The Serpent's Lie

“The very first attack, what I call ‘the Genesis 3 Attack,’ was on God’s Word: ‘And [Satan] said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said?’ (Genesis 3:1). Satan used the ploy to get Eve to question God’s Word, thus creating doubt that ultimately led to unbelief. That same attack on God’s Word has never let up and continues each day.” (1)

~Ken Ham
“Choosing to Resist ‘The Genesis 3 Attack’”
01/25/2017
Accessed via answersingenesis.com 03/28/2025

“Now, the ‘lie’ is more than evolution or millions of years. It speaks to a deeper issue—one that has plagued humanity since Adam and Eve took that first bite of the forbidden fruit.

“It begins with the question, ‘Did God actually say?’ (Genesis 3:1). I like to call this the ‘Genesis 3 attack’ of our age—one that causes people to question what God has revealed to us in his Word. We are warned in 2 Corinthians 11:3 that Satan will use this same Genesis 3 attack on us as he did to Eve—to make us disbelieve the Word of God.” (2)

~Ken Ham
Facebook Post
03/27/2025

In essence, this is correct. The serpent in Genesis 3 did ultimately succeed in convincing the man and woman to doubt God's character and break His command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And it is certainly true that the “lie” of Genesis 3 is much deeper than the creation-evolution controversy. However, I would present to the reader that while the serpent's deception indeed begins with a question in Genesis 3:1, the actual lie itself is found in Genesis 3:4-5. That being said, there is much more in Genesis 3:1-7 that warrants our attention.

First of all, it should be noted that the “serpent” in Genesis 3 is not a normal member of the animal kingdom. Nor is he ever called Satan in the Old Testament. This is a later development. In Genesis 3 the word translated “serpent” is “nachash” [נָחָשׁ]. This word has multiple meanings in Hebrew including “snake/serpent,” “divination” or “burning/shining [one].” As the late Hebrew scholar Dr. Michael Heiser notes, within the cultural context of the ancient Near East, this language implies that the serpent in Genesis 3 was a divine being—an “elohim” [אֱלהִים]—and not a normal snake at all. (3) This explains why Eve and her husband (who was present with her according to Genesis 3:6) were comfortable speaking with the nachash in the first place as well as why they were so trusting of him.

Second, while certainly disingenuous, the nachash's baiting question in Genesis 3:1 was not an outright lie in itself. He did not accurately represent what God had said (see Genesis 2:16-17), but he also did not claim that this was in fact what God had commanded. The question itself is framed as a harmless request for clarification, veiling his nefarious intentions: “Did God really say, ‘You can't eat from any tree...?’” Hence Eve was not deceived by this question. She understood that this was not what God had said and corrected the nachash saying, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it…’” However, she also took things a bit further than this and added “...or touch it, or you will die.” This means that the first person to actually change God’s Word and attribute said change to God wasn’t the nachash—it was Eve. She did not deny what God had commanded by removing something from His Word—she added an additional commandment instead. 

Third, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden?’” is not the lie the serpent used to seduce Eve. It isn’t accurate to what God said, as previously noted. But the first lie he told Eve was in Genesis 3:4 when he openly denied God's warning that mankind would be sentenced to death should they choose to disobey and eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (see Genesis 3:22-24). Even so, it was his following comments in Genesis 3:5 that sowed the seeds of doubt in God's character and trustworthiness and ultimately seduced the woman, “...God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God [elohim], knowing good and evil.”

The serpent's lie wasn’t “Did God really say?”. It was that God was untrustworthy, and that mankind could become like God (or gods/divine beings). This was the same lie the nachash told himself before he ever tempted Eve.

In Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:11-19 the human kings of Babylon and Tyre respectively are compared to a non-human, divine rebel in Eden who became proud and sought to exalt himself above the throne of God—to become not only like the Most High, but greater than Him. The original lie, therefore, is that a created being can usurp the authority of Yahweh and become like the Most High.

This is the lie that seduced Eve according to Genesis 3:6: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it…”

Adam and Eve did not fall because the nachash said “Did God really say?”. They fell because they believed that they could become like God/gods. Eve was the first one to add to God’s commands out of a desire to obey them. And it was the desire to become like God/gods, knowing both good and evil, that led the man and woman to sin.

Ultimately, this is what all sin is. When we sin, we reject the authority of God in our lives and choose instead to live by our own subjective moral standards. In so doing, we raise ourselves above the throne of the Most High and become gods in our own eyes. That is the original lie. And it is just as potent today as it was in the beginning.