The Principle of Single Meaning

Scripture does not detail man’s response to God’s instructions, but apparently he
understood them clearly, responded properly, and the human race was off to a great start.

But then God added to His communication with man. In Gen 2:16b-17 He
said, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you
shall surely die” [NASB]. How did Adam understand this statement? Apparently
as God intended it, according to the grammar of His command and the historical
situation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. In
fact, he communicated it to Eve so well that Eve in Gen 3:2b-3 was able to repeat
it to the serpent quite accurately: “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die’” [NASB]. That was her answerto the serpent when he asked about God’s prohibition against eating from trees in the Garden of Eden. So far Eve’s hermeneutics were in great shape as was God’scommunicative effectiveness with mankind. She worded her repetition of God’s command slightly differently, but God probably repeated H is original command to Adam in several different ways. Genesis has not preserved a record of every word He spoke to Adam.

When did confusion enter the picture? W hen the serpent suggested to Eve
that God’s plain statement had another meaning. He said, “You surely shall not die!

For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 4b-5, NASB). The serpent was probably not calling God a liar—he knew better than to suggest that in the perfect
environment of the Garden of Eden—but simply suggesting to Eve that she had
misinterpreted God’s statement, or that by limiting her understanding to the plain sense of God’s words, she had missed a second meaning intended by God’s
command. That she had missed God’s double-entendre or sensus-plenior was the
serpent’s implication. The serpent’s message to Eve was, “This is just God’s way
of telling you how to gain a knowledge of good and evil.” The first human
experience on the “sea of uncertainty” resulted when Eve and then Adam bought into the serpent’s suggestion that God’s statement was not limited to a single meaning. Such was how hermeneutical difficulties in understanding God’s Word began.