The Garden Lie That Still Divides Us Today

The serpent said, "If you want to be like God, eat this."

What was wrong with that statement? They were already like God. They were made in His image and in His likeness. Now, they weren't out there creating universes, but they were like God. He said so.

But the enemy twisted the truth just enough to get them to believe that they were not enough, that God was holding out on them, that He truly wasn't good, and that He really couldn't be trusted.

The Real Story of the Fall

Here's something that might surprise you: The fall didn't happen when the woman ate. Did you know that? It happened when they both ate. It took them both. It was when they both ate that everything changed. They had to be in unity for the fall to happen.

And you know what? The same is true today. Satan has no power over us without our human agreement. And we have no power over him without our unity, or at least we have limited power.

So his tactic from the beginning has always been to divide and conquer, always. And it doesn't matter what we divide over. It could be race, education, gender, where you live, what you believe. Any division will do, because his power has no effect on us without our agreement.

If he can get us to divide, we become powerless against his schemes. This is why evil is so prevalent in the world. It's a report card on the church. It's because the enemy has been brilliant at dividing us, isolating us, convincing us that we are just powerless pawns in this great chess game of life.

The War Against Women

In Genesis 3:15 (NKJV), it says that as part of the curse, there would be "enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed." Somehow we forget the warning that he's at war with women, particularly with women. Why? Because we're his greatest threat when we're not divided.

When you look at human history, how's Satan been doing in his war against women? We have been relegated to a second-class position in society to varying degrees. In some Asian cultures, women used to have to walk three steps behind just to show that they were inferior and in subjection to their husbands. In Muslim cultures, even today, women can't be educated. They can't drive cars. They can't go out in public without a male family member as chaperone.

Women in most cultures throughout history were sold like possessions from their fathers to their husbands for a bride price or dowry. Here in America, it was only 100 short years ago that we even won the right to vote. My mom's 92. She's part of that first generation that was born with the right to have a say in her community.

Now, we have come a long way, but the enemy has not given up his enmity against women, and he fights so hard using our traditions to get us confused because he needs our agreement.

When Jesus Challenged the System

Jesus was perfect theology. He was the original women's liberator. When He walked the earth, women could not own property. They couldn't earn wages if they wanted to. They were financially powerless. And if they did earn wages, they had to give them to their father or their husband.

Yet with Jesus, there were women like Joanna and Susanna and others who actually supported Him from their own means (Luke 8:3, NIV). And He didn't correct them for having financial status, even though it was against the culture of the day.

Females were not allowed to speak to a man in public, not even their husbands, and especially not if they were a rabbi. And yet Jesus, on purpose, struck up a conversation with a woman at the well. When the disciples came back from getting food, the Bible says in John 4:27 (NIV) that they were shocked He was speaking with a woman.

Women could not testify in a court of law, even if they were witnesses to a murder, for their word meant nothing. But Jesus chose Mary to deliver the greatest message ever told. She was the witness of the greatest event in human history: "He is risen." Her word meant nothing, and yet He sent her knowing full well the disciples weren't going to believe her because He doesn't buy the lies of the enemy.

The Faulty Filter of Tradition

If we think it's God's will to relegate women to an inferior secondary status, I'm telling you, it's not true. It's not God's will. That is a faulty filter.

Now God works in the world as it is, but it doesn't mean He's not actively at work to bring about justice, to bring about good in the world. Women were seen as slightly above the status of a foreign slave, but Jesus honored them, lifting them up, and Paul even placed them in ministry positions.

Relegating women to a lower status in any way is the scheme of the enemy because that dirty devil knows we can't truly be in union, in unity if one of us is lower than the other. It's a ploy of the enemy, and that worldly system that it's based on is this power pyramid scheme where the powerful ones are on top, and everyone else is there to serve the will of the powerful ones.

Two Different Kingdoms

But Jesus went about preaching the gospel of God's Kingdom everywhere He went, and His Kingdom is a very different kingdom because it's not based on the world's systems. He's the King of kings and the Lord of lords, yet He didn't come as the capstone on the top of the pyramid. He came as the cornerstone, which is at the bottom. It's the one that sets everything else in place.

In fact, five times in the New Testament it refers back to the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah that says it's the cornerstone that's going to be the stumbling block. Why do you think it's the cornerstone that's the stumbling block? Because they wanted Him to be the capstone on top. They wanted Him to serve the worldly systems.

All they understood was the power pyramid. But we don't see Jesus getting mad at the Romans for being worldly, but He did get mad at the religious people who acted that way. He didn't come to dismantle the Romans. He came to dismantle the structures that empowered them to begin with—those power pyramid structures—and He started with the house of God.

The Heart of True Leadership

The King of kings Himself said, "I did not come to be served. I came to give my life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28, NIV). It's a different kingdom where the leaders and those in authority don't perch themselves on top and expect us to serve them. Rather, they come low to support and to lift others up.

In God's Kingdom, the foundation is actually the apostles and the prophets. They carry the weight and the responsibility to lift others up. They aren't supposed to be the grand pooh-bahs.

We distort godly honor when that godly honor flows one direction—when it just flows up. In God's Kingdom, it's supposed to be mutual and reciprocal honor. That continuous flow from one to another. When you do that, it becomes a power plant and it creates more. It doesn't suck the life and suck the power out of the people. It generates more power.

The Power of Unity

Superpower comes from within, from your union with the Lord. And as you're giving Him honor, He actually gives it back. As you're giving Him love, He actually gives it back. As you're submitting to Him, believe it or not, He's actually submitting to you. Jesus submitted Himself to us even unto death.

So rather than sucking the life out of people, we generate this power from love. It's like a windmill or a waterwheel. It actually is a circular form of power. And by definition, love is other-centered, not self-centered. It's other-giving, not self-serving.

Love does not seek its own. It does not want to exalt itself over others, but it does have healthy boundaries. It has to be voluntary or it's not love. Abuse is not of God's Kingdom, period.

The Lie That Divides

Since the fall, Satan has been at war with women, not just her seed, because it's love that wins. It's unity that will defeat him. And God is love. And love has to have an object of affection. Love cannot be singular by definition.

We serve a triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one God who is not singular. In Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV) it says, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." The word there in Hebrew for "one" is echad. It's like a complex unity, like a plural unity. It's like one bunch of grapes versus yachid, which would be one singular grape.

He is one, but He's not singular. Our early church fathers tried to come up with a term to describe the relationship between the Trinity, and in Greek that word is perichoresis. It's like this circular love dance. That's the Trinity. They are not a hierarchy.

The Truth That Unites

The time has come to stop falling for the same lie that divided the original couple. The enemy wants us to believe that God's design requires some to be over others, that hierarchy is divine, that division is necessary for order.

But what if divine hierarchy is one of those faulty filters? What if that lie is our kryptonite?

The truth is, we were created for unity. We were created to reflect the image of the triune God—distinct but not separate, mutually loving, mutually honoring, mutually submitting.

It's time to stop letting the enemy divide us through lies about God's design. It's time to recognize that every division—whether based on gender, race, denomination, or any other factor—serves the enemy's purposes, not God's.

The world needs us to show up united. It needs us to stop fighting each other and start standing together against the real enemy. Because when we're united, when we're walking in love and mutual honor, that's when the Kingdom of God advances.

That's when we become the superheroes we were created to be—not individually, but together. United. One.

Blessings,
Susan 😊