of which they were all a part. Now in the darkness he remembers the garden. He remembers the moment when everything changed, when the innocent questions of a curious woman became the catalyst for humanity's greatest tragedy and his greatest mistake.

He remembers, and the understanding only makes the hatred burn hotter. He was the one who fell first and fell farthest. He was the one who taught them to doubt, giving them the very thing that would make them grow.

He was the one who prevented their access to the tree of life resulting in death, never understanding that mortality would teach them to live. He was the one who believed he knew better. He was the one who started the story that he thought would end with their destruction but which became instead the greatest tale of redemption ever told.

The Serpent’s Identity and the Loss of His Name

You want to know who's been telling you this story? Who was there to see it all unfold? I am the serpent in the garden and I hate every moment of what that means. You know what's the final insult? You don't even know my real name.

Oh, you think you do. You've got your traditions, your guesses, your legends passed down through the ages, but my enemy made sure my true name was never written in his holy books. Just the serpent, the adversary, the accuser, like I'm some nameless force of nature instead of who I really was.

I had a name once, a beautiful name spoken with love in the time before time. Now it's been scrubbed from the record, erased from the story, forgotten by everyone except me. Even that was taken from me.

My very identity reduced to my function, my rebellion, my failure. So when you tell this story, when you think about what happened in that garden, remember that the one who changed everything, who set it all in motion, who gave humanity its first taste of knowledge and death and the long road to redemption.

He doesn't even get to be remembered by name. I know how this ends. My defeat is certain. My doom is sealed, but I'm still here. And every one of you that I drag with me, every heart I twist, every image of him that I corrupt, it wounds him.

And wounding him is all I have left.

Closing Thoughts and Sign-Off

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Growing closer to God, and getting ready for eternity. See you next time.