"Empty promises" and paradise lost

Today for the first time since the pandemic started, our congregation baptized a new member. As is traditional at one point the pastor asked (paraphrasing), "Do you reject the devil and all his works and empty promises?" While the history behind that question would probably fascinate me, I found myself thinking about how many empty promises I have heard in my life. Car salesmen and politicians have a reputation for them. And I still remember an old joke about Satan not attacking lawyers out of professional courtesy, though lawyers have more of a reputation for simple dishonesty than for promising anything.

The first time that the devil makes an appearance in Scripture, it's in the Genesis account as the serpent. Again, regardless of your own personal approach to Genesis' "page one" problem, it's interesting to watch the action unfold: the serpent tells a half-truth that is fully misleading. As a result of being misled, in a very short time the people are living with shame and fear and enmity and suspicion. Those bad things happened before God imposed any consequences; the fallout to that point was all from natural consequences. The man hid, and was afraid, and was ashamed all before he saw God. And when asked to explain, the blame-fest began. It's traditional to chalk up "paradise lost" to God's actions, but they had already lost paradise. It had stopped being paradise -- a garden planted by God himself where all was in harmony with God -- and had started being a piece of territory. Honestly, they had been destined to leave the garden anyway ("Be fruitful and multiply; Fill the earth and rule over it"). They hadn't been destined to fear and shame and suspicion and enmity. They were no longer in harmony with God. That was the paradise lost.