Profound Discovery

If you want to understand why a thing was made, it is important to study how it was made. A watch is built with a second, minute, and hour hand to keep track of time. A piano is built with keys, strings, hammers, and a soundboard to make music. You can usually see the purpose of an object by the aspects of its design. So how and why were we made? Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:26-28 In short, God made man in his image and likeness, capable of exerting God-like dominion on the earth. So before we move on to purpose, let's analyze these qualities. IMAGE: To call ourselves sinners and then claim to bear the image of God seems like a heretical contradiction. "But Frank," says the concerned reader, "it's right there in black and white. We are in created in God's image." When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Genesis 5:3 The first man (Adam) is from the earth, earthy; the second man (Christ) is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. I Corinthians 15:47-49 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. II Corinthians 3:18 Scripture seems to say that image was lost at the Fall, and is to be rediscovered in Christ. DOMINION: Can you "rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky" as Genesis suggests? If you want to call a birdcage and a fishbowl your own personal kingdom, then I guess you can claim dominion. But caging something is not the same as ruling over it. Have you ever seen a man that fits this description? Do we need to redefine the words "image" and "dominion" in order to make Genesis fit the contradictory evidence all around us? Has a man ever claimed to look just like God? Has a man ever showed such dominion on the earth so as to command fish into fishing nets? Have you ever considered that Jesus was not here to act as God, but as MAN? A true man. And, by acting as man, he showed us God.

Why are we here?

Why would God bother making something that he knew would be rebellious, depraved, and ultimately cost him a trip to the cross? Sounds like a bigger hassle than David Hasselhoff, and it doesn't get much bigger than that! So why make man at all? Maybe he was just bored with "formless and void." Maybe God had too much headache medication and wanted a reason to use it. Maybe he wanted to create a bunch of finite creatures and watch what happened when he put billions of seductive, powerful, self-seeking angels on earth with them. Then, after the humans mess everything up, he could govern them with a bunch of impossible laws and watch them squirm. Wow, Frank is in top form today! Go Frank! But wait . . . is that a thunder cloud? This is not a new question. Sincere believers ask "why" as much as non-believers. I have heard many different answers: God was lonely (despite all the angels and cherubim and so on). It pleased him to do so (he said "it was good"). We will never understand with our puny brains. He needed an outlet for his mercy and wrath. In 1647, the Reformers, while working to create a catechism for purity and unity of doctrine, made this their number one question. Q: What is the Chief End of Man? A: To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Do you agree? Or is there a better answer?

Perfect?

I saw this bumper sticker last week: Next time you think you're perfect, try walking on water! First of all: Oooooooooooooooooooooh. Nailed me! Second of all: WHAT? What does "perfect" even mean? In Christian circles we talk about "perfect" quite a bit. We say that, if Adam and Eve didn't eat that darn apple, we would still be perfect. But here's a question, if Adam and Eve were so perfect, why did they eat the darn apple? In Matthew 5:48, Jesus challenges the Jews to "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." How could Jesus ask for us to be perfect? Didn't he know that "nobody's perfect"? Didn't He know that we, having been born in sin, can never be perfect. At least in this life. Only pre-fall Adam and Eve, and God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are perfect. The rest of us have to deal with things like boogers, poop, sinking in water, and saying "um" all the time. It's part of the curse. A Bible Gateway search of the word "perfect" in the NASV reveals enough instances and context to provide a reasonable definition. It basically means complete, whole, mature, lacking nothing and unblemished. That would make sense with Matthew 5:48 which is just another way of confirming "Be holy, for I am holy," from Leviticus 11:44. Whole. Holy. Perfect. So perfection does not having anything to do with special powers. It doesn't have anything to do with boogers, or stuttering, or tripping. I'm sure Jesus sneezed once or twice. It has everything to do with wholeness, and it is relative to the creature or object being described. Things are imperfect when they are missing something. A functional pen with no pen cap is imperfect, but when the cap is returned, it is perfect again. Complete. God can be nothing but perfect. He doesn't change. His people should function as they were created to function. But that doesn't mean that our wholeness will match his wholeness. We are two different species. So what does perfection look like for a human?

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

What could possibly be wrong with the knowledge of good and evil?

If I was writing the Genesis account, I would have called the forbidden tree something like, The Tree of Darkness, or The Tree of Unspeakable Evil, a name that would have prompted George Lucas to send Indiana Jones out to find it. Instead, the tree that brings death is a tree that seems harmless, a tree that offers moral knowledge.

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I have heard a few theories as to why this tree was harmful, most of them in a youth group setting. One explanation is that Adam and Eve (though made in the image of God) only had the knowledge of good, therefore, without the knowledge of evil, their ignorance preserved them from sin. Maybe the person that invented this theory should eat from the Tree of Logic. What does the knowledge of evil even mean? Would Eve get a mental image of Adam killing a beaver, or of her telling Adam that she walked around the river when, in fact, she walked right through it? GASP! She lied! Evil!

Knowledge of something does not introduce it into the world. Eve already had orders not to eat from the tree. That was knowledge enough. Good=Avoidance. Evil=Eating.

Another theory is that it was not the tree itself that was the problem, but the entire issue was about obedience. God might as well have said, "Don't touch that rock," or "Don't take one step forward and three steps back." But no, he said don't eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I can sympathize with the obedience argument, but one question continues to nag at me: Why name the two trees if they are insignificant? Apparently the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is at odds with the Tree of Life. But how can that be?

"Okay smarty," says a frustrated blog reader, "what is your theory?"

"CHILL," says the blog writer, "I'm getting to it. GOSH!"

Another way to say "knowledge of good and evil" is Law. The Law is merely a list of rules. Do them, and you are doing good. Break them, and you have sinned--evil. The Tree of Life as described in Revelation is something that would bear fruit that was to be eaten by the saints, and bear leaves for the healing of the nations. Trees are often compared to men in scripture. What "living" man is to be eaten, and provides "healing" for the nations? Clearly this tree is in reference to Christ, the spiritual man, who gives the Spirit of Life to men.

But where do we see the Law and the Spirit at odds?

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. Romans 7:5-7 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Romans 8:2-5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. II Cor 3:5-6 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Galatians 5:18

The verbiage is so reminiscent of Genesis. Eat from the Tree of "Law" and you will die. Eat from the Tree of Life and you will live forever (Eternal Life). Clearly these verses of Paul are pertinent to the question: What is wrong with the knowledge of good and evil?

What is your answer?