To know Good and Evil

robbyyoung · Post by **robbyyoung** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 10:28 am

God said man has become like us, to know good and evil.

Question: Could man have known evil any other way?

Question: When Adam listened to his wife over God's command, wasn't this knowledge of evil?

Yet we read after the act, their eyes were then opened, and now they know what God knows.

Could they have known what God knew without the transgression? I don't think so, or else why would God have slain The Lamb before HE created the world?

Your thoughts.

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Robby Young
U.S. Army Retired

TheEditor · Post by **TheEditor** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:16 am

I don't view matters as you do. I don't see that tree as imparting knowledge per se; else, wouldn't God want to have His creation know the difference between good and evil? Rather, this tree became thus becuase in eating of it Adam and Eve chose for themselves what was right and wrong--took a position reserved only for God--and thus became intimately aquainted by experience what was "good and evil". As the Jerusalem Bible footnote on this passage points out (in my other post I shared this with you, but you didn't respond):

"It is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being. The first sin was an attack on God’s sovereignty, a sin of pride."

Or, as commentator Victor Hamilton puts it:

"What is forbidden to man is the power to decide for himself what is in his best interests and what is not. This is a decision God has not delegated to the earthling. This interpretation also has the benefit of according well with 3:22, “the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Man has indeed become a god whenever he makes his own self the center, the springboard, and the only frame of reference for moral guidelines. When man attempts to act autonomously he is indeed attempting to be godlike."

"The fact that man is created outside of the garden and then put into the garden serves the divine purpose of making man clearly aware at the very outset of the distinction between the garden and all the land that lay outside. . . .

Had man persisted in his freedom, the experience as such would have wrought in him a knowledge of good and evil analogous to that of God, in this sense that, without having consented to evil, an awareness of its existence and its implications would have been aroused in him. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil would have effectively done its work."

--Herbert Carl Leupold

Regards, Brenden.

dizerner · Post by **dizerner** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:26 am

[user account removed]

TheEditor · Post by **TheEditor** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:36 am

The knowledge of good and evil involved dying and tasting death

I disagree, else God would have already "died", and we know He didn't. The "knowledge" was just as I stated above--determining for onself what is right and wrong and taking that job out of the hands of the Father.

Regards, Brenden.

steve7150 · Post by **steve7150** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:59 am

wouldn't God want to have His creation know the difference between good and evil? Rather,

I think God did want this scenerio,so they could learn good and evil and ultimately be delivered.

"For the creature was made subject to vanity NOT WILLINGLY but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rom 8.20-21

robbyyoung · Post by **robbyyoung** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:27 pm

TheEditor wrote:
I disagree, else God would have already "died", and we know He didn't.

Brenden, Yeshua did already die, by decree. God's salvation plan was simply running its course. Or are you referring to something else?

God bless.

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Robby Young
U.S. Army Retired

TheEditor · Post by **TheEditor** » Tue Nov 04, 2014 8:59 pm

Hi Robby,

Sort of. I was referring to Dizerner's statement. I interpreted it to mean "experiential" death, not "declared". Therefore, how could God know good and evil if it required experiential death, as it had not actually happened yet.

Regards, Brenden.

Paidion · Post by **Paidion** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:23 am

Notice that God also planted in Eden, the Tree of Life along with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I think God wanted them eventually to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but not until they had matured. He wanted them to first mature and eat from the Tree of LIfe, so that they would qualify for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Notice that He never forbade them from eating from the Tree of Life. But the serpent induced them to do it in reverse, which resulted in BIG trouble as we all know. Adam and Eve never did eat from the Tree of Life while they were in the garden. So God placed angels at the gate to prevent them from returning and eating from it, and living forever as evil beings.

But according to Revelation, the time will come when the righteous WILL eat from the Tree of Life and live forever:

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spiritsays to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." (Rev 2:7)

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. (Rev 22:14)

steve7150 · Post by **steve7150** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 7:16 am

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spiritsays to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." (Rev 2:7)

This is a synopsis of God's entire plan of creation. God always wanted us to be overcomers therefore we needed to overcome something very difficult yet needful, aka "evil."
We mature through experience and by contrast.

The Narrow Path Ministries