«　WEEK 2　DAY 6　»

　　2 Cor. 11:2-3 For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ.

　　The tree of life is simple. With this tree, there is just one element, and that element is life. The tree of life issues in life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on the contrary, is complicated and also complicating. With this tree, we have good, evil, knowledge, and death.

　　The Bible as a whole is a development of these two trees. The tree of life signifies God in Christ as the Spirit to be life to us… Satan is the power of death. The tree of knowledge of good and evil signifying Satan as death includes knowledge, good, and evil. The serpent distracted Eve from the tree of life by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its complications. Because Eve was distracted and caught, she lost her singleness and purity toward God. The result was that Eve fell, and death came in through the fall. This is the story of how the serpent distracted Eve from God’s economy. (Life-study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 465-466)

　　In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul applies to the Judaizers and the church in Corinth what the serpent did to Eve. I believe that, deep in his spirit, Paul realized that these two matters were actually one and that what was happening in Corinth was a repetition of what took place in the garden of Eden. Eve was a wife, and the church in Corinth was a pure virgin, betrothed to one husband, Christ. For this reason, in 11:2 Paul says, “I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” Furthermore, the wife in the garden of Eden was distracted by the subtle serpent. In Corinth the virgin was being distracted by Satan through the Judaizers… Paul associates the Judaizers with Satan. “Such ones are false apostles, deceitful workers, transfiguring themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transfigures himself into an angel of light” (vv. 13-14)… Paul indicates that the Judaizers, the false apostles, are ministers of Satan [v. 15].

　　When the serpent came to Eve, he did not openly deny God’s word. Rather, the serpent said to the woman, “Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1). Here we see that the serpent asked, “Did God really say?” This kind of question seems, on the one hand, to recognize what God has said. On the other hand, it undermines God’s word. By asking this question, the serpent injected poison into Eve to undermine God’s speaking.

　　It was difficult for the Corinthian believers to discern the difference between the Jesus preached by Paul and the one preached by the Judaizers. The name was the same. But there was still the need of discernment. The best way to discern a matter is to discern according to life or death. We need to ask questions like this: Does this teaching help me to enjoy the Lord more and bring me into life, or does it cause the poison of death to be injected into me? You may find that if you accept a certain kind of teaching or preaching, taking it into you, immediately your inward enjoyment of the Lord is cut off. Some things function like insulation that stops the flowing of the divine electricity. Therefore, we must learn to discern, to differentiate, matters by life and death.

　　As long as someone’s teaching or preaching deprives us of the enjoyment of the Lord as our life supply, that teaching is of the serpent. However, the genuine ministry of the Lord always strengthens us in the enjoyment of Him as our life supply. Anything that cuts you off from the enjoyment of the Lord is of the serpent. But anything that causes your enjoyment of the Lord to increase is of the Spirit and of the New Testament ministry. (Life-study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 466-467, 469-470)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 2 Corinthians, msg. 53