If these verses don't make you shake in your boots, you have failed to understand them. And yet the central idea found in these verses is one of the most central ideas of the Bible. It's not that it is a difficult idea to understand. Rather, it is a difficult idea to accept because it offends and contradicts our most dearly held assumptions about ourselves, our God and the nature of salvation. In fact, one of the basic consequences of reading the Bible is its challenge to, destruction of and reshaping of our most dearly held assumptions about ourselves, about God and about reality. People are not saved because of who they are because apart from Christ people are mistaken about who they are. Unbelievers don't see this at all, and believers often -- even usually -- misunderstand it because they have not abandoned their attachments to sin. Even Christians who are actually saved still sin. Even Christians continue to misunderstand themselves, their God and how salvation works because we are still embroiled in sin. We are all embroiled in sin because our world is embroiled in sin. So, what is the essential falsehood that Satan peddles as truth, but God says is poison? It is the idea that we can gain wisdom by doing what God has prohibited, by following Satan's advice. It is the idea that we can save ourselves or save other people. It is the idea that we can do for ourselves all that we need -- and even do it in the name of Jesus Christ.