The knowledge of good and evil?

What is the knowledge of good and evil? It is knowing... 

-> what choices lead to ¹life 

and 

-> what choices lead to ²death 

³Without God we do not (and can not) know with absolute certainty - especially in the more critical decisions - which is which (we are finite), we only think we know.  

Decisions we believe lead to life often lead to harm and destruction. And decisions that result in pain aren't always bad but can ultimately lead to life (e.g. "no pain, no gain"). Knowledge of good and evil is not as obvious or black and white as we might think. 

The serpents promise to Eve was once you eat of the tree you would have ⁵the knowledge of good and evil i.e. you don't need God for this. The tree (creation) will give you this without depending on God. 

This was a lie. Only God alone is all-knowing and all-wise. Only He knows what is best not us. 

We must look to Him to get "it" right. We bristle at this. But this reveals the depth of our rebellion to and distrust of God if we are honest. 

Our original parents abandoned the reality of their dependence on God and sought to be their own god. All of us have continued on the same path since. The result was the pain and suffering we see today and have throughout human history. 

It should be very clear that humanity is not capable of being their own god and making the best choices on their own. Thinking they could know good and evil without God didn't work out as well as the serpent suggested. But instead, as God warned i.e. it lead to death. 

We think we can know which choices bring ¹life or death without depending on God's input, when the reality is our independent choices can, and often do, lead to death, the exact opposite of life. 

We think we are gaining life through our independent pursuits - pursuits of created things or persons over our pursuit of God (who made all things) - when we are actually choosing the opposite i.e. that which ultimately results in our harm, destruction and death. 

While created things are good, not evil and necessary and worth pursuing, they are simply not the Creator. They will never fulfill the expectations we put on them because they (we) were not designed to. Only the Creator can meet our deepest and greatest needs and longings, not creation. 

Creation is only a means to life not the source. God is the Source of life, love, and all created things.

What about the tree of life? 

The reason Adam and Eve were banned from access to the tree of life is by having access in their state of rebellious distrust it would allow them to continue on with the lie that they could find life on their own in and through creation (i.e. the fruit from the tree of life) and not in or through God the only wise Creator. Believing they could, was the result of them already buying into the lie that they could sustain life outside of or apart from God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

In other words to continue living without ever dying, we would only need to eat from the tree of life, thinking it was the source of life, instead of God - who alone is true and lasting life. Trees are great but they are still only trees. 

Having access to the tree of life would allow them to continue on in the lie that created things are the ⁵source of life. This would allow us to continue our life independent of God; or so we think. It would ultimately result in harm, destruction, and death, not true life, because only God is our source, not trees (i.e. not created things).

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¹True and lasting life as we were designed to experience it is not short-term life. True life is eternal and infinite vs temporary and limited. As bearers of God's image we must have infinite life to flourish and be all we are designed to be, not the fleeting life we gain in and through creation. 

²Death comes by the absence of God and anything that separates us from Him and His presence. This isn't just physical death but spiritual death which is the absence of God's presence. 

³Before Adam and Eve ate, they didn't need to know, they only needed to trust that God knew and that should have been enough. To this day we rebel against this notion that God knows better than us. 

Knowing good and evil is good not bad. It is a quality that God himself possesses. So it can't be bad. The problem is it is not a quality we can obtain on our own, apart from God.

Knowing good and evil or trying to determine it on our own instead of seeking God to reveal to us what is best comes up short and ultimately leads to death, as God warned.

So why shouldn't we also have this knowledge? We can. 

Thinking we could determine good and evil without God's aid or direction is our problem. Not having knowledge of it. 

Why? 

Only God is all knowing and infinite. We are not. 

If Adam and Eve had fully trusted God and obeyed by not eating of the forbidden tree would have been the first step in knowing right from wrong but under God's direction not independent of God. Trusting God would have lead them ⁴to a true understanding of good and evil. God alone fully understands good and evil and we must always depend on Him to know what is best.

⁵The knowledge of good and evil indicates knowledge of good and evil is not bad in itself. However having true knowledge is only possible with God not us. In order to have this knowledge requires dependence on God for He alone has it perfectly.

Which is it... sinners or like God?!

God's love for ⁴us is without conditions. FULL STOP! i.e. to be fully accepted and embraced by God requires nothing from us. God's love for us is based on someone else meeting the requirements, ¹not us.  Accepting his offer that Jesus met what God requires is the only thing required of us. 

However, that doesn't mean there is not a good reason for His infinite love for us. There is a major reason. He values and therefore loves us because we are like him - in His image. 

This has nothing to do with what we do but with who we are. Who God made us to be, not our trying to make ourselves more acceptable and loveable to Him or others.

This is why He loved us before we lifted one finger for Him. In fact even while we were still in our state of rebellious distrust of Him.

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us..." - Romans 5:8

"...But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—..." -  Ephesians 2:4-5 

Have you ever scratched your head wondering why he would value and love us while we were still in a state of rebellious distrust (i.e. "sin")? It is because our rebellion did not cancel out or erase our being like God, it only marred it - though severely. 

This resulted in our spiritual sight and sense going completely dormant (until His Spirit opens our eyes). We are now "unplugged" from God, broken, and blind to seeing His infinite worth, beauty, and love. As a result, we ascribe the worst possible intent by God on why we struggle or experience loss and pain. The Bible describes this as being spiritually blind and dead to God. 

But our capacity for love, light, and life from God didn't go away and is fully intact - we are still like God - even when we don't trust Him i.e. we still long to love and be loved. We are hard-wired for love if you will, because God is love and we are like Him, created to be in a community of love with Him. 

God values and loves our being like Him because we still have the capacity to fully partake of the community of love that God is as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. 

This capacity for infinite love never went away; it only ceased to function properly. In our broken and spirituality-blind condition, we now long for the wrong things - instead of the only true thing that can fill our longing for love - because we are blind to the true Source of love and life - i.e. our Creator.

A recap and summary 

Our being in God's image is vital to how God sees us and who we are. This means there is good reason for Him to love us i.e. because of who we are, not what we do. 

We are not just rebellious - aka "dirty rotten sinners." This is only half the story - and the far lesser half - once we accept his offer. The more important half is we are still also like God with the infinite capacity to fully engage, delight in, and commune with the infinite and experience His infinite love and joy!!!

Being like God has nothing to do with what we do (our good deeds) for others (God and other bearers of His image) - as far as being in good standing with Him - but has to do with something about us - i.e. who we are, not what we do. 

God's love has nothing to do with something that comes from us or is offered by us - i.e. something we do in an attempt to earn His love or appease His disapproval. 

Our only requirement is to recognize that Christ did everything necessary to fully restore us to His Father and accept this as a free gift (the essence of grace). 

Do you receive this? If you only know this in your head but haven't fully believed it, you only need to recognize He did everything necessary to restore you so He can pour out His love on you. A love He already has for you. Because nothing you can do will restore you to God...nothing - not your abilities or deeds!!! 

Accept His offer of complete restoration. If you are sincere in accepting and receiving His offer of perfect love, He will immediately and perfectly restore you legally now and ²completely upon His return.

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price (you can't buy it or earn His acceptance of you)." - Revelation 22:17 

For God to have a relationship with us in the same way the Father and the Son have with each other, we had to be like him in one essential way i.e. we had to be able to receive and return love to God like God does between and among the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit - i.e. God IS love. Love is the central and essential core of who God is!!! We are like Him i.e. we are hard wired for this same love. 

But love for God first, not just between each other. Our love for others must flow out of our love for God. This is why the greatest commandment is to love God first, then our neighbors. 

Does God need anything from us? No! He has Himself.

But when we say he loves us without conditions, that is not to say he doesn't have longings and desires for us and from us. He yearns to commune with us. Why? Because we are like God and God is love. 

He is the source of love, life, and all things and knows our greatest meaning, purpose, and joy is found only in Him!! His calling us to love Him above everything else is because He is our best and desires our best i.e. God is love.

James 4:5 says:

"Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us' ”?

Nevertheless, His love for us is without conditions i.e. no deeds are required from us in order for His love to be set on us.

This is possible only because Christ fulfilled all the conditions ³necessary for him to love us freely and fully. Even to the point that the Father loves us in the very same way He loves His only eternally begotten Son. Jn 17:23.

"I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

So does our love and pursuit of God matter since it's not required?

While there should never be ⁴expectations or conditions put on us for the gifts freely given to ⁵us or on others for the gifts we gladly give them, it is legitimate to enjoy and eagerly anticipate the appreciation from others for those gifts.

When gratitude is shown for the gifts we graciously receive, it delights the giver because they know their gift (and love) is not just accepted but also enjoyed and appreciated.

This reminds us of the 10 lepers that Christ healed and only one returned and showed gratitude. As a result, Christ engaged him further because he demonstrated by returning to Christ that he appreciated what Christ did. Lk 17:12-19.

To hope for and enjoy someone else's appreciation for what we give them is different than ⁵demanding their gratitude.

This also happens to be how God loves us and enjoys a relationship with us. God doesn't ⁶demand our obedience in exchange for His love. He delights in it. We are this way because God is this way. We are in his image.

In order for him to have this kind of love relationship with us we had to be like him as much possible without actually being him.

For a further discussion on why God loves rebels but not rebellion click here 

Are we rebels against God? Click here 

For a further discussion on the solution to our rebellion click here. 

 For a further discussion on why God delights in our love click here.

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¹Who met them? Christ!!! For only He could, not us!

²The claims of Christ and His return!! and Knowing God but not fully yet.

³this is necessary because we fail to. No one fulfills the greatest commandment to love God with everything we are and have. Do you? I certainly don't!

⁴Expectations and conditions come from those who need love. God wants our love but doesn't need it. He is love as a community of love among the Father, Son, and Spirit. And when we are filled with His love we are the same way i.e. we don't need the love of others because we already have the perfect love of God.

⁵Who is "us." Is it humanity in general or us who have trusted Christ. It is both. God values all his image bearers by virtue of them being like him. But only those who accept his offer of restoration actually participate in and experience that love as we are designed to.

⁶We demand things from others only because we believe must have them in order to be loved. God doesn't because He is already a community of love between the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. He doesn't need us in order to be complete and therefore does not need to demand our obedience. 

However because He is love he delights in our entering into and participating in his love. He seeks for - "requires" - us to love him because he knows that is where we are most complete and find greatest joy.