Knowing good and evil
Here is an insight to remember when explaining the plan of God to anyone.
God doesn't want robots. He wants His created beings to love Him, but He doesn't want it to be mere robotic love created in His beings by mere fiat. He wants it to be real.
Yet, many will object, if we can't even turn to God without Him drawing us, and we can't begin to love God without Him giving us the Spirit and a new heart, how is *that* real?
The difference is this: we have known good and evil.
Adam in the Garden, before his fall, did not know good and evil. The good angels don't know good and evil. Fallen man knows good and evil. This is how fallen man is different in God's creation. This is what makes our love for God real even though we are totally reliant on God for our regeneration and new heart and the presence of the Holy Spirit within us and everything that follows our regeneration.
Though we are reliant on God for our election, our regeneration, our new heart, our ability to have faith in His Son, everything...what makes us different from beings with a mere robotic love for God given us by fiat is the fact that we have known good and evil.
This is why the fall was necessary in God's plan of redemption.
6 Comments:
Surely it was the creation of a majestical Man being given dominion over the created earth that caused the Satanic hubris. And, Adam's charge in the garden was a ploy to draw out the Evil One, to expose his real intent - something he could not resist. Yet also something present within Adam - that he was created in God's image and hence has the divine within - could've resisted the evil, isn't that the tragedy? That he succumbed. There's a reason why the line of attack was through Eve. In this perspective eschatology precedes soteriology. If Adam had succeeded Man would not need redemption but I'm not sure it HAD TO BE that Adam would fall. That he did could only be considred a failure if the possibility existed that he might succeed. The plan of redemption comes afterwards. Did Man know evil? Maybe not as he does now but surely all who resisted the heavenly revolt were able to discern right from wrong. In either scenario Satan loses ...
A. W. Pink handles the question whether Adam had to fall very well in an appendix to his Sovereignty of God. I.e. he had to fall while at the same time it was a real choice.
The plan of God was made prior to creation.
The good angels didn't have to know good and evil to follow God or to stay on God's side. The Bible makes clear knowing good and evil requires a transgression of the law.
Good angels don't have original sin, for instance, nor do they actively sin. (I don't even want to talk about the fallen angels. Their lot is so dire. They don't have a Mediator, a Saviour.)
Satan's pride occured prior to the creation of Adam. What Satan desired in the garden is subservient to what God was using him for. Satan is God's monkey. Obviously Satan's attacks on Adam's line was designed to preclude the birth of the Messiah. Satan really is a bit of a mechanical force. Real, no doubt. Can truly tempt and do harm. A real spirit of evil that truly inhabits real people. But as a player in God's plan of redemption he is a bit of a mechanical force totally under the control, or contained, by God.
Don't miss my main point in this post.
The knowledge of good and evil (the result of transgressing God's command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) gives fallen man a different essence. It transforms our very soul. We now have knowledge that changes us. It is also a curse and death, but when we are born again, regenerated by the Word and the Spirit, we are born again as being who know good and evil. This is what makes us real and not mere robotic creations. We know the difference.
I know good and evil, I've acquired that knowledge and understanding. I'm more worldly in a true sense or I've acquired something that is not of this world.
Where to from here and what is my relationship with god.
>I know good and evil, I've acquired that knowledge and understanding.
The knowledge of good and evil is something you don't have to acquire because you are born with it. Original sin. It's like carnal knowledge except you don't have to do anything to get it. You're changed once you have it, but with the knowledge of good and evil the getting it was done by Adam in the Garden when he transgressed God's law. You are born with it. Then you actively sin the moment you are able.
>I'm more worldly in a true sense or I've acquired something that is not of this world.
I can't know what you are getting t here, but actually regeneration can be described this way, ironically.
>Where to from here and what is my relationship with god.
Until we are regenerated by the Word and the Spirit and we have saving faith in Jesus Christ our state with God is like the state of a condemned criminal on death row with the state.
Adam was a federal head of humanity. When he fell all who are descended from him fell. Jesus Christ is the 'second Adam' and is also a federal head of humanity. When Jesus accomplished what the first Adam failed to accomplished he opened the way for salvation for all who have faith in him. We can talk of election here, but if you have faith in Jesus you have faith.
We can't regenerate ourselves, but we can put ourselves in the environment where it potentially takes place which is the Word of God, heard or read, but basically engaged humbly. When you move close to God He says He will move close to you.
First time visitor and first time to comment as well. Read a number of your entries already.
I've a few close friends who are five point Calvinists.
May Christ bless you with His presence this day and always.
Thank you, Darlene.
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