The Mystery Of The Proverbial Apple

What actually happened in the Garden of Eden?  There is a pseudepigraphical book, The Life of Adam and Eve, but I am not referencing that.  The first temptation of mankind in the perfect environment shows that we cannot blame our surroundings or call ourselves victims of circumstance.  Even if everything was perfect, we aren't and are vulnerable to sin; we would do the same as Adam and Eve and therefore confirm ourselves in sin to stand in solidarity with Adam, the head of the human race.

God had placed two special trees in the Garden of Eden:  the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam knew not their purposes.  God put one off-limits because Adam may not have been mature enough for it yet and He intended him to learn these things at a specified time or in the fullness of time, or whenever!  But this is merely speculation and we shouldn't second-guess God.

Eve wasn't looking for trouble, she was just curious, probably that a serpent could talk, or maybe she was too naive to think anything unusual. I wonder how much Adam had told her since she added to God's Word says, "And don't touch it."  It was referring to the forbidden fruit, whatever it was, we don't know for sure.  NB:  Temptation is not sinning (Jesus was tempted of the devil too), but when we yield it brings forth the fruit of sin.  Doubt often extends with augmentation or exaggeration and this leads to lies and distortions of truth.  Satan saw her coming and said, "Hath God said?" immediately calling God's Word into question and planting the seeds of doubt in her vulnerable mind (for the devil seeks whom he may devour).

The temptation went like this:  Eve was confused about the Word of God, then doubted it, then believed Satan, then she finally disobeyed God took of the fruit and gave some to her husband who then joined her willingly, for he was with her.

The question is not so much the act itself as the motive: why do it?  God looks on the heart (cf. Prov. 21:2).   Satan gave her incentive in promising,  "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."  This sounds awfully tempting and alluring to anyone to be a god and today people seek to be gods rather than godly.  But it's the big lie of Satan.  The insinuation was that God was holding out on her!  Was she missing out on something that she deserves to have? Remember, Adam was nearby and failed to inform her and interfere, for he didn't dare cross her and chose to be on her side through thick and thin, even death.

God said that Adam was guilty of "listening to [Eve]."   They weren't choosing good vs. evil, for they were innocent, they were choosing to disobey God and actually, their own wisdom, delights, wills, enjoyment, fulfillment, and purpose apart from God's. They rejected God's plan!  People still do things their own way:  "We all like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned each to our own way" (Isa. 53:6).  We are like the Israelites in Judges who had no king and each did what was right in his own eyes.

This prototype sin that we all have confirmed ourselves in went as follows according to scholars:
Adam rejected God's authority, doubted His goodness, disputed His wisdom, repudiated His justice, contradicted His faithfulness, and spurned His grace. But haven't we all done that too? The point of Adam's sin was that he only had one simple rule to obey to keep in good standing with God and enjoy a life of paradise on earth,  and he couldn't keep that; what does that tell you about man-made rules, religion and our nature?  If he couldn't keep one simple rule, what makes him think he can keep any?

This worldly scandal had eternal implications--it changed the course of human history! They were expelled from paradise--the Garden of Eden for their own good (lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever in sin).  This was mercy.  God is also a God of judgment and must do something about the sin committed as promised ("the day you eat it, you shall die").  There would be no second chance or redo!  But God again in mercy delayed the culmination of death some 930 years, but the process of death began while they commenced to aging and growing old.

All in all, this episode wasn't just a phase they went through, but the suffering had just begun and the earth was now cursed for Adam's sake and Eve's pain in childbearing would begin.  They finally learned the great lesson of life of cause and effect and even though they tried to blame others, they had to admit that it was their own fault and they had failed God. God has been against the blame game ever since (cf, Isa 58:9).   Finally, the whole failure of freedom should be called "Edengate," or perhaps more appropriately:  "Applegate."   Soli Deo Gloria!  

Trouble In Paradise

Paradise (as it's called in the Septuagint)  means "pleasure," and the word is from the Persian for Eden. There is lots of trouble in Hawaii, also called Paradise, but this was indeed a perfect environment with no pitfalls, drawbacks, or downside. Everything a man could want was there--even the perfect job--horticulture at the time the first profession.  Even his marriage was made in heaven and Eve was designed to be a perfect helpmate and partner.

But things didn't go as planned, even as it seemed God had planned.  Adam was meant to live forever and to eat of the tree of life, but he ate of the wrong tree, the one that was off-limits. Why he hadn't yet eaten of the tree of life is a mystery.  Evil and trouble had already made their debut in heaven as Satan was kicked out and cast down to earth for his sin of pride and rebellion with his legions of demons or minions.  God had made one simple test to see whether Adam would want to obey Him or Satan.  Adam had no inclination to evil, and wasn't prone to disobey--he had the ultimate free will--(he was free to sin and free not to sin; he had both capabilities) and there was nothing internal or external compelling him to sin--he simply chose to, uninfluenced by an outside force. Actually, it seems he took of the forbidden fruit because his wife had and he was on her side!  But by his one simple act of rebellion, the human race was all reckoned to be in sin (called original sin).  Eve had listened to Satan unwittingly and ignorantly, even innocently, but Adam listened to his wife and knew what he was doing in a better light.  He chose willingly to be a partner in crime!

Eve was the one to watch!  She was obviously naive enough not to know that serpents don't have the power of speech and also that she had power and authority over all creatures.  But she was curious enough to talk to a serpent.  Curiosity can lead to sin!  The first act of defiance against God was a prototype sin in manifold ways--we all confirm and verify this sin in ourselves to show we would've done likewise.  We all display solidarity in Adam.  It is said that Adam and Eve spurned God's grace, contradicted His truth, violated His law, rejected His authority, disputed His wisdom, repudiated His justice, and resisted His grace--that just about covers a rebellion against the complete nature of God--the prototype sin.  The proverbial apple or forbidden fruit was the entree into the ways of the world and to find one's own wisdom, discernment, pleasure, truth, and will.

Satan had said that they would be "as gods" (knowing good and evil) and this was a way to be independent of Him--she might have doubted God's goodness or suspected He was holding out on her. Not that this knowledge was necessarily bad, but it wasn't in God's timing for them to know it yet--perhaps later.  It is true that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave them cognizance of what evil was--they already had experienced God's goodness but now they questioned it--doubt entered the equation.  Now they knew evil first hand!   Eve also displayed "bad purpose" to know good and evil, legally showing corrupt intention and desiring to be equal with God and independent. 

We also see good in comparison to evil.  Evil is the distortion of good and they knew good but now they knew evil and its consequences--shame and guilt, resulting in embarrassment and sinful self-consciousness.  In other words, good must first exist for there to be evil--it's not independent of the good and couldn't exist on its own without there being a good to pervert or imitate.  We only see evil in light of good.  Now they reasoned they could be good without God and make a name for themselves, I suspect. Adam followed suit and decided to take his chances with his helpmate and partner and partner in crime in partaking of the "forbidden fruit."

But what happened after the fact is the rest of the story.  Adam and Eve displayed "consciousness or cognizance of guilt" (legally showing culpability).  They were indeed responsible for what they had done but they immediately pointed their fingers at someone else and played the old blame game.  This culminated in Operation Fig Leaf, the first religion of good works to try to gain the approbation of God and make oneself righteous and acceptable apart from grace and mercy.  They didn't realize that God only made one simple command or rule, not a suggestion!  It wasn't just good advice!  They couldn't keep one simple rule!

Noteworthy is the fact that they didn't even ask for forgiveness, showing more guilt!  Maybe they felt too guilty to seek forgiveness like Judas, not thinking it was forgivable.   An insult to God's nature of goodness!  They must not have known God very well not to know He is one of grace and mercy; however, God was merciful and delayed his death sentence by nearly 1000 years.  But they had experienced the death of being separated from God's fellowship and communion. But note that they didn't even apologize or say they were sorry!  But they apparently did have a guilt complex though and tried to hide their shame by putting on aprons made of fig leaves, noticing their nakedness made them feel vulnerable and exposed their feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.

And it's a wonder that they had only one simple rule to obey and blew it!  And yet they did it in a perfect environment to prove to us we cannot blame our sin on our upbringing or background. We must trust God's wisdom in knowing what we are capable of knowing for our own good, perhaps God would've revealed the difference between good and evil after Adam and Eve had matured in their evening walks with the Lord.  Sin is universal:  we are born into it, we choose it, and it's our nature known as the old man Adam.  But worst of all is that we all confirm Adam's sin by duplicating its acts in other manifestations and following suit showing solidarity and the universality of sin.  Thank goodness, God made for them coverings of skin to hide their shame and show forgiveness and reconciliation.         Soli Deo Gloria!

Age Of Innocence

 "Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they shall go in there, to them I will give it, and they shall possess it"  (Deut. 1:39, NKJV).  
 "For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good..." (Isaiah 7:16, NKJV). 
"... 'Yes. Have you never read 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise?'...." (Matt. 21:16, NKJV).

John Locke, father of modern empiricism, said that children are born tabula rasa, or with a blank heart or slate, that is impressionable and innocent!--thus all knowledge is learned by experience and we don't inherit any.   The Bible clearly says that we are conceived in sin and that we err from birth, telling lies (Psalm 58:3, NKJV, says, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies").  This native tendency is called original sin and is the effect of Adam's sin.  We aren't sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinners, theologians say.  We sin, precisely because it's our very nature and we act according to our God-given nature.  God chose our nature, whether sanguine, choleric, melancholy, impetuous, or happy-go-lucky!

We are not born free, but in bondage to sin, and must be set free (As John 8:36, NKJV, says, "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed").   We don't need free wills, but wills made free.  The will is depraved to and is not in a state of neutrality able to weigh the pros and cons of following Christ--we need to be wooed into the kingdom (cf. John 6:44, 65) and convicted of our sin and brought to faith by regeneration (cf. 2 Thess. 2:13, which implies that regeneration precedes faith!).

Our nature is determined by God, just like a dove's nature is to eat seed and a vulture to eat carrion, we act according to the nature God gave us, and we are true to nature and to the character that God didn't even ask us our permission before giving it to us.  What if you had been born in India, do you think you'd be a Baptist?  What if you had been born in abject poverty in the Horn of Africa, what would've been your chances of surviving, or what if you had been born in a Muslim nation and had virtually no freedom or opportunity to be anything except Muslim?

God recognizes that children don't know good and evil, though they are still sinners.  Jonah was told that there were 120,000 in Nineveh that didn't know their right hand from their left!  After the spies had come back from Canaan, Joshua was told that the nation would suffer for forty years in the wilderness due to cowardice and a whole generation would be punished--except those who were "innocent" as Deut. 1:39 says.  Basically, God had mercy on all those under twenty years old, even though Jews consider the right of passage into adulthood at about 13 for boys and 12 for girls.

Some teach that God sends children to hell if they're not baptized, but there is no place in hell for children.  Isaiah 7:16 says that there is a time when children don't know to choose the good and reject the evil before adulthood, and God has mercy on them accordingly.   Jesus, Himself, said that the kingdom of God belongs to the children of the world, and we are to receive them, even someone who accepts them in His name accepts Him.  Woe to those who cause a child to stumble in the faith, because their angels constantly behold the face of the Father in heaven.

We have a lot to learn from children, who have not reached the age of accountability yet, because Jesus said that God has ordained praise from their lips (as Matt. 21:16, says, "... 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise?"),  and we can see the love of God in their hearts  (cf. Psalm 8:2).  Saint Augustine said that it was the voice of a child saying, "Take and read, take and read," that was his spiritual wake-up call and motivated him to repent of his lascivious and debauched lifestyle.

Yes, God does speak through children and they can utter wise statements that are timely.  Yes, forbid them not, as Mark 10:14 says to suffer them not, for such is the kingdom of God.   Soli Deo Gloria!     

You Shall Be As Gods

"I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God (Isaiah 45:5, NIV).
"Surely God is with you, and there is no other; there is no other god (Isaiah 45:14, NIV).
"There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me (Isaiah 45:21, NIV).
"Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other (Isaiah 45:22, NIV).
"... Before me no god was formed, or will there be one after me" (Isaiah 43:10, NIV).

(Note that Erich Fromm, noted psychologist, wrote the book, You Shall Be As Gods, to downplay the validity and meaning of sin, and claimed that if we get rid of that notion we will be free to be our own gods, as it were, quoting Satan from Genesis 3:5.

God reveals His Son in us (cf. Gal. 1:16), and through us as ambassadors of reconciliation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:20), and we are thus able to share in His divine nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4), but upon becoming sons of God, we do not become gods in the process! We are only "gods" in the sense that we rule over nature and are in the image of God.   We represent God to the lost:  "And whatever you do or say, do I as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father"  (Col. 3:17, NLT).

These are the famous words and rationale of Satan to Eve (cf. Gen. 3:5), that her eyes would be opened, knowing good and evil; this would make her as one of the gods (or like God).  We are not ever meant to be gods as the Mormons believe in their dogmatic theological axiom:  "As man is, God once was, and as God is, man may become."  This is the lie that has been perpetrated upon mankind since the beginning.  God isn't looking for men who want to be gods, but who desire godliness (cf. 2 Pet. 1:6-7) and to share in His divine nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4).  Jesus quoted from Psalm 82:6 (NASB):  "I said, 'You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High.'"  He did this to show their unreasonableness in begrudging Him to assume the title "Son of God."

He did this to make them realize that it wasn't farfetched that He claimed to be the Son of God, which was clarified in Psalm 2 as follows:  "... He said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You" (cf. Psalm 2:7).  We are born from above or again from God and inherit the right to be called the children of God according to John 1:12.  We are truly "children of God" by adoption and can claim as our privilege of God as our Father, but Jesus enjoys a unique Sonship that we don't, which is because of His deity.  It would be hard to believe that man can become God, but our gospel tells us that God became man, this is easier to believe.

Our privilege entitles us to unique authority in prayer as we approach the throne of grace with confidence and boldness (cf. Heb. 4:16) and represent Christ in the world as His emissaries and missionaries.  The problem with sinners is that they won't give up their authority over their lives (or others') to God in lordship.  We have to stop being our own gods and controlling our own destiny and start trusting in God's providence to make it happen for us.  It is never our prerogative to play God in someone's life or to lord it over God's sheep--we all answer to the same Chief Shepherd.  As Christians, we do have spiritual authority from God to be used in our gifts in their rightful domain, but this doesn't come with the right to lord it over others; we are to commend them to the Lord's care.

Though man may see himself as a god, he shall die like a man and be humbled in Psalm 82:7 (NASB):  "Nevertheless you will die like men And fall like any one of the princes."  The glory of Christ is that His deity stood out the most at his death and He didn't die like a mere man.   Great men of the past (in the world's eyes, that is) have often fancied themselves gods (just look at Augustus Caesar and his successors).  Jesus wasn't deified by men but claimed this authority and there was no discrepancy between His behavior, works, words, and His claims, which were verified by multiple witnesses.

If Jesus were not God, and this was His claim, He was the most deceived (and biggest deceiver) of men ever to walk this earth.  But He was no impostor and didn't beat around the bush with His claims.  The Pharisees knew who He was claiming to be, even though the disciples didn't figure it out till after the fact of the resurrection.  We have to commit ourselves to monotheism, and flee the sin of polytheism, which the Mormons have resorted to, and humble ourselves in the sight of God, that He may exalt us--for the way up is down in God's economy, just as John the Baptist said:  "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30, NASB).  Note that John (John 3:27, NASB) said, "... A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven."

Jesus never exalted Himself, but depended upon God the Father to give Him back the glory He gave up by becoming man for our sake.  Jesus via Scripture said in Isaiah 42:8 (NASB):  I am the LORD, that is MY name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images."  The ironic thing about John the Baptist's witness is that they thought he was the coming one and he had to bow to Jesus and His glory at His baptism or inauguration.

Now we are the icons of Christ, bearing His image to the world at large and the only Christ some will see is the one in us.  God the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work is to perfect us into that image and to make us useful for His work among the lost.  Paul summed it up well:  "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (cf. Col. 1:27).   That is, that others may see Jesus shining through you is the highest of compliments.  Now, the only authority we have is as servants of the Lord and to do His will, not to glorify ourselves or for financial gain--that is, we don't cash in on spiritual gifts, but their fruits are free and available to the body (note that I'm not referring to those supported by the church in ministry, etc.).

In summation, we must all come to the realization that there is a higher power we are accountable to besides the so-called "God-within" as New Agers will have you think, and this recognition of authority is what heals us in the final analysis, because we are not sovereign over ourselves but God is in control as Lord of all, whether we acknowledge it or not (we may find ourselves fighting God!).

This is really either the first step to recovery or the step toward a chaotic, self-defeating life.  We cannot control our own destiny but are subject to God's sovereignty, which is none the less limited because of our freedom.  We must all come to the epiphany that God is real and we are His servants, not independent gods--there is no middle ground.  Our glory is not that we are gods, but that we know God and have fellowship with Him!  Peter adds (again cf. 2 Pet. 1:6) that we should add "godliness" to our faith (not god-ness!).   Soli  Deo Gloria!

Our Birthright

"Sin wants to destroy you, but don't let it.." (cf. Gen. 4:7). 
"... Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it"  (Gen. 4:7, ESV).

Ever since Adam, we have inherited the old man himself, known as the old sin nature.  It is a virus, and if it were yellow, we'd be all yellow!  Someone said that sin is man's declaration of independence from God; true, we try to be good without God in the picture and in our belief system.  When we fail to account for God in our reckoning we become corrupt and there is no limit to how corrupt; for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" says Jeremiah 17:9.  It doesn't matter how bad we are but how bad off we are since all have sinned and it doesn't matter whether you drowned in six feet or six hundred feet of water, you're dead in sin!  God simply doesn't grade on a curve, though we may seem like saints compared to the likes of Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler.  A scientist extraordinaire, Albert Einstein, who instigated the Manhattan Project, said that it is "easier to denature plutonium than the evil nature of man!"

It is said that nature forms us, sin deforms us, schools inform us, prisons reform us, but only Christ can transform us--that's the wonder of the gospel message, in changing lives.  We all share solidarity in Adam and must be set free from the power of sin by the cross of Christ.  In salvation we are free from the power of sin by the living Christ, the penalty of sin by the crucified Christ, and the presence of sin by the coming Christ, it is said.  We get a new birthright in Christ as members of the family of God in salvation.  We are not as bad as we possibly can be or utterly depraved as unbelievers, but as bad off or totally depraved, meaning every part of our nature--our will, intellect, and emotions or heart--are affected by this sin virus.  We have no power over sin, except through the Holy Spirit.

What is sin? When we fail to do what is required and leave God's will undone, and do what is forbidden!  When we miss achieving the standards of God's law and fall short we sin--sin is universal--as they say, "Nobody's perfect!" or "To err is human!"   Sin is defined as a want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.  It is further added that it is any thought, word, action, deed, or omission contrary to God's nature and incompatible with it.

Sin is lawlessness, it's faithlessness, it's trespassing, and we must call a spade a spade;  if we call it by any other name we make it more dangerous, such as labeling poison as "Essence of Peppermint!"  Paul lumps all men to together in that they are all in the same boat, as it were, and have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God (cf. Rom. 3:23).  It is because of sin that we deserve to die and the death principle is already a work in us.

It is important to understand that we are still sinners as believers per Gal. 2:17 and we are not basically good, but we are evil in our natures through and through with no vestige of good remaining from the fall.  It is assumed people are inherently good, but we are all flawed and have feet of clay.  There is no sliding scale and we are all in the same boat of condemnation, in that we are at the mercy of God and there is no hope but by His grace.  It is important to note that sin is only possible if there is a God because it is defined in terms of God:  as Albert Camus said, "The absurd is sin without God."

It is ironic that the more lively sensed of sin, the less sin, and the closer you approach God, the more aware of it you become!   C. S. Lewis observed:  You must see how bad you are to be good, and you don't know how bad you are till you've tried to be good!  It's like quitting cigs, you don't know how addicted you are till you try to quit!  The evil of sin is that it enslaves and estranges for a double whammy!  In conclusion, we must realize that we are not sinners because we sin; no we sin because we are sinners [it's our inherent nature to sin], as theologians like to say.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Our Dark Side

Mark Twain is quoted by Swindoll as saying that we are all like a moon that has a dark side no one sees. This is true. We all have "feet of clay" (having weaknesses not readily apparent), and are vulnerable to sin because of our very nature. We cannot clean up our act before we can come to Jesus; we must come as we are, but we cannot stay that way. We must see how bad we are before we can become good. It's not how bad we are, but how bad off we are. It is like the distance of a deaf man to a symphony or a blind man to the Mona Lisa. We cannot bridge the gap. Jesus sees through the veneer and we cannot fool him.

Humanism means man is the measure of all things; basically, down with God and up with man and think man is basically good, but we an inherently bad. You must realize that we are not sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinners. It is our constituted nature to sin. We can deal with sins in the plural, but our problem is sin in the singular--our old sin nature inherited from Adam. This is God's estimation of man, not man's estimation of man.

The totality of our nature is permeated with sin and our image of God is marred and defaced morally. "No one knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good," says C. S. Lewis. The paradox is that we must see our bankruptcy--the truly bad person thinks he is alright! We must realize how bad we are before we can be good!  The way up, by paradox, is down.

We are sinful in toto and in solidarity with Adam completely. Someone has said, "We cannot escape our birthright." We cannot ingratiate ourselves with God, because we "have feet of clay." That means we have hidden vulnerabilities. We are permeated with sin through and through--there is no vestige of righteousness.

R. C. Sproul writes of a man who never lost his faith in the basic goodness of man despite being held captive in Iraq--this is sheer ignorance! Compared to Saddam Hussein the run-of-the-mill sinner looks like a saint; however, he is just as bad off from God's viewpoint and they both must come to Jesus the same way in childlike repentance and faith.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Total Depravity

We are totally depraved, not utterly depraved--man is wicked but not as wicked as he possibly can be.. We are as bad off as we can be, but not as bad as we can be. God restrains has put limits on our iniquity and Ps. 76:10 says that God uses the wrath of man to praise Him. Man is non posse non peccare, which means he can only do evil. He has lost all ability to do good in God's sight because his motives are wrong and every part of his nature is infected with the sin virus.

Compared to Saddam Hussein the "run-of-the-mill sinner" looks like a saint, said one misguided soul according to R. C. Sproul. Man's will, emotions, and intellect are wrong. "All our righteousness is as filthy rags." "For those who are in the flesh cannot please God." (Cf. Rom. 8:7) We cannot reform ourselves or change by a free act of the will ("Henceforth, I will do only good"), as Jeremiah said, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Then neither can you do good who are accustomed to evil." "The whole heard is sick, and the whole heart faint" (cf. Isaiah 1:5).

We are volitionally defiant (we are voluntary slaves to evil) and cannot  will to do good apart from the grace of God." Every intent of the heart of man is only evil continually," says Gen. 6:5. All of our faculties are pregnant with sin, and you cannot be just a little pregnant; you either are or you aren't. Sin has affected our whole being, and there is no "island of righteousness" left. We are permeated with the sin virus.   Soli Deo Gloria!