Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons..
Genesis 3:7

3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?"

2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

In the Bible we read that a serpent tempted Eve to commit sin. (Gen. 3:4-5) What does the serpent symbolize? Let us investigate the true identity of the serpent, based on the Genesis account.

The serpent described in the Bible was able to converse with people. It caused the Fall of humans, who are spiritual beings. Furthermore, the serpent knew the will of God, which strictly forbade human beings to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is compelling evidence that the being which the serpent symbolizes was a spiritual being. It is written: This ancient serpent is the very serpent which tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Having lived in heaven before being thrown down, this Devil or Satan must be a spiritual being. In fact, ever since the time of the human Fall, Satan has been continually turning the hearts of people toward evil. Since Satan is a spiritual being, the serpent which symbolizes him must also represent a spiritual being. These strands of biblical evidence confirm that the serpent that tempted Eve was not an animal but a symbol for a spiritual being.

The question arises whether the spiritual being symbolized by the serpent existed before the creation of the universe or was created as a part of the universe. If this being existed before the creation of the universe and had a purpose contrary to that of God, then the conflict between good and evil in the universe would he unavoidable and perpetual.

God's providence of restoration, then, would be in vain Moreover, monotheism, which holds that everything in the universe was created by one God, would be unfounded We are left with the conclusion that the spiritual being represented by the serpent was originally created with a good purpose, but later fell and became Satan.

What kind of spiritual being in Gods creation could have conversed with people, understood the will of God, and lived in heaven? What kind of being, even after it had fallen and become degraded to an evil being, could transcend time and space to dominate the human soul?

There are no beings endowed with such characteristics other than angels. The verse "God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom" (II Pet. 2:4) supports the conclusion that the serpent, which tempted human beings and sinned, is an angel.

A serpent has a forked tongue. It depicts someone who utters contradictory things with one tongue and lives a two-faced life with one heart. A serpent twists its body around its prey before devouring it, a metaphor for someone who ensnares others for his own benefit. For these reasons the Bible likened the angel who tempted human beings to a serpent.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
Chapter 2.1.2

The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent. who is called the Devil and Satan. the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth.
Rev. 12:9

Why do men and women have to wait and discipline themselves instead of just jumping into love whenever they feel like it? We know that the creation is bounded by a certain period of growth. Therefore, a child's love cannot be consummated as soon as he is born; he must grow into the fullest realization of love.

Some accident occurred during the period of growth, an accident of love. We have an explanation of the whole process of that accident of love. We know that love is the supreme power, and therefore the consequences of the accident have been so grave. God gave the man and woman a commandment during their growth period, specifying that they should not do certain things.

In unlocking the problems of the universe, I realized that the greatest discovery was the truth about the Fall of man. If the forbidden fruit was a literal apple or pear which God placed right in the middle of the Garden of Eden, then God's plan must have been imperfect. This was not the case.

Rather, I have brought a revolutionary declaration to the world that the forbidden "fruit" was a symbol of love between man and woman. From love can spring either good or evil fruit: therefore, the tree was described as one of the knowledge of good and evil.

Love is the judgment point for mankind. What is the love that God can relate with? God warned Adam and Eve to grow into the full sensation of love -- for Adam to discover all of a sudden that Eve was not just a sister but a woman, and for Eve to discover that Adam was not just a brother but a man. In the sensation or love, Adam and Eve's mind and body could work together and experience the electricity of touching each other.

Once Adam and Eve realized the explosion of their love, the entire universe would have been like one beautiful, fragrant flower garden. They would see everything echoing their love. When that electrifying sensation came to God, then He would be pulled to them and His entire creation would have been activated with love. God was supposed to be the matchmaker, bringing Adam and Eve together in the explosion of love.

In the ensuing explosion of love, all three of them would be consumed! The important thing is that there he no foreign element there, that men and women be pure when they consummate their first love Then they become the core of the universe.

This core would be so powerful that everything else would be pulled into it, even God. Children would be multiplied from that core, and it would continue to grow and grow From a family the core would grow into a tribe, then a nation and a world. How wonderful a world it is when the universe echoes the love of the core. That is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth -- that is the true world.

At this time in history Reverend Moon is declaring to the world that the Fall of man was an accident of love. This is the greatest declaration because it hits the core of evil. It is also a most logical and correct diagnosis, making possible the correct prescription for treatment.

Analyzing an event from 6,000 years ago was not easy, so it had to be done step by step. The love core was not achieved, and the opposite, evil result came into being, bringing division and perverted love.

This resulted in not only denial of God, but denial of parents, of men and women. Human civilization has sunk below that of animals. In this world there has been no ideal because no individual has had the correct diagnosis and could not find the proper prescription to achieve a cure.

Parents, Children and the World Centering on Oneself
June 5, 1983

3:4 But the serpent said to the woman. "You will not die..."

God created human beings to grow old and return to dust; physical death was allotted to human beings regardless of whether or not they fell. Adam died at the biblical age of 930 years and his flesh returned to dust; but this was not the death caused by the Fall.

According to the Principle of Creation, the flesh is the clothing of the spirit. Just as one discards worn-out clothes, the flesh is to be discarded when it has grown old and weak. Only the unclothed spirit self then enters the spirit world and lives there eternally.

Nothing material can live forever. Human beings are no exception, our bodies cannot live eternally. If human beings were to live on earth forever in the flesh, why did God create the spirit world as our final destination?

The spirit world was not created after the Fall as a place for fallen spirits to abide. Rather, it is part of the original creation, created as the place where individuals who fulfill the purpose of creation will enjoy eternal life as spirits after their life on earth has come to an end.

Most people are attached to their earthly life. They regret its passing because, due to the Fall, they are ignorant of the fact that after they discard their clothes of flesh, they are meant to live forever in the beautiful and eternal spirit world.

The transition from physical life to life in the spirit world may he compared to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. If the caterpillar had self-awareness, it might feel the same attachment to its limited existence climbing about the leaves of a plant as people do to their earthly life. It, too, would probably be reluctant to end its existence as a caterpillar, unaware that it is destined to enter a new phase of life as a butterfly; when It will enjoy fragrant flowers and symbol of love between man and woman. From love can spring either good or evil fruit; therefore, the tree was described as one of the knowledge of good and evil.

Love is the judgment point for mankind. What is the love that God can relate with? God wanted Adam and Eve to grow into the full sensation of love -- for Adam to discover all of a sudden that Eve was not just a sister but a woman, and for Eve to discovery that Adam was not just a brother but a man. In the sensation of love, Adam and Eve's mind and body could work together and experience the electricity of touching each other.

Once Adam and Eve realized the explosion of their love, the entire universe would have been like one beautiful, fragrant flower garden. They would feel everything echoing their love.

When that electrifying sensation came to God, then He would be pulled to them and His entire creation would have been activated with love. God was supposed to be the matchmaker, bringing Adam and Eve together m the explosion of love.

In the ensuing explosion of love, all three of them would be consumed! The important thing is that there is no foreign element there, that men and women be pure when they consummate their first love. Then they become the core of the universe.

This core would be so powerful that everything else would be pulled into it, even God. Children would be multiplied from that core, and it would continue to grow and grow. From a family the core would grow into a tribe, then a nation and a world. How wonderful a world it is when the universe echoes the love of the core. That is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth -- that is the true world.

At this time in history Reverend Moon is declaring to the world that the Fall of man was an accident of love. This is the greatest declaration because it hits the core of evil. It is also a most logical and correct diagnosis, making possible the correct prescription for treatment.

Analyzing an event from 6,000 years ago was not easy, so it had to he done step by step. The love core was not achieved, and the opposite, evil result came into being, bringing division and perverted love. This resulted in not only denial sweet nectar to its heart's content.

If there had been no hell, earthly people would he able to relate with spirits just as naturally as they relate among themselves. They would know that death is not the final departure from their loved ones on earth. If people knew what a beautiful and happy world they will enter after they attain perfection on earth and die a natural death, they would look forward eagerly to the day they enter that world.

Since the Fall did not cause death in the sense of the expiration of physical life, we can surmise that what it brought was the other type of death. Let us examine this further. God told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die.

Since God so warned them, it must be that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they did in fact die. Yet Adam and Eve after the Fall continued their earthly life and bore children, who multiplied to form today's corrupt human society.

We can conclude that the death caused by the Fall does not mean the end of physical life, but rather the descent from the good dominion of God into the evil dominion of Satan.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
Part I, Chapter 5, Section 1

3:5 knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened. and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

6 So when the woman saw that the free was good for food. and that it was a delight to the eves. and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

What is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God told the original ancestors, Adam and Eve, not to eat? It is not the real fruit of a tree. It is a way of expressing the husband and wife love relationship that the first ancestors were to have in the future.

Due to the temptation of a third being, while still in an imperfect state, the first man and woman entered into an immoral sexual relationship. Actually; in the Garden of Eden, the third party besides Adam and Eve was the Archangel. In the Bible it is revealed that Lucifer was the Archangel who tempted Eve and committed an immoral sexual sin. This was the Fall of man, the original sin which planted the root of sin in the world.

Man and woman committed the sexual sin before their Father God, the Lord and Master of heaven and earth. The first ancestors had children out of this immoral love. The world of evil was realized. In other words, they married centered on Satan and by planting false love, false life and a false lineage, they became ancestors of evil.

As human society expanded from the individual, family, tribe, race, and nation to the world level, due to this immoral relationship between man and woman the root of the evil blood lineage was established everywhere, at all times, and this world became hell on earth.

It became a false world filled with sin, war and fear. The fallen ancestors, Adam and Eve, should have established the position of True Parents as the eternal good ancestors of humanity; but they fell to become false parents leaving a blood lineage of evil.

This is the first cause of all the tragedy and misery of humankind. What could be more tragic or cause greater indignation than becoming the descendants of false parents and all humankind losing their True Parents? And how great must be the suffering and sorrow of God, the Father of humanity, whose purpose of creation -- to establish the true ancestors of humankind and to multiply people of goodness -- was stolen by the blood lineage of sin through the immoral fall of the first human ancestors.

Just as the cause of a disease must he discovered and treated in order to save a person suffering from it, in order to liberate human society from the suffering of such sin and misery, the fundamental cause of this sin and misery must be revealed and corrected.

The fundamental cause is the Fall of the human ancestors, the original sin, Accordingly, unless the cause of the disease called original sin is eliminated, we cannot pull up the root of misery and sin from the world.

No matter how many great men, heroes, scholars, politicians or philosophers appear and try to straighten out the world through the reform of the laws and systems or through the education of moral principles, unless the original sin and the content of the Fall is clarified it will be impossible. All remedies will prove useless. That is because the original root of sin and misery is still alive, and it will continue to sprout buds.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
Part I, Chapter 2, Section 2

3:6 ...and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

The Fall of Adam and Eve was immoral conduct against the ideal of the True Love of God. The fact that Adam and Eve needed to obey the Commandment shows that they fell in a stage of Imperfection, that is to say, during their period of growth, The Archangel, who is symbolized by a serpent, tempted Eve to cat of the fruit of good and evil, and she fell spiritually.

She later tempted Adam (who was also too immature to eat of the fruit), and they then fell physically The only possible sin that could have been fatal in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were in communication with God and living in joy, was the sin of illicit love.

View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation
April 16, 1996

When the angel, created as God's servant, beheld Eve, the daughter of God, it was only natural that she looked beautiful to his eyes. Moreover, when Lucifer saw that Eve was responding to his temptation, the angel felt the stimulation of her love to be deliciously enticing.

At this point, Lucifer was seducing Eve with the mind to have her, regardless of the consequences. Lucifer, who left his proper position due to his excessive desire, and Eve, who wanted to open her eyes and become like God before the time was ripe, formed a common base and began give and take action. The power of the unprincipled love generated by their give and take led them to consummate an illicit sexual relationship on the spiritual plane.

3:7 When the eves of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons

All beings are created based on the principle that when they become one in love, they exchange elements with each other. Accordingly, when Eve became one with Lucifer through love, she received certain elements from him.

First, she received feelings of dread arising from the pangs of a guilty conscience, stemming from her violation of the purpose of creation.

Second, she received from Lucifer the wisdom which enabled her to discern that her originally intended spouse was to be Adam, not the angel. Eve was in the position to receive wisdom from the Archangel because she was immature and her wisdom was not as seasoned as that of the Archangel, who was already in a state of angelic maturity.

Perfect Adam and Eve were supposed to have become an eternal husband and wife in God's love, But Eve, who in her immaturity had engaged in the illicit relationship with the Archangel, joined with Adam as husband and wife. Thus, Adam fell when he, too, was still immature. This untimely conjugal relationship in satanic love between Adam and Eve constituted the physical fall.

Exposition of the Divine Principle
Part I, Chapter 2, Section 2

It is human nature to try to hide our defects. A child caught stealing a cookie by his mother will instinctively hide his hands or cover his mouth. In the same way, If Adam and Eve had taken a piece of fruit and put it into their mouths, then they would have hidden their hands or covered their mouths when God called them.

The fact that they hid their lower parts instead demonstrates that their crime was committed through the lower parts of their bodies.

God Is Our King and True Parent
May 8, 2001

3:8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"

10 And he said. "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was
naked and I hid myself"

11 He said. "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

Fathom the painful heart of God who called, "Adam, Adam!" after Adam and Eve fell. God was in the position to abandon Adam and Eve, who had abandoned Him, the Creator; but God looked for Adam, calling out. "Adam, Adam!" We must realize that God was not just calling for the two people, Adam and Eve. He was calling out to the history of humankind.

Until today, people on earth have been ignorant of the internal heart of God who called out to Adam after the creation. The voice that called out to Adam, at that time, became words of sorrow that represent the 6.000-year history of grief today.

God called Adam with the sorrowful heart that represented all the grief inside the fallen realm after the creation of the world. Although 6000 years of long history have passed since Adam, God is connecting the event of that time to the present era and is calling out to us, the second Adam and Eve, in the same manner.

We should realize the distressed heart of God, who was calling for Adam and Eve after the Fall, this was the heart of the Father who felt indescribably heartbroken when He saw that Adam had entered the forbidden place and had fallen.

When we grab onto that heart and mourn with the same heart, God can continue again in His dispensation of restoration toward people on the earth. Never forget that God has been calling out to you by setting up countless prophets and saints throughout the course of history. The voice calling out to fallen Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is still heard today.

Heaven Is Calling Us
January 5, 1958

3:12 The man said. "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate...

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done? The woman
said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate."

14 The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and yon shall bruise his heel."

16 To the woman he said, "1 will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

The person who complains or tries to make excuses will never go over the mountain into heaven. After the Fall, Adam and Eve blamed each other in explaining to God what happened, and to this world everyone tries to escape taking responsibility for their mistakes. But that is not the tradition of heaven.

You should not become persons of excuse or complaint, even though you are in a position to justifiably complain. God pushes you into positions where you want to complain and you could gripe about a thousand things a day, but it is your greatness to go over the difficulty with gratitude and not complain like everyone else in the world.

The Desire of All Things
June 17, 1977

Even after the Fall of man, Adam added many different excuses: "Oh God, I fell because of Eve." Eve's excuse was: "God, Adam whom you created, didn't fulfill his responsibility so we failed." They didn't admit their own mistake, nobody did.

Usually we have a tendency to think: "Oh well, I did what I could and I was right, but because of somebody else or because of some circumstances, the mistake took place."

Leaders' Meeting
December 22, 1994

God cursed the fallen angel, saying, "Upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."(Gen. 3:14) "Upon your belly you shall go" means that the angel would become a miserable being, unable to function properly or to perform its original service. To "eat dust" means that ever since the angel was thrown down from heaven. (Isa, 14:12); he has been deprived of life elements from God. Instead, he has had to subsist on evil elements gleaned from the sinful world. (Rev. 12:9)

Exposition of the Divine Principle
Part I, Chapter 2, Section 1

3:17 And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commended you, 'Thou shall not eat of it.' cursed is the ground because of on in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you and you shall eat the plants of the field."

3:22 Then the Lord God said. "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever.

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

This world we are living in is the world of result, but what did it result from? The human Fall. Thus it is far removed from the original world. This fallen world is certainly not the world in which we long to live; it is the culmination of thousands of generations of fallen ancestors. Looking back upon history, we find that our ancestry is not what we would have desired.

This is not the world that God planned, but rather the fallen world. Each generation has multiplied the results of the Fall, thousands upon thousands of fallen generations have brought the world to its present state. Each segment of history was terrible. When you think deeply about fallen history, can't you feel how shockingly horrible it has been`...

God has suffered far more than any human being; otherwise, He would not be qualified to teach suffering people. Parents can educate their children and the children listen because parents have endured more. The teacher who has experienced and suffered a lot is a better-qualified instructor. If a student has endured more suffering than the teacher, the teacher does not know how to guide him.

The world of creation exists for human beings, and it is pleading with us to be used for a good purpose. Even the fallen world will say, "Please apply the law of restitution and use me through it." Restitution is necessary everywhere.

We must understand clearly what we are living for. The direction in which we are headed is the path of restitution for the sake of the world. This is the path that leads directly to the center of the whole. This is our daily direction.

Wherever we go -- whether a family, a company, a nation or the world -- we must show a good example. Our task is to overcome the payment due on all those levels. Do you understand?

What happened because of the Fall? By falling Adam and Eve were separated from God and cut off from the angelic world. They lost everything. They were expelled from the Garden, which means they lost the standard of true human beings, the true family standard, and the true national standard. Who was responsible for that? It wasn't God, nor was it the angelic world, nor the world of creation. It was the responsibility of humankind.

Therefore, we are destined to follow the course of the providence of restoration. A person cannot go this path alone. He or she needs the help of God and the spirit world Therefore. God and the spirit world have been mobilized to help fallen man on earth complete the history of re-creation

People in the Old Testament Age made offerings to God using things from the creation. Such offerings united God, the sprit world and the creation into a substantial foundation. Through these successful offerings, the foundation to restore a substantial Adam was begun.

This foundation of offering was supposed to be established worldwide. To do that, a particular nation, Israel, was elected. It was God's hope that Israel would become the most important nation in the world, so that when the foundation was completed there, it would represent the entire world. On that kind of foundation, perfected Adam and Eve would be able to stand.

A person who cannot live up to the absoluteness of God's law cannot cross the absolute barrier which God erected after the Fall. When Adam and Eve united with Satan and died spiritually, God set cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way so no one could re-enter the Garden of Eden.

When we give the Blessing of marriage, we are aiming to harvest the fruit in this springtime of the providence, being admitted past the cherubim with the flaming sword to consummate the goal. When kingship and queenship is sealed in you, then even if you march to the gates of hell, the door will open. There will be no place you cannot conquer and nowhere you cannot go. Everywhere you go you shall bring springtime.

Spring Season of the Providence
April 1, 1979