Three Apples
They say three apples have changed world history: the apple in the Garden of Eden, the apple that fell on Isaac Newton’s head, and Apple, Inc. Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc. had an uncanny knack for anticipating technological change. Apple and its “iProducts” are at the forefront of the IT revolution that is changing the way we use and communicate information. As for Isaac Newton’s apple, it didn’t really fall on his head but it did make him think, “Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground?” His laws of gravity—and work in the other branches of science—date back to the 17th century but are still at the core of our understanding of the universe.
What about that first apple? Well, the Bible calls it the “fruit” of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam and Eve ate it, they did what God had told them not to do, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16; 3:6). It was their disobedience—not the fruit—that had this deadly effect. Why? Because sin—doing our own will—separates us from God, the source of all life. This is by far the biggest change of the three and the Bible sums it up this way: “just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin…death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Some of us are Apple users, some are not. Most of us recognize Isaac Newton’s scientific genius, but we get through life without understanding the details of his discoveries. However, each and every one of us is personally involved in the change that happened in the Garden of Eden. We may ignore it, deny it, mock it, but we can’t escape it and its consequences. Again the Bible says, “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
Steve Jobs died of cancer when he was only 56. He famously said about facing death, “You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” If you’re inclined to take his advice—after all he was right about so much in the world of computing—listen to the Bible first: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). It’s what got us into a mess in the first place! No, we need to turn from self to Son: God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loves us so much that He “suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18)
God has every right to judge us but He is “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He is pleading now: “Be reconciled to God. For He [God] made Him who knew no sin [the Lord Jesus] to be sin for us [you and me], that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). Isaac Newton said of the universe: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” He was right, and this most beautiful salvation comes from the same source.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
