John Piper’s answer to the question, “What is first result of Adam and Eve choosing to be god?” is this: “the canyon between appearance and pretension.” He explains:
Now that I have chosen to be God, my non-godlike appearance is ridiculous. And humans have spent centuries with fine clothing (cool clothing) and make up and body-building trying to look less like the wreckage we are without God.
The root of shame is the pretension to be god—the need to look invulnerable, self-sufficient, god-like (or goddess-like).
The essence of the fall of Eve and Adam—and all of us in Adam—is the supreme pleasure we have in being independent, and deciding for ourselves what is true and right and beautiful, rather than finding supreme pleasure in God as the fountain of all that is true and right and beautiful.
The essence of the fall is preferring to be god rather than enjoy God.
Here is Piper’s response to the serpent’s satanic suggestion that if Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they will be like God (Gen. 3:1–5):
So true and so false!
God is a flower of truth and right and beauty, and he has no roots and needs no water, no sunshine, no soil. He is absolutely self-sufficient.
We are planted in God. We get all our water and light and nutrition from him.
Yes, we can cut our stem and try to be like him.
We can be our own source of life and light and truth and right and beauty.
We can. And die.
