“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
Genesis 2:15-16
Last time, we introduced our exploration of an answer to “What are we supposed to do with this knowledge?” The question is simple yet profound. How do we process the information and data bombarding us daily as it relates to the atrocious attempted assassination of a former president and presidential candidate?
We began answering that question by stating that God is God; He created, sustains, and has a purpose for His creation to glorify Him. Moreover, I also stated that because God created and allowed mankind to know that he knows God, He has given mankind the greatest and most comprehensive access to experiencing, expressing, and enjoying the fullness of love, goodness, and delight. It follows that there is a direct relationship between mankind’s delight and his glorifying God. In other words, the more mankind glorifies God in thought, word, and action, the more love, goodness, and delight he will encounter. The opposite is also true.
Thus, isn’t it interesting that the accuser, Satan, knowing the nature and goodness of God, would do all he can to keep mankind from experiencing God’s fullest measure of delight as they glorify Him? Indeed, it was Satan, the author of evil, who spawned the very lie that led to a deviation from true knowledge to self-generated knowledge. He is the bent one, as C.S. Lewis dubbed the Oyarsa of Thulcandra in Out of the Silent Planet. The Satan.
However, before he has his way with God’s creation, we return to examining how God unfolds His creative acts by looking at the Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Re-Creation of God’s world and the humans, animals, and things that occupy it for a time in God’s Word. We will see how knowledge—that is, true knowledge—guides us to God’s glory and answers the question, “What are we supposed to do with this knowledge?”
Creation
- Genesis 1 & 2
- God created all things from nothing. God’s act of creation is the most comprehensive measure of benevolence, love, and kindness.
- Mankind was made in God’s image, expressed by reasoning capacities, relationality, functional abilities, and purposeful aims. These four aspects of mankind in God’s image represent a holistic view of human personhood. Man is not just a thinking being or just a relational being. Male and female are God-given biological distinguishing marks of humanity, but they are not the total of their expression of the image of God. Thus, mankind made in God’s image expresses God holistically.
- Man rightly had knowledge of himself, his environment, others, things, and his God. He was operating with the fullest measure of true knowledge.
- In the original created environment, God fellowshipped with His created humans, implying that knowledge was directly accessible to the first man and woman. They did not need a book to read because they had their Creator to guide and teach them. He was their Creator, Sustainer, and Teacher.
- Nevertheless, this fellowship was upheld by trust. God’s creation must trust Him.
- Thus, one aspect of sustaining fellowship with God was not being satisfied by the fruit of a certain tree: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their refusal to eat from this tree would confirm their fidelity to their Creator. He had supplied all they needed. He had given them a purpose to populate, subdue, and cultivate the earth, ever-expanding His image upon His creation.
- God was Adam and Eve’s God, and they were resourced to remain forever with Him in fellowship.
- But something happened.
Fall
- Genesis 3:1-19
- It was the bent one, Satan, who tempted Eve beyond rescue.
- She saw that the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and able to make one wise. In her desire for knowledge apart from God, she set forth (along with Adam) the essence of self-creation. They were untethered from God and became gods unto themselves.
- The fall represents the reality of choosing fellowship with self over fellowship with God. It’s the ultimate act of self-love and the ultimate act of God-hatred.
- Here, too, all mankind was subject to sin in all its deviant forms.
- Because Adam and Eve are the first of God’s created humans, they stand as representatives of all humans. Their success would be our success, and their failure our failure. Thus, it was their sinful act that planted the seed of sin in every earth-born human being and all of God’s creation that has hitherto born poison, malice, and all sorts of wickedness and deplorable conditions.
- Consequently, mankind’s reasoning, relationships, functioning, and purposes are altered. Now, their thoughts are suspect, their relationships exploitative, their skill application selfish, and their purpose horizontal.
- Glory is now twisted and bent toward themselves. Indeed, with a cloudy vision, mankind eats himself alive. To survive, his inclination is to trust himself. He operates out of scarcity, menace, tribalism, and territorialism.
- Instead of pleasure, it’s pain. Instead of rest, it’s ridicule. Instead of trust, it’s take. Instead of faith, it’s fear. And on and on.
- Furthermore, creation also eats mankind alive. Indeed, the tooth and the claw grew long and are bloodied by the flesh they consume. The mountains destroy all in their path as they explode far and wide with sulphuric ash. The seas roar in tempestuous fervor, causing all top-born vessels to buckle under its might. The rivers rage beyond their banks, bringing down trees and all living things in their path. Famine. Deprivation. Infestation. All these words and more comprise the existence of humanity apart from God. The grass is thorn-riddled and barren, the insect sting prevalent and deadly, and the venom tranquilizes to allow for shock and consumption to occur.
- It’s a barren world, a world of heartache and despair, ripe for comparison and envy, hatred and murder, guilt and shame.
- It’s a world ripe for vengeance and a quest for power. It is a world pursuing pleasure and position–where might makes right. When God is removed from mankind, mankind is removed from knowledge. Without knowledge, man is vapid. He is like air. He is weightless. Left unto himself, he is suspended in the abstraction of his imagination and myopic endeavors, employing himself in vain ventures and meaningless activities.
- This is defined ultimately by the fact that he dies. Mankind now tastes the taste of death. Prior to their self-love, they would have endured forever. Now, they will return to the dust that bore them. Death will not be easy. Instead, it will be an unnatural (temporary) severe breaking of mankind’s flesh with his soul. Now, there is an intermediate state where mankind will be suspended. He must now await a day of judgment. He is airless. He melts into the creation and is forgotten. Mankind, the image of God, has become mankind, the image of man. What a hideous sight indeed.
- No longer does mankind experience the weight of God’s glory in all its fullest delightful measure. The weight of glory is removed as man makes a world for himself. The fellowship is tainted. It’s a bleak environment full of nothingness.
- The only hope is God’s redemption.
In part 3, we’ll examine Redemption and Re-Creation…
— July 15, 2024