God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve, responding to the provocations of the serpent, said that God had instructed them not to even touch the tree, when in fact God’s simple instruction was not to eat from it. In so doing, Eve established the pattern for all false religion, doing one thing more than what God actually said.
You see, Adam and Eve could have climbed the tree and even played catch with its fruit. There was never any prohibition placed on contact or interaction. Fundamental Christianity has likewise sinned by putting up walls of false fears in an effort to keep parishioners from “sin”, so called. It is why many churches can be in a community for fifty years and never be missed when their doors close.
In adding prohibitions concerning the tree, Eve played her part in leaving the Garden unattended. We too, by erecting religious hurdles, hinder Christ in tending to His human garden.
To sin is to act in such a way that falls short of the person and expression of Christ. Iniquity, however, is more ominous as it is an action which seeks to supersede (which is to supplant and subvert) God’s work and instruction by adding rules to “help” keep us “right” for God, as though God’s work through Christ was insufficient to the task.
None of this is an indictment against Eve or women, but of that humanistic inclination in each of us that tempts us to “one-up” Christ, not believing Him to be quite as sufficient as He claims.
