Knowing Good and Evil (Genesis Study #2)
Genesis 3:2-5 “The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Adam and Eve (before the fall) did not know the difference between good and evil. Although they were created in Gods image (Gen 1:26) they were not created “like God.” After Adam and Eve gave into temptation, (for the very first time in history) it says in verse 7, “the eyes of both of them were opened.”
That would imply that after they committed sin for the first time, Adam and Eve had “opened eyes” and understood the difference between good and evil. Next, God lays out a punishment to the serpent, the woman and then the man (Gen 3:14-19).
The part that I’m currently struggling with is what God says directly after the punishment to close the chapter.
Gen 3:22 “And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
Us? Who is us? God says that now man has become like “us(?)” because he now knows the difference between good and evil. I take “us” as those in the heavenly realm. People have different beliefs on what “us” really means, however that isn’t even my question My question is this:
Where did evil come from? If Lucifer was the worship leader in heaven (Ezekiel 28:12-15)(Isaiah 12) and then he “sinned” and was kicked out of heaven that means he knew the difference between good and evil way before man ever did. That means that Satan, God, Jesus, maybe even Angels (Going along with the “us” meaning the heavenly realm) all knew the difference between good and evil and we (God’s creations, humans) figured it out when Adam and Eve did. With that being said, that means sin didn’t start when Adam and Eve ate from the apple. Sin, was created way before creation of man and the earth. When they bit that apple was the first time it entered into the earth and in the nature of man. The “Fall of man” wasn’t the beginning of evil, it was the beginning of sin ON earth.
First study and first hard question. Where did sin, evil, everything opposite of God begin? If Satan “sinned” while he was in heaven he couldn’t have been the one to start evil. That implies there already was evil and he just became the front man for it. Similar to a company with no logo for people to identify it by. Lucifer became Satan and became the logo for evil. But, where did evil start? Why was the only tree God instructed them not to eat from called, “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”What do you think?
Whoa! Deep. I think that will be a question you’ll have to ask God. But here’s my two cents.
It seems that no matter where you look in creation, there is something, and then it’s opposite. Ever notice that? Life-Death; Cold-Hot; Light-Dark; Push-Pull; etc, etc. I’m not sure if God actually specifically designed both the something and it’s opposite, or if the opposite was created when the something was. For example, darkness really isn’t anything (it’s not a something), it’s actually a lack of something (light). Cold isn’t something, it’s a lack of Heat. But Heat is something, because it requires energy to exist. Anyway, just a thought that Good is something and sin is a lack of something. Lucifer really had a lack of respect, reverence, awe, fear and that is where sin came from. I don’t know where that would all fit or how it would work out after a longer period of thought processing. Just a quick thought of the top of my mind.
How about this, Adam and Eve HAD to know something about right and wrong. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have known it was ‘wrong’ to eat of the tree. Or ‘wrong’ to disobey God. How would they have known that the snake was lying to them if they didn’t know about lying? Why wouldn’t they trust the snake if they didn’t know what not trusting was? Hmmmm, now you’ve stirred up some questions for me.
Maybe ‘knowledge’ doesn’t mean knowing like a head knowledge, but means know by experiencing. You can “know” something is hot but you really don’t “know” what hot is until you really experience hot (ie you are burned).
Maybe they knew something about what was right and wrong, good and evil, but because of their environment they weren’t experiencing good and evil. Like babies. Ugh! It’s really hard to articulate, but I’m sure you’ll take it and and figure it out.
Very interesting, I love your blogs, very thought provoking.
August 6, 2010 at 7:04 pm