TALE OF TWO TREES
AND GOD SAID: "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to KNOW good and evil....." Genesis 3:22. Man usually knows good and evil by participating in it. Does this verse mean God at one time actually did evil because He also knows evil? by Keith Hunt When we think of a human person coming to know evil, we invariably and most often think of this meaning that they did and participated in some evil deed or action. And in the context of Genesis 3 this first assumption of ours in understanding the phrase "to know good and evil" would be a correct one. For the context of Genesis 2 and 3 bears out the fact that Adam and Eve did not immediately, after being created, just run out and want to do evil, as if it was the first thing on their minds, as soon as God breathed into them the breath of life and they became living souls. Doing evil in their lives came later. We are not told how much later. We have no clue as to the time that elapsed after they stood and breathed the air of life and the time they partook of the tree that the Lord said they were not to eat from. But whether the time was short or long, we are told that their eating from that forbidden tree was their first act of evil or sin. And from that one act God said they had come to KNOW good and evil, as He also knew good and evil. Adam and Eve most assuredly came to know good and evil from and by participating in and DOING an act of evil or disobedience to the wish and the will and the commands of God. So does the fact that Adam and Eve came to know evil by doing evil, mean that God also came to know evil, or good and evil, by DOING evil, as opposed to doing always the good and the right? It seems like a somewhat silly question when we consider the whole Bible. When we consider what is written about God in the entirety of the Bible. How that God is perfect, and holy, and righteous, and without sin. It seems a silly question to ask when we know that the NT teaches that Jesus, as the Son of God, was sinless, that He never sinned once, not for a minute or a second. So, how did God, or the God beings, the "us" - the persons of the Godhead, the one we know today as the Father, and the one we know today as the Son, how did they COME TO KNOW good as opposed to evil? FROM THE BEGINNING We must back up some in time to find the answer to our question. We see many things around us on this earth. We see many things out there in the universe. The Humble Telescope is bringing us photos of the universe that truly does stagger the mind. We know from the Scriptures that their is an unseen (in the most part) world of "spirit creatures" out there, both good and evil ones. Can we know if these things we see and are told about in the Bible, always existed? Are we told in the Scriptures that they did not always exist? Yes, we are told. Speaking of Jesus Christ, Paul was inspired to tell us, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For BY HIM were ALL THINGS created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: ALL THINGS were created by Him....for He is BEFORE all things...." (Col.1:15-17). There it is. Jesus, one of the Godhead beings, one of the "us" of Genesis the first chapters, was existing BEFORE anything that was created was created. It was He who did the creating of ALL THINGS, visible and invisible. All the angelic host, all the "spirit beings" of the unseen world, all the unseen things such as the air we breath, and all the physical universe, and everything we can see around us, at ONE TIME did NOT exist! The one we know today as Jesus, did exist and it was He who made EVERYTHING that is made! Very little is told to us in the Word of God, the Bible, about the time BEFORE there was nothing made that was made. We are left in our finite minds to just suppose and imagine that there were two great Spirit beings, who were inhabiting NOTHING. Be this right or wrong, for we do look through a glass darkly on some things, as the Scriptures say. Some things are just not fully revealed to us yet. We are left for the present to only imagine that there were two Eternal Beings and nothing else, for everything else we know of today, visible and invisible was not there at some point in the distant passed of eternity. So with that, I will speculate somewhat, as to a time when those two great Spirit Beings decided to create and to make things. I speculate that they decided to make the host of the "spirit world" first, the angels and all the spirit beings that are described to us in the pages of the Bible. I speculate this was their first creation, and that the material universe came later, at what later time, there is nothing revealed. I can see them having great fun and joy in creating many varied spirit creatures, of every shape and size, every color and splendor that the human mind can imagine. Many Bible scholars have concluded from Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28: 12-16; Luke 10:18; and Revelation 12:3-4, that the angelic host were created with FREE WILL and free moral agency, to either love God and all His ways and commandments, or to disagree with God, to rebel against His wishes and will, and to be able to choose at any time, to go from the way of good and righteousness, and to follow the way of evil, rebellion, and sin. I can imagine the God Beings sitting down to consider all this. Do they make a Spirit host of beings to just sit or stand there and do nothing. Do they make fancy looking creatures just for decoration, as we humans may do with paintings, to decorate our surroundings, to look at now and again and say, "Well isn't that a pretty one I created" or "Isn't that an unusual creation I did" or "That sure is a colorful one I made" Did they want to make some kind of "robot" just to help around the yard of the universe, cut the "spirit grass" or prune the "spirit trees"? Just something they could direct and order around, control with a push of the spirit button on some scientific piece of spirit control computer panel? They surely could have done this. I guess they could have decided to "clone" themselves. Just make super perfect, holy, never able to sin, reproductions of themselves, and have everything so neat and so perfect, no worries, no frustrations, no disappointments, no repenting or wishing they had never done it such and such a way. Yes, they could have done it the nice neat perfect from the start, and perfect always to be way, but that was not what they wanted or decided to do at all. These two perfect Spirit Beings, had always been perfect, holy, righteous. NEVER HAD KNOW anything but perfection and holiness and harmony, and smooth plain sailing, no rain storms, no wind-storms, no blistering heat to shade from, no battles of any kind to fight. All they had ever know was harmony, peace, rest, goodness, loveliness, freedom from stress, just complete happiness and perfection. We humans would sure love to be able to experience that total perfection for even a year, maybe even a month or a week. Well after an eternity of who knows how long, even that perfection, of total easy rest perfection, could get, if not boring, at least not very challenging. They had experienced all that for, well who knows how long, we are not told. But they wanted to create Spirit Creatures that had free will, for they were going to create a huge universe filled with so much that they wanted creatures to care for it and to serve in it, that were way more than just machines. They wanted something a little closer to themselves, that they could communicate with, share ideas with, get more input on things, than just the two of themselves all the time. They did not want to clone themselves. But at that time they were not wanting to reproduce themselves either. They were willing to share some of their nature and abilities and free mindedness with other created creatures they would create. They would from all that they were now about to create, in all of its complexity, need laws and rules to govern it all, and some of that ruling and governing, they would have these new created Spirit Creatures to administer for them. Maybe problems would arise in one way or another, on this end of the created universe or that end of it, and decisions would need to be made. The two of them did not want to be bothered with all the governing and decisions for every little things that would come up in this now highly complex universe structure they now wanted to create. So again, the need for free will thinking would be important for these new Spirit being creatures to have and to be given. And so it was. An angelic host created with free mind thinking. Never been done before. No experience in it for those two mighty God Beings, from what we can gather from the Bible. Oh yes, I'm sure they knew that to create a universe with laws and where governing rules would need to be upheld and applied, to have things running neat and orderly, and to have creatures over all this to help and to serve the running of it all, to have creatures over it with free thinking minds, would mean they could free think to disagree, to think differently, to go against the majority, to even think they could do it better than the others or even than the ones who created them in the first place. Yes, all that comes with a free thinking mind. Such a mind can rebel even against those who made such a mind. I'm sure all that entered the minds of our God Beings, they knew it was a possibility in creating such free thinking Spirit creatures, that some may decide to free think against even themselves. But, they had no experience with such, they had not yet in eternity come to KNOW in a specific real manner the good and the evil. They had never seen evil period, ever. Didn't really know what it would look like, act like, or the depths of what effects such evil would have for them or anyone else. The Godhead had no knowledge, did not know "good and evil" at one point in eternity, but they did at another point in eternity, for some of those very Spirit creatures, with the free thinking mind they were given by the Godhead, did decide to rebel against the Godhead, the leader of that rebellion even wanting to be the Godhead himself. Can you imagine the personal feeling within the Godhead when all of this took place? Can you imagine that time when the Godhead Beings experienced for the first time creatures they had created with free thinking minds, that not only wanted to rebel against the basic established law and order of the new universe they had created, but one of those created beings even wanted to destroy Themselves, the ones who existed from eternity and created those now rebellious creatures. The EVIL of all this happening and the evil of what those rebellious creatures were willing to do in order to have their desires fulfilled, must have hit the Godhead like as we say, "a ton of bricks" if God had willed themselves not to know what the result would in-depth be, in creating such free thinking and free-willed creatures. All the trouble in caused within the created Spirit creature world, the troubles around and within the whole physical universe, all that, made sure that the Godhead really did come to KNOW in no uncertain way "good and evil." The Godhead never DID or never PRACTICED any evil. They only wanted to do good and to SHARE some of Themselves. So the Godhead came to know evil not by DOING any evil, but by creating Spirit creatures with free minds so they could either stay on the good and the right way, or decide to not stay on that good road but to hit the pathway of rebellion against God and think and do and practice evil or sin. In the Godhead deciding to create creatures that could have free moral agency then the possibility of sin and evil would be there at all times. Hence with that type of creation as opposed to the cloning or robotic type of creation, they, God, was making evil possible. It was His decision to so create and His responsibility, and so we then have God saying what He does say in Isaiah 45:7. When the Godhead decided to create mankind for a very special purpose, a purpose far different and far greater than when they decided to create the angelic host (see my study called "A Christian's Destiny" for that wonderful truth), they were also given free thinking decision making minds to decide if they would go with and stay with the "good" as opposed to going with and practicing the "evil." God had already come to KNOW the good and the evil, but Adam and Eve when first created did not know any evil. They had God talking to them immediately after they were created. They had only perfect goodness all around them. Yet, God already knowing what good and evil was all about now, from the experience with Him creating the free thinking minds within the angelic host, had a plan for these special human creatures that He knew would also eventually, at some point in time, decide to find out what rebellion against God was all about, decide to do evil. He had a plan that all would not be lost, that mankind falling into sin and evil, cut off from His holiness and sinlessness, could be redeemed. He had a plan to save the sinful humans He had now created. That basic plan was already planned and decided upon before those first two humans had ever been created, even before the foundation of the earth actually, as NT Scriptures clearly tell us. God would from the beginning with those two humans lay it all out for them. He would be up front with them. He would tell it to them as it was so to speak. As we say, God would put the cards on the table from the word go. Good and evil was already present in the universe. The world that God had now created for those two humans, and the others to follow, would also have good and evil present right from the word go, and God would state the basic game plan to them from the beginning also. He would put the basic rules of the two basic choices of good and life and evil and death before the human race, via physical representations to represent those two ways of good and life and evil and death. Those two physical representations would be of two fruit trees, the one for good and life they could eat, but the one for evil and death they were not to eat. God would tell them both trees existed, and what they represented. He would tell them to choose the tree of life and live, to stay away from the tree of evil and death, but THEY would have to decide and make the choice to OBEY Him or not to obey Him. THE TALE OF TWO TREES When God brought Israel out of Egypt He made sure they really knew He existed with all the miracles and signs He did before and for them, even to speaking to them directly the words of the Ten Commandments (see the context of Deut.5). He also was very up front with them as to why HE gave them laws and commandments to obey. We can find what He said to them in Deut. 30:15 and 19. "See, I have set before you this day LIFE and GOOD, and DEATH and EVIL." Ah, do you begin to see some familiar words here, does it remind you of those early chapters of Genesis? Notice Deut. 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you LIFE and DEATH, blessing and curing: therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that both you and your seed may LIVE." Was there not blessings and curses given out to Adam and Eve? Yes, if they chose the tree of life, they could have life, but if they chose the tree that was not theirs to eat from, then death would ensue. We also see curses given AFTER they rebelled and did eat of the fruit of the tree they were commanded NOT to eat from. So, the way God talked and laid out certain things to Israel was very much in keeping with the way God talked to and laid out certain things to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. We are given much more detail as to all the instructions God gave to ancient Israel, either directly or through Moses, than we are about all the instruction the Lord may have given to Adam and Eve, but Genesis does tell us that God did walk and talk to those first two created humans. They were as fully grown babes, when first created, having no knowledge between good and evil, as young children have no such knowledge (see Deut. 1:39). Adam and Eve were as children, but in the bodies of adults. I'm very confident that the Eternal God would have instructed then on how to basically observe the 7th day that He had sanctified at the end of that first week. I'm sure He would have given them instructions on marriage, and on sex, on how they could reproduce themselves by having children. I'm sure God would have informed them about how those children would come about, be conceived and be born. He probably gave them a course on how to care for small babies, and some guidelines on child rearing. I doubt He needed to spend much time in those early days to instruct on not committing adultery, as there were no other people around to commit adultery with. God would have given them the basics as to what was important for them to know and to learn for that specific time in their lives. They were babes in many ways in adult bodies. God would have known that there would be time to give High School courses and University courses later, as they needed them. The Lord is the LAWGIVER (James 4:12), and His basic plan for the physical humans He was to create was to include free minded will and decision making to function IMMEDIATELY within certain rules and regulations, that God would immediately apply with them in a not too complicated manner. He could have sat them down and done it in a much different way, in a way far more complicated. He could have put them in a University type setting, given to them note paper and pen, and had a whole bunch of in- depth classes of instructions of all the rights and all the wrong that would come into play as they walked through their 900 or so years of life, if He had willed Himself to know they would live that long (and what God wills Himself to know and not know is another interesting subject, for another time and article). But such heavy in-depth class instruction would have blown their minds into blubber, for they were only just beginning life, as I have said, like babes in adult bodies. And babes are not fed steaks of meat when they first come into the world. God would make the instruction quite simple, as to showing the two ways of life, either the good way leading to life or the bad way leading to death. The basic instruction would be with something very physical that they could relate to and see, walk up to, even smell and touch (except for one thing He would not allow them to even touch), without that something biting back or in any physical way harming them. Those two ways of life and having to make a choice as to which way to take would be represented by two trees and the fruit of those trees, which both fruits from both trees could be eaten without either fruit killing or harming them in any physical way. In fact both fruits from the two trees would look, smell, and if eaten, would taste delicious. The difference between the two trees was in the basic foundation, only ONE difference. One fruit of one tree would give LIFE, the other fruit of the other tree would give DEATH. Why? Very simple. Because God HAD SAID SO. HE HAD WILLED IT TO BE SO. HE HAD DECIDED IT WOULD BE SO. HE HAD SET A LAW THAT IT WOULD BE SO. And He as the lawgiver, the one who makes and sets the laws and commandments as pertaining to how He desires His created beings to function within their context of life. He has the right to set the boundaries of that context as regards His created beings who live and move within that context. He had created the angelic host with free thinking decision making minds, and had come to know that such could lead to good and it could lead to evil. God had come to know that the foundation of such creation was as to whether those created with free agency would LOVE Him as the creator and as the lawmaker, or would use their free choice of mind to REBEL and to not want or abide by His lawmaking. God had come to know good and evil by so creating. But He also saw that such was the only way to produce the mindset character of those He wanted to live with Him for all eternity, without making merely robots that could never come close to approaching Himself with the ability to converse with Him on thoughts and plans and decisions for the universe, on out into eternity. The Lord would lay out the table for His new creation of human beings, they would find out immediately that in their environment there were some boundaries. It would not be a complicated way to discover it, really quite simple as small children need simple things to teach and to guide them. They would be given the two ways to go and to live, the good and the evil way, they would like Israel later, be presented with the way of good and life and the way of evil and death. One tree would be off bounds to them as to touching it and eating its fruit, and to eat thereof would be an act of rebellion towards God. It would indicate they did not love God as their creator and as their lawgiver. To eat of that fruit would be disobedience against the law and commandments of God. It would be transgression and sin. That simple act of disobedience towards God, in eating the fruit from the tree they were not to eat from, would actually cover the breaking of many of the commandment laws that God had already formulated in His mind to govern the correct way of human society, the basics of them being the famous Ten Commandments. By doing what the Lord had said not to do, those two humans would be breaking the first commandment of having no god before the true God, by disobeying the directives of the Lord they would have cast aside Him as the ultimate authority. They broke the second commandment by bowing down to their own desires and to someone else's desire (Eve to the serpent, Adam to his wife). They took God's name in vain, as that name stands for Him as ruler of His creation. By not remaining under His guidance and rulership they were showing disrespect to His name that carried creation authority with it. As God had created them, they were by that very creation His children, and He their parent. They dishonoured Him as their parent by rebelling against His authority and wished, hence they broke the fifth commandment. They stole property that was most definitely out of their bounds and did not belong to them, so they broke the sixth commandment. They broke the last of the Ten Commandments by coveting what did not belong to them but belonged to God who had created that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and had told them they could not eat from it. So nearly all the Ten Commandments were represented in that one little command that God gave to Adam and Eve NOT to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden also. From that tree they could freely eat, and it represented the Spirit of the Lord, the pathway to life everlasting, the way to eternal life, to salvation through the plan of God, that had already been planned out BEFORE the foundation of the world. The member of the Godhead we now know as the Son, the one who came and was given the names Jesus Christ, was to come as the Lamb of God to live a perfect life in the flesh, to conquer sin in the flesh, to never sin, no not once, and to take upon Himself the sins of all mankind, in death. So they could be redeemed, forgive, justified, and come under the grace of God, and be finally saved into the very family and Kingdom of God the Father. All this was planned BEFORE-TIME for man even began, planned before-hand, even before the foundation of the earth. Notice it, "Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conduct received by the traditions from your fathers. But with the PRECIOUS BLOOD of Christ, as a LAMB without blemish and without spot: Who truly was FOREORDAINED BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, but was manifest in these last days for you" (1 Peter 1:18-20). Adam and Eve could have eaten of the tree of LIFE, they could have started on the road to salvation and eternal life through Jesus Christ and the plan of God. It does not mean that taking of that tree of life meant they would NEVER have committed a single sin in their 900 or so years of long life. Later on when the population had grown, they may have sinned through lust of the eyes and flesh. They may have not always observed the Sabbath correctly. They may have lied to one of their children or a neighbor. They may have coveted something they did not have but their neighbor did. They may have had impure thoughts, they may have said or done something to someone that was a sin. They may have known to do good and did it not which is also a sin (James 4:17). There could have been dozens of ways that Adam and Eve could have sinned during their long years of life on this earth. But if they had chosen to take and eat the fruit from the tree of LIFE they would have been on as we call it, the "Christian road" and would have been under the grace and mercy and LOVE of God. They would have had the Spirit of God in them to lead and guide them, to help and comfort and give them power to remain in a HUMBLE and REPENTANT attitude of mind. They would have had the very nature of God in them, and so remaining they would have been begotten children of the Father, and would have found a place in the book of life and in the first resurrection. They could have looked forward to the coming of the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world, just as Noah did, just as Abraham, just as David did and all the rest of the Old Testament saints did. They could have looked forward to the redeeming work of the Lord God just as we look back to the redeeming work He did, and hence all of God's children being saved by grace through faith that is in Christ Jesus, being under the blood of the Lamb and applying the instructions as contained in 1 John 1:7-10 and 2:1-6. It was quite a simple test and trial the Eternal God put forth before Adam and Eve. One tree and eating its fruit would represent the CHOOSING of that which is good, the choosing of the way to eternal LIFE. The other tree, touching and eating its fruit would represent the CHOOSING of the way of rebellion, disobedience, going against the revealed will and commandment of the Lord God. It would represent going the way of evil, sin, and death. Adam and Eve had not yet rebelled or sinned. They were innocently pure and righteous, but a CHOICE was set before them to either take the Spirit of life, the tree of life (verse 22) or to take the tree of disobedience and death (verses 2 and 3). SATAN CALLS GOOD EVIL AND EVIL GOOD Let's notice carefully what Satan actually said to Eve in verse 4 and 5. We shall see that he really was not interested in telling Eve anything about the truth and plan of God to want to make mankind into beings just like Himself, a part of His family as He was wanting to reproduce Himself through His new creation of human kind. Satan was only interested in deceiving Eve into sinning by breaking the will and commandments of God. The KJV gives the last part of verse 5 as: "....and you shall be AS gods, KNOWING good and evil." Two phrases here, each explaining the other. Each connected and going hand in hand with the other. It is not correct to just take one phrase in isolation and form a teaching out of it. With BOTH phrases taken with each other then they interpret each other and the truth is made clear. Being "AS god or gods" is in respect to a specific in this context, it is in respect to "KNOWING good and evil" just as God had come to know good and evil (verse 22). This was coming to a certain knowledge of mind (connected also with felt emotion) that NOW WOULD KNOW (where it did not before, because Eve was fully righteous and sinless and had done no evil at all to this point in her life) GOOD AND EVIL. Until evil has been done either IN or AROUND your life then only good is your experience and knowledge of your mind, in the practical way that is. Adam and Eve had been told what way was good and right and what was not to be done for it would bring evil and death. Of course that cold impersonal technical piece of knowledge was in their minds, but the depth of practical personal knowledge of good and evil was unknown to them until they DID evil. You will notice Satan did not say, "God knows in the day you eat you shall know you are to be God, be a part of the family called God, but He's hiding this from you, but I know this truth and plan of His and I'm telling you eating this fruit from this tree will give you the wisdom of becoming God." The Devil said no such words, only that eating would mean they would acquire something that God had, but they did not have, as yet, for they knew nothing about "evil" and the difference between "good and evil." But NOT listening to God and NOT obeying Him, but eating from the forbidden tree would give them that part of the knowledge of the mind that God had but they did not have, and hence the Devil was telling Eve she would have more of the mind of God and so be more like Him. He probably told Eve that being more like God in this lifetime was what God had wanted and taught her and Adam to be anyway, to have Him as their mentor, to follow Him, to have and want His mind in them, and this eating from this tree would give them more of God's mind of KNOWING and KNOWLEDGE. Yet for us humans, it is very true that when it comes to evil, it is better to be naive and innocent about it, not know about it, than come to know about it through doing or participating in it. Satan also used the common phrase "have your eyes opened" or as we often say today, "open your eyes and see." He used it very psychologically with Eve, as if God was saying it, but in a way that He did not want them to see some "wonderful hidden light of blessings" that would naturally come if eating from the tree He did not want them to eat from. Again, the Devil was making out God was selfish and holding back from them some good thing, great psychological game play with words. The phrase "to have your eyes opened" or "why not open your eyes and see" can be used to serve and help someone into some piece of good knowledge that could bless and give them wisdom in this life. But, it can also be used by a deceitful and cleaver person to bring harm and to destroy someone. How? First, it can be a phrase used incorrectly, to belittle, to call someone "dumb" or naive or put a person down as just "not with it" as they should be. Secondly, the deceptive individual using it in a wrong way, can be giving the impression that the knowledge to gain that the person needs to gain by having their eyes opened, is really some great good knowledge that will bless them, and not bring any evil to them at all. Thirdly, it can indicate that the one telling them to get their eyes opened, has been around, is an old pro at the game, and knows this is all true because they have been there and done that, whereas they are still a novice, and need to listen and follow someone who fully knows about "getting your eyes opened." Eve, as indeed an innocent novice to "deceit" and "evil" was beginning to be taken in, by the master of deceit, half-truths and lies. This is how the Hebrew scholar J. P. Green translated verse 4 and 5 in his English/Hebrew Interlinear: "And said the serpent to the woman, Not surely you shall die, for knows God that in the day you eat of it, then shall be opened your eyes and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil." The Hebrew for "God" is Elohim, the same as in chapter 1:1 and number 430 in Strong's Concordance. First, Satan lies by saying God is a liar. Jesus in the NT said that Satan was a liar and the father of it. We see him lying here to Eve. His lying is very cunning and deceitful for he goes on trying to prove to Eve that he was saying the truth and that God was lying to her, by God holding back, hiding to her the wonderful wisdom that would come from eating this fruit, which He God had come to know and have (but not by doing or participating in evil) but didn't want to share it with her or Adam. Satan made out that God was SELFISH and self-centered, greedy, covetous, stingy, and mean, while he was generous, giving, and concerned with wanting to see Adam and Eve with all the very best that could be obtained. And to get that very best would mean they should view God with suspicion and very untrustworthy, for there was something God had but did not want them to have. God knew that it was best for Adam and Eve NOT to have this knowledge, that it would be evil for them to have it. Satan turns that around to say that it would be GOOD, a blessing of wisdom, they would be more like God, to have this knowledge. Then notice this new wonderful light that would come to them as Satan said it, would come he said, "in the day you eat thereof." This was not something for the future. This was not some knowledge of some part of God's plan of humans to enter and be part of His family, sometime in the distant working of that plan. This was something Satan said would be theirs IN THE VERY DAY they ate that fruit which God had said not to eat or touch. And it was something they would have that God already had the knowledge of, which they did not as yet have knowledge of, to KNOW the TWO ways of both good and evil, and hence they would be more like God, just as God wanted them to be. It was for the NOW and the PRESENT the Devil said would be this good thing for them to have and to live. Satan did speak some truth. There were two truths the Devil was telling them. If they obeyed him and disobeyed the Eternal God, they could have something that very INSTANT, that very day, that very time of touching and eating that fruit. God had told them it would be death they would have, not the first physical death, for that death did not happen when they ate that fruit in that day. But it would be the death that comes from sinning. Satan said all that was a lie on God's part. And the second truth he told Eve was that her mind would be opened to receive the clear KNOWING of what GOOD as opposed to EVIL was all about, which God already had come to have knowledge about. Satan made all this out as if all this was DESIRABLE and GOOD for Adam and Eve to obtain. God had already told them the real truth of the matter. He had told them He had created a world in which there were laws and governance, rules and regulations, given and designed to produce every blessing and happiness and a way to eternal life with Him forever more. And there was a way of evil, curses, painful problems and sin, which would lead to unhappiness and to eventual death. He had told them one way was to good and life and the other way was to evil and death. He had told them what would lead to evil and death and what they could do to lead to good and life. He told them they had TWO WAYS they could go. He told them they had a CHOICE to make. They would have to make the choice, He God would not make it for them, they would have to make it for themselves. BUT, He wanted them to make the choice for GOOD and for LIFE. He told Adam and Eve just as He told those Israelites whom He called out of Egypt thousands of years later, "See I have sent before you this day life and good, and death and evil.....I have set before you life and death, blessing and curing: therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that both YOU and your SEED may LIVE" (Deut.30:15,19). God pleaded with them to choose LIFE! The Eternal Lord had set before Adam and Eve what was the truth of the GOOD and what was the truth of the EVIL. God had spoken the truth. He had not lied in any way, shape, or form. To eat from the one tree would lead to His Spirit and eternal life, to eat from the other tree would lead to evil and death, which if they did in their sinless innocence, would mean they would open up their minds to every evil going, and sure enough God already had come to KNOW how evil that evil could be by what one third of the angelic host had done, by they themselves choosing, from their free thinking minds to NOT continue in the good but to rebel against the governance of God. God had given to Adam and Eve the truth from the false, the right from the wrong, the good from the evil, the way of life from the way of death. Now Satan comes along, and completely turns the truth of God's teaching UPSIDE-DOWN and INSIDE-OUT, to make out God was the liar, God was not giving them all the facts, God was selfish, holding back some "good" from them. Satan TWISTED it all around, and by throwing in a few truths (getting to obtain something that God already had and having it as soon as they would eat), he EFFECTIVELY in Eve's mind made it all sound very logical and something that was VERY GOOD! He persuaded Eve that to eat from the forbidden tree would give her in that day more of the nature and mind of God, more wisdom in living the daily life and things yet to come in her life, problems, decisions to make, workings to work out, that having more of what God had and knew about, could only be GOOD and not evil or death. Satan effectively persuaded Eve that living in the only way she had so far known, happiness and righteousness and sinlessness, persuading her that she was NAIVE, Eve the naive, and that such a way was actually NOT good but BAD, he twisted her mind to think that good was EVIL and that evil was GOOD! And we all know the "rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say. The calling of good EVIL and evil GOOD is the main foundational character of the mindset of Satan the Devil. He does it in any way he can. From out and out calling God a liar in and through whoever, to shading the truth, to twisting the facts, to leaving out facts that would change the picture completely, to declaring God is selfish, does not have your best interests at heart, is wanting you to be led astray, wanting you to sin. To even giving you some truths in it all. Any way he can, as a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he can devour (1 Peter 5: 8), to coming to you as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11: 13-15), with every trick in the book. He will attack you if he can in many ways, but especially he loves to call good EVIL and evil GOOD, and have people fall for it, have people BELIEVE IT! He uses many an individual to teach and preach this basic doctrine of his. It was used by many in ancient Israel to deceive and lead people into sin. Notice how God spoke to Israel of old (and so to us today) through Isaiah the prophet, " For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and He looked for JUDGMENT, but behold a SCAB (margin reading); for RIGHTEOUSNESS, but behold a CRY (of)......WOE unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them......WOE unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope......WOE unto them that call evil GOOD, and good EVIL; that put darkness for LIGHT, and light for DARKNESS; that put bitter for SWEET, and sweet for BITTER!......Therefore as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as the dust: BECAUSE they have CAST AWAY the LAW of the Lord of hosts, and DESPISED THE WORD of the Lord and the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah 5:7-24). When the great covering Cherub over the throne of God (Ezekiel 28) decided that this wonderful earth to rule and govern was not good but evil. When he decided, with his free agency mind, that God was not good but evil, and that to rise above the clouds and to ascend to heaven to cast God off His throne and put himself on that throne (Isaiah 14) was not evil but was good, then his mindset was changed forever to teach and preach and to believe that indeed evil was good and good was evil. He was ready and eager to pervert the innocently pure and sinless minds of the first two human beings the Eternal God created on this earth. The NT tells us that he deceived Eve into sin, and that Adam was not deceived, but also sinned by choosing to follow his wife on the road and pathway that leads to death via rebellion and sin against God and His commandments (1 Tim.2:13 with Rom.5:12-14). But God knew beforehand that it would all happen, sooner or later, that mankind would somewhere along the line, along the way of life, choose either through deception or without deception, the way of sin that leads to death. God had it all under control and had a great and wonderful plan to redeem mankind back to partake of the tree of life and live forever, IF they would again use their free agency minds to so CHOOSE that way to LIFE. As we have seen from 1 Peter 1:18-20 one of the members of the very Godhead chose to be the sacrificial Lamb that would come to die for the sins of the whole world, before the foundation of the world, to redeem and reconcile mankind back to God the Father, and through His death and His life those choosing to be redeemed could be saved (Rom.5:10). We finish this study with these inspired verses. "But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead (because all have sinned, see chapter 3:23), much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many.....For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; MUCH MORE they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in LIFE by one, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5: 15-17). Oh how great and marvellous is the plan, the grace, and salvation of our God. .................................. Written July 2000
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