Everything God created
was good. That is God’s assessment of His creation. It is VERY good! The word
“good” is the repeated word throughout the first chapters of Genesis. Creation
is not evil, creation is good. Mankind was the crown of creation, made in God’s
image to rule over what God made. God put the first human couple in a garden
that He had made for them. Everything they needed was there, including access
to God and the source of eternal life. The Tree of Life was there in the middle
of the garden of Eden.
But
there was another tree there in Eden: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil. God had given them one restriction: they were not to eat from that Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This tree becomes crucial to the whole
story. In fact, if we understand the meaning of this tree, we will understand
the entire Bible. If we understand this tree, we will understand the true
nature of reality and the whole meaning of human life on planet earth. It is
just that important! The Garden of Eden is about us and our lives. We were
there in Eden, in the bodies of Father Adam and Mother Eve, and we are part of
the story. All the real issues of life are seen there at the beginning. The
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the incarnation of a spiritual
reality. Physical objects are often used as spiritual lessons. We can derive
three lessons from this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
This tree is a lesson in
the difference between good and evil.
Here was the first
temptation and the first sin. Here mankind would learn the difference between
good and evil and pay a terrible price for that knowledge. This knowledge was
not intellectual, but bitter experience.
Because
God is Creator, He has the right to set boundaries for His creatures. Furthermore,
God has the right to define the meaning of life in His world. One of the great
errors of the modern world is in thinking that we get to define what life is
all about. We think we get to decide for ourselves what good and evil means.
God was not
being an ogre. He had already said they could eat from any other tree in the
garden. God has richly and abundantly provided for their needs. There was just
one restriction in the middle of a thousand freedoms.
But why
have any restrictions? Some think God was creating the problem. In fact, the
command does seem rather pointless. Was there something wrong with that tree?
Was its fruit poisoned or magical? God was using that tree to create a moral
arena with choices that had to be made between two alternatives. The forbidden
fruit was something other than God and His will which created a crisis of
choice. Every time they saw that tree, they would have to make a choice between
God and something else. The tree was an objectification of a moral decision. The
word and the will of God was the defining quality of that tree in the garden of
Eden. God’s command had nothing behind it other than God Himself. They were not
to eat from that tree simply because God said so. Their obedience would have to
be completely free of anything other than a desire to obey God because He is
God.
What was
at stake was their fellowship with God. They could choose uninterrupted
fellowship with the Creator or go their own way. There was no arrangement
possible where they could get rid of God and keep the things they wanted. You
can get rid of God, so to speak, but with Him goes the source of everything
good. It is not that we just shouldn’t try to live without God, we cannot live
without God. All the things we try to fill our lives with eventually betray us
in the end and break our hearts.
This tree is a lesson in
the consequences of moral choices.
The true nature of
reality is like a road which suddenly diverges, making us choose a path.
Somehow people manage to convince themselves that every road is good and
eventually leads to the same place in the end. That there is a real choice
between good and evil is a rather unpopular notion. Not everyone who chooses
the wrong road will perish in the end. It is possible to be put back on the
right road. But the choice of ways is always there before us.
God
spoke directly to Adam and Eve in Eden. His word was clear enough. The Tempter
is right there to encourage them to throw off the fetters of God’s word. The
serpent seems to come from nowhere. He just slides into the story without any
back story or explanation. But we know something about his character. He is
crafty, subtle, deceptive. He just wants to have a discussion. But as soon as
he starts to speak, he begins to lie. The serpent lies about God. His strategy
is to drive a wedge between man and God, creating alienation and even
hostility. To accomplish this the serpent makes Eve doubt the goodness of God.
Imagine that you have a close friend. Another friend who is perhaps jealous,
suddenly suggest that your friend is only in the relationship to ask you for
favors. You may not believe it at first, but the well has been poisoned. You
are now going to closely listen to everything your friend says trying to
discern his or her intentions. Your trust has been destroyed. That is the
serpent’s strategy. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Eve begins to
doubt the goodness of God. Why would a good God withhold something good from
them? The forbidden fruit certainly looked good. It promised wisdom. And it
would make them like God. Was God a cosmic killjoy who just wanted to dangle
these good things in front of their eyes while denying them the full
experience?
We see
how temptation works: first there is a lie that leads to a thought. Then there
is a look at the forbidden thing. With looking comes a desire. Then the hand
reaches out and takes the forbidden thing. This process of temptation must be
short-circuited at some point or the effect is something like the falling of
dominoes. The consequences are unavoidable. In the heat of the moment we seldom
stop to seriously reflect on the consequences of our choices. We can find many
examples of this in Scripture besides the original sin in Eden. The people of Israel refuse to enter Canaan according to God’s command and end up wandering in the
wilderness. Moses becomes angry and strikes the rock instead of speaking as God
commanded him and is denied entrance into the Land. King David enjoys a night
of passion with Bathsheba, covers his adultery with murder, and then watches
his own family implode. We could all give similar testimonies of our own
failures and the consequences that followed. At some point we begin to believe
that our lives would be better without God interfering with us and we take life
in our own hands. Evil is the result of these choices.
The
actual transgression does not make a difference, it is the nature of sin that
brings the catastrophic result. I recently saw a video of an elephant in a
parade, surrounded by a crowd of people. The animal suddenly become angry or
afraid and bolted. It threw its rider to the ground and began to trample the
people in its path. Nothing could stop it. That one act of disobedience in Eden
released a monstrous evil into the world. Or, as the Apostle Paul said, “sin
came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Rom. 5.12). It was
the opening of Pandora’s Box.
There
are certain laws observed in nature. And there are also spiritual laws. A
spiritual law that we learn in Eden is that God is the source of everything
good. Without God there is nothing but death.
Sin, and
all the evil that comes from sin, is not just a legal issue. There is more to
sin than breaking the rules. Sin is personal. Sin is an act of cosmic rebellion
against the Creator of heaven and earth. It is the rejection of God and His
glory. When we sin, we are rejecting God as God and putting ourselves in the
place of God. The original temptation was for man to become as God rather than
accepting his place as a creature. That choice is what brought evil into the
world.
This tree is a lesson about
our critical connection to God.
If God is God, then our
relationship to God is not an optional thing, as if we can truly be independent
and self-sufficient. We are creatures. We depend on God. Breaking that
relationship is a matter of life and death. God is our Creator, not our helper
or motivator. There can be no casual approach to God.
The
difference between good and evil is absolute because God is absolutely God. We
do not discuss the nature of good and evil apart from the nature of God
Himself. Good and evil are not abstract concepts. At the center of our lives is
a choice to come to God or go our own way. That is the choice between good and
evil. We cannot escape the reality of God, even in the daily details of
life. We may hide from God, but He will find us out. “No creature is hidden
from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we
must give account” (Heb. 4.13). Our lives will be eternally defined by what God
sees when He casts His gaze upon us. And if that causes us to fear, then we are
beginning to be wise and acknowledge the reality of our situation and the
monumental choice that is before us everyday of our short lives.
There
are any number of ways we can try to avoid God and the reality of this choice
between good and evil. Some people
reject the existence of God. Atheism is not nearly as common as we think. But
atheism is not as intellectual as we think it to be. The real reason for
atheism is moral, not intellectual. If God is not there, then we can have no
moral responsibility to obey or submit to Him.
But
there are many more people who hide from God in religion. Religion can make us
think we are better than we really are. Remember how that Pharisee thanked God
that he was not like other men. But God sees through the religious fig leaves
we try to cover ourselves with.
In every
Age there is an attempt to philosophically redefine the meaning of good and
evil. It is called “freedom” the “new morality” or being “progressive”. Behind
it all is just the desire to go our own way rather than having to submit to
God.
The
popular notion that Hell is just a myth is nothing but a disguised attempt to
hide from God and redefine the meaning of good and evil. People say they are
being merciful or tolerant, but what they are really trying to do is relieve us
of the responsibility of choosing between good and evil.
Materialism
is an attempt to escape from this moral universe. If we are just biological
machines living in a world formed by chance, then good and evil is just a
temporary state of mind or social condition without any lasting meaning. The
sun will eventually burn out and the earth will freeze to death. End of story. If
there is no moral significance to life, then there is no significance to life
at all and we should not be lashed to such questions about good and evil as we
journey towards oblivion. If there is no real good and evil, no true choice
between two diverging paths, nothing touching eternity, then there is no true
significance to human life.
Conclusion
When we look back at what
happened in Eden, we see ourselves. We see all the wrong choices we have made. We
too have been rebellious. We wanted to be the Master. We have tried to cover
for ourselves, to hide from God, and maybe even blamed someone else for our evil
actions.
But God
did not abandon mankind in Eden, and He has not abandoned us. His mercy and
goodness are evident everywhere we look in this world. God has been patient
with us. He has provided for our needs even when we were sinful and hiding from
Him. Even His stern discipline was designed for our ultimate salvation.
God gave
a promise there is Eden that one day a man would be born who would defeat evil
(Gen. 3.15). And so, into this story came the Son of God. He became like one of
us and was tempted. The Devil tempted Jesus to take matters into His own hands
and go for what He wanted for Himself. But Jesus refused to do His own will and
chose to submit to the will of His Father. He is the Second Adam, the beginning
of the New Creation. He came so that we could be made new creatures fit for the
New Creation that is coming.
When
they had taken from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their access to
the Tree of Life was blocked. The next time the Tree of Life shows up is in the
book of Revelation in the New Earth. The Seed of the Woman promised in Genesis
came and bruised the serpent’s head. He died on that evil tree so that we can
have access to the Tree of Life. When He comes again all evil will be banished
and the world remade. And we will again eat from the Tree of Life in the
paradise of God.
This
world is not paradise. We still must go out and face evil. The serpent is still
slithering around, spreading his lies. And we often find that our own desires
are contrary to what we know to be good. Everyday we must say no to the world,
the flesh and the Devil. We do these things knowing that the power of Christ is
at work in us.
