As we have discussed at some length over the weeks, all who view the Bible as their “standard of faith and practice”
will never agree completely as to what the Bible says “faith and practice” should be. However, that is not only “O.K.,” it is to be expected, and even desired. As we have seen, they are not our enemies, but our brothers and sisters in the Lord!
We are all in different stages in our journey to The City With Foundations, the New Jerusalem of the book of Revelation. Some of us are relatively new believers, and others of us have been earnest believers for decades, but we are all learning to see ourselves as little children who know nothing until our Heavenly Father shows us His Truth in our hearts.
His Truth is experiential, heart knowledge (Gk., ginosko), rather than observational, learned, head knowledge (Gk. eido). This is the way of life in our ultimate destination, The City with Foundations, the New Jerusalem.
Interestingly, Adam and Eve related to God, after they were created, exclusively in this experiential way. “What did HE tell US to do?” There was really no other way for them to live—they were, of necessity, like “little children” in the Garden of Eden.
This means that they lived in complete dependence upon God. They knew nothing else but to trust Him for their provision, for direction in their daily tasks, for literally every aspect of their lives. They lived completely by faith in this mysterious One who had created them.
To question what God said—to ask Him “Why?”—never entered their minds; it was not on their radar screen. To act independently of God was an option that had never occurred to them. They were completely content to be man as God created man to be—to live by simple, dependent faith in the One who was above them and greater than they were, never questioning any of His directives, never doubting His love for them nor His ability to care for them.
They had no concept of right and wrong, of good and evil. “Right and wrong? Good and evil? What’s that?” they would have said. These are issues that concern a judge–God, the judge of all the earth. Ethics and morality, what is right and what is wrong, or, in other words, “the law,” were not in man’s realm at all!
Thus, Adam and Eve had nothing to do with “right and wrong:” they were matters that existed totally in God’s sphere. Adam and Eve knew nothing of a “law” that they “ought to, needed to, and should” obey. They knew nothing but to trust what their Creator had told them.
As a result of this simple faith, they very naturally did what God said as they continued to trust Him. Obedience to Him was neither a goal nor an objective for them at all, but a very natural, spontaneous result of their faith. They never even thought of anything but doing what God requested.
God placed them in the beautiful Garden of Eden, and gave them instructions on how to tend and care for it and for the animals that lived there with them. In the process, He gave them the freedom to eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, including the Tree of Life, a tree whose fruit represented God’s divine life—a different type of life entirely than the human life being lived by Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve needed only to eat of the fruit of that tree, the Tree of Life, and they would permanently internalize this dependent, faith-based relationship with God that they enjoyed. They would move to a permanent status as not simply innocent creatures that God had created, as they were at that time, but they would become His righteous son and daughter. After eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would carry the very life of God within them, hearing His voice “inside them” rather than as an audible voice from outside, as was the case currently. He would become their Father, their loving “Daddy,” and not just their Creator.
They would then eternally live by simple faith in that unique life of God inside them to order their existence. Eventually, they would fill the earth with righteous, human images of what God was like, as they reproduced similar men and women with the life of God Himself inside of them as well. They would “showcase” their Father to the universe as that life naturally expressed itself. They would look like God: “Let Us make man in Our image…” (Genesis 1:26a).
God’s eternal standard of right and wrong would never concern Adam and Eve or their descendants, though their lives would naturally, spontaneously and unconsciously (NSU) reflect that standard, because God’s life always does! They would live solely by faith in that life, and then as “carriers” of it, they would progressively spread that life over the earth through their progeny: “…and let them rule…over all the earth“ (Genesis 1:26b).
In order to live this life and to be a part of this “rule,” it was necessary for Adam and Eve to continue to live as God created man to live—by simply doing what He told them to do—nothing more, nothing less!
God therefore instructed them, just as He had instructed them in all their tasks of caring for the Garden, to refrain from eating of the fruit of another tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember, Adam and Eve knew nothing about “good and evil,” or “the law;” it was evil was of no concern to them—only to God.
Next week we will look at how Adam and Eve’s response to God’s instructions regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil affect us TODAY in everything we say, do, and even think, every second of our lives!
