Why all the fuzz over an apple, sex, and knowledge in Eden?
May 31, 2019 18:54:57 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on May 31, 2019 18:54:57 GMT -5
Why all the fuzz over an apple, sex, and knowledge in Eden?
In the Garden of Eden, why did God make such a big deal over an apple sex, and knowledge?
All that fuss over just an apple!
All that fuss over having sex!
All that fuzz over having them know things.
The answer is very simple, God did not make a big fuss over sex, an apple and acquisition of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Those ideas are merely people reading the Bible and misunderstanding it. Or maybe not reading it or studying it at all and merely repeating what they have been hearing all their lives from people who also misunderstood the Bible.
Are the misunderstandings logically justifiable? Well, not if we have read what preceded the issues that arose later as we were supposed to. If indeed we read what was written before, then we should know that God had created mankind male and female for a reason. That reason he tells us is that they should procreate and fill the Earth. In other words, that they should used the specially designed sexual organs God had provided them with by having sex within the bonds of Matrimony.
Gen 1: 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”
Mark 10:8
7‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Mark 10:8
7‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Knowing such a basic fact would prevent the person from believing or teaching the idea that God considered sex a sin.
2: The second idea is that God did not want them to learn and so told them to keep away from a fruit that would make learning or knowing things possible. The persons understanding the Bible that way imagine Adam and Eve to have been veritable morons incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.
Knowing Good and Evil a sin?
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong in humans knowing what is evil and what is good. In fact, in order to be law- abiding citizen and please God, we are told that we must learn to tell the difference between good and evil. All Israelites were required to know it via The Law of Moses.
Deuteronomy 30:19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.
Choosing life required that they would know right from wrong and choose the right path. It was definitely not evil for Israelites to know that murder, theft, bestiality, covetousness, lying, disrespect towards parents, adultery, homosexuality, spiritism, gluttony, sloth, cowardice, were wrong. It was necessary in order for society to function efficiently. In fact, societies in which many of these are rampant tend to break down into a state of lawlessness.
So when God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil, it was NOT because he wanted to keep them ignorant of both. In fact, by telling the not to eat of it, he was indeed teaching them what was good and evil.
Listening to his instructions was good. Not listening was evil.
Going against his instructions not to fill the Earth was evil while filling the Earth was good. Staying married was good.
Separation between man and wife was evil.
Naming the animals God created was good. Refraining from naming them as he was asked would have been evil.
Remaining alive was good. Being dead or non-existent as they once had been was evil. By extension depriving a fellow human of life would be evil while bringing life into the world as God instructed was good.
Not tending to the Earth and its animals properly was evil while doing so was good.
So contrary to popular opinions, Adam and Eve were not moral idiots but already knew their responsibilities toward each other towards the Earth and its creatures and towards their creator
without needing to eat from some tree sometime in the future in order to get their brains working normally. If they had been in that intellectually-flawed condition, then they would have fallen short of God's image and could not be have been pronounced either his children or as good.
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.
In short, when God spoke of a tree of Good and Evil, there was far more involved than just knowing right from wrong since knowing right from wrong isn't evil but a necessity for remaining good and behaving in a good way.
So the Tree of Life and of Knowledge symbolized two things.
One symbolized that Adam and Eve had proven obedient and deserved the right to live forever
The other symbolized a petition to determine right from wrong on their own.
That is why it was prohibited, because eating from it would be tantamount to a rebellion against God's rulership and a declaration of total independence from his will. So it wasn't just a matter of eating a fruit.
But why the big fuss over their petition via disobedience to wing it on their own?
Well, the decision had not been made on their own but was made after hear certain accusations made against God. What were they?
Accusations
a. God is selfish because he wanted to retain the determination of right and wrong only for him,self. Granting that right to others or others attaining it in some way he considers as trying to be like him and that annoys him.
b. God is a liar since he knew that Adam and Eve would not die if they ate.
c. Mankind could wing it on their own under the influence of this invisible rebel who made the accusation.
In other words, there was a challenge issued that could either be ignored or accepted. If ignored, why? Was their indeed some truth in what this rebel was saying? If not, why the evasion? So to remove all possible doubts, God accepted the challenge and permitted mankind to try things on its own with the help of their new “friend” and the past seven-thousand years of disastrous human history are the results.
Another Satanic challenge that arose in Eden.
Another issue that arose in Eden was the ability of God’s creatures to remain faithful to him under tempation. The Devil, it seems, thought that all of God’s creatures worship him for serlfish reasons and that once those selfisg reasons are remove they quickly rebell. In the case of Eve, she felt she was being denied knowledge, a selfish reason, and turned againsrt God. Adam wasn’t deceivcd but seering Eve about to be destroyed preferred to join her in death. The there were tyhe abngels that joined his rebellion who also felt deprived of something that mankind enjoyed.
Another selfish reason. So since he had succeeded in such cases, he told God that there was no man alive that would remain faithul if the selfish reasons for serving od were removed. Such and accusation was rebutted by Job and later by Jesus followed by Christians who remained faithful even unto death.
That is demonstrated in the account of Job where the Devil is shown expressing his views concerning why God's creatures choose to serve him. God is depicted as buying loyalty via material gifts with the purpose of preventing man from being morally independent.
Job 10Have You not placed a hedge on every side around him and his household and all that he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
In that way Satan sought to malign all those obedient to God [including angels] as selfish and to tag God, once more, as a dictating tyrant who wanted to keep his creatures unjustly under his foot via bribery. That's why in Revelation he is described as the accuser of our brothers who accuses them day and night before our God.
Revelation 12:10 NIV
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
Such an claim against God's right to rule the universe and the motives of why God is served, needed to be resolved, and the immediate destruction of Satan was not the answer. Instead, time was needed to allow the challenge to be refuted to the fullest extent and provide sterling examples of faithfulness under material deprivation and duress that proved Satan a liar.
To allow a rebutal that all of God's creatures would buckle under and curse Him if things went badly for them. Jesus is a ptrime examply of proving Satan a liar in that case followed by other faithful men and angels who have remained faithful despite everything leveled against them.
To permit mankind the attempt to wing it on its own under the guidance of the one who claimed God's way is wrong. To permit mankind to reach the zenith of technological sophistication and prove its point if it could.
Once those issues have been resolved to their fullest, then God would step in and restore things to their original state.
Acts 3:21
Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.
Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.
Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
So the fall wasn't just a matter of mere knowledge, eating a piece fruit or having marital sex.