knowledge of good and evil

Some of the following points are not explicitly stated in scripture, though I believe are cleary implied within the boundaries of scripture. Feel free to add any comments supported by scripture you feel (pro or con) and believe will add to the conversation. In doing so you may further a better understanding for all of us. Truth (vs my being right) is the goal. Now to the discussion at hand.

Possibly God's forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil didn't have to be - or wasn't intended to be - permanent. Maybe if they had continued obeying God and refrained from eating from the forbidden tree, they would have proved over time - through the regular exercise of faithful trust in God - He could entrust them with the knowledge of good and evil? Or possibly it would have happened organically and eventually became a part of their character through their exercise of ongoing trust in (obedience to) God. At a minimum we know trust is what God seeks to develop in us this side of the rebellion in the garden.

Denying ourselves something we ¹want (the forbidden tree in this case) - or are tempted to think we need - is a ²form of suffering - a kind of knowing good and evil. As Christ learned obedience through the things he suffered, so too might have Adam and Eve i.e. They would have experienced a kind of evil by denying themselves eating from the forbidden tree.

The reason they died when they ate was not that knowing good and evil is bad in itself (it is after all a character quality of God himself) but because they distrusted and disobeyed God by eating. Their problem was not knowing good and evil first hand but seeking it in the wrong way for the wrong reason i.e. Out of rebellious independence. They wrongly concluded in doing so they would be "free" to do whatever they wanted without answering to God. They decided they no longer needed God to make life work but only themselves - or so they thought.

By doing so they turned away from God and broke their connection, union, fellowship, and relationship with the One who is the source of life and love. Instead of experiencing the benefits of self-denial (i.e. exercising greater trust by experiencing good and evil first hand through the suffering of self denial) they reaped the consequences of self indulgence. No wonder things went terribly wrong from that point, eventually resulting in physical death. 

Their death wasn't an act of revenge or retribution by God but the ³natural (organic) outcome of disconnecting from the Sustainer of all things and life itself. This connection to the source of their being (God) was essential for them to continue living at all, much less optimally as God designed. Afterall it was God breathing into Adam His very life that made Adam a living ⁴soul (and like God; in His image) and no longer merely a human shaped piece of dirt. God did not turn away and cut them off. They turned away from God cutting themselves off.

Could it be that their eventually acquiring the knowledge of good and evil, if and when approved by God, was good, not bad? Does it not give us a greater appreciation for good by contrasting it with evil? Maybe God only forbid it because he wanted us to prove over time we were ready - i.e. ⁵mature enough in our trust in God to partake of that knowledge without misusing it and being drawn away from God and spiritually derailed by it i.e. not using it to establish their independence from God but rather in submission to him? The only way to do this was to continue trusting and obeying His directions not to eat until He eventually decided they were ready and mature enough to allow it. Their faithful obedience would be evidence they were ready to partake.

And is this not exactly what Christ did? When Christ came up against the decision to trust or not trust God in the face of death, he said "not ⁶my will but yours be done." 

The "2nd Adam" (Christ) succeeded where the 1st Adam failed (and we all still fail to this day). 

And the most glorious news is the 2nd Adam then assigned his success to us as if we succeeded. As a result we are now looked upon, loved, and received as perfectly obedient sons and daughters of God - when in reality we are not - thanks to Christ and his faithfulness.

Now that we are fully freed from condemnation and rejection for our rebellious unbelief (once we place our full trust in Christ's gracious offer), we can resume and perfect the process of trusting and obeying God as he originally designed us to. Christ made this possible so we could pursue God without the ⁷requirement of perfect obedience hanging over us - something we fail at miserably. We are now free to obey not because we have to but because we want to out of love and a desire to honor God...not out of the need to gain (earn) God's acceptance and avoid His rejection but because Christ was rejected and slain for us so we might be fully (perfectly)  accepted and embraced by the Father in and through Christ.

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¹At the heart of self-denial is loving and trusting the person calling us to it. Lack of love and trust in God was the key downfall of Adam and Eve in eating from the forbidden tree. Eating from the tree was the result, the outward display of an inward disposition of distrust in God and His direction, not the cause of their rebellion i.e. it was already present within their heart before they ate or they would have never ate. 

²The essence of knowing evil is experiencing harm 1st hand. Harm results in suffering but not all suffering is harmful... at least not ultimately. Self-denial is also a form of suffering that leads to good. It is denying ourselves a short-term benefit that can never fully satisfy us to gaining a long-term benefit that does.

³In the same way a light bulb would go out if it were unplugged.

⁴being. - לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ (lə·ne·p̄eš)

Preposition-l | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 5315: A soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

⁵Did not Christ himself learn obedience through his struggles and suffering? One of the key elements of struggles and suffering is trusting God when circumstances tell us not to. Being forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the circumstance by which Adam and Eve questioned whether God was trustworthy and possibly holding out on them. They believed the latter while Christ believed the opposite. They failed the test. Christ passed it... for our sake.

⁶This suggests Christ having the will not to choose the Father's will was real, just like it was for Adam and Eve. But instead, he chose to follow His Father's will...whereas Adam and Eve didn't.  And this was because he trusted the Father when Adam and eve did not.

⁷It is no longer a requirement in the sense of being the means by which we're justified but it is still vital - "required" - in order for us to operate optimally according to how God designed us. For a further discussion on this point click here.

Experience and wisdom connected

We have all observed that experience (sometimes of others if not our own) results in a more mature (usually more humble) approach to life. But what is it we experience that gives us a more solid and stable outlook? More often then not it is failure, loss, suffering etc.

How so? The struggles and our limitations we encounter in our times of greatest pain have a way of grounding us in ¹reality. 

And yet we often complain about suffering/evil in general, feeling sorry for ourselves and ask "why me" or "why do bad things happen to 'good people?' " Ironic isn't it? We complain about something being unfair that can actually help us become better/wiser.

In reality, painful, challenging ("bad") experiences are one of the primary means by which truly good (humble) people are made stronger, wiser, more mature (assuming we are not embittered by them). The only thing that prevents this is lack of humility; the lack of willingness to learn or be taught i.e. pride.

Why? At the heart of pride is distrust i.e. since I can't (or choose not to) trust, I'll figure it out and do it myself. This is why pride is so harmful; it short-circuits the process that can make us stronger and better, not to mention the harm pride causes others.

For a further discussion on the value of suffering and evil click here and here.

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¹Life works a certain way - i.e. according to design. When we or others violate that design we experience loss and suffering. This loss and suffering teaches us (if and when we're willing to learn) to operate according to the way things work i.e. according to their design. Knowing this is at the heart of wisdom and the essence of maturity. "The fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom" i.e. recognizing God is a certain way and created us to be aligned with Him. To not align ourselves with that way (his way, the way we were designed to be) has dire consequences. To acknowledge this requires both humility and wisdom.

The truth shall set you free... and sometimes hurt also.

When and where does truth take a back seat to compassion and love... or does it? 

It depends on the nature of the truth that needs to be seen or shared. In fact, sharing the truth in a very direct and clear way may be the best way to love someone, even if painful at the time. 

If you saw a blind and deaf person accidentally wander onto a train track and an oncoming train was bearing down on them, with only seconds to spare, would you handle them with kid gloves and gently try to persuade them to get off the track or would you rush up to them and forcefully remove i.e. tackle them if necessary, to get them out of harm's way? If you only have a split second to get them to safety, you would remove them as quickly and forcefully as necessary, maybe even breaking a rib or two or both of you getting bruised and scraped up in the process. Better alive with a broken rib or bruised side than dead.

Would the blind person be upset? At first? No doubt. They have no clue what just happened. At best, they likely will be wondering who you are, or why you tackled them. All they know is someone just knocked the stuffing out of them, injuring them in the process. More than likely, they are thinking it's time for a lawsuit. Once it is explained to them what just happened and why you did what you did by a trusted family member who saw and confirmed the whole thing, I venture to say they would be grateful for the pain you inflicted on them (not the pain itself but the outcome which involved pain to achieve) and would probably give you a hug once they understood you just saved their life. The pain you caused was ultimately their gain.

So it often is with truth. It can be very disruptive and painful, but in the end, it saves us and sets us free.

It can be the most loving, but also the hardest thing we can encounter at the same time.

We must be real but...

We must be who we are because anything else is ¹pretense. 

There is also no growth and healing unless we assess ourselves honestly. We can not accurately assess ourselves if we are not honest with ourselves i.e. we can not fix what we don't know is broken. This is vital if we are to grow.

We also must recognize who we are, is not necessarily (or likely) the best version of us and who we were created to be. Being the real you is important but is not necessarily or automatically the best you. 

While it is important to be real, it is equally - if not more - important that we are aligned with who we are designed to be. We will never reach our full potential and be fulfilled until we are - nor will we bring the greatest honor to God by being less than he created us to be.

For most (maybe all) of us, there is a significant gap and real tension between who we are and who we are designed to be i.e. our real self and our true potential self.

Which may be the primary reason for all our struggles. Our journey with all the bumps and bruises is designed to bring us to the place of being our best - highest potential - self i.e. that self that best reflects our Creator (in whose image we have been made) in the way unique to us... which also happens to be where we find greatest joy and fulfillment.

The beauty of being in Christ is we can be real - without threat or concern of rejection - and pursue being the best us at the same time. The key to becoming all we are designed to be (our potential self) is to understand that in Christ, God fully accepts, loves and embraces us no matter how broken the actual (real) me is i.e. God receives us as if we are already perfect even though we are not. 

He now calls us to conduct ourselves ²according to and out of this status of perfect approval he has bestowed-assigned-gifted to us by and in Christ. We now pursue our best self because we want to, not because we have to. Out of this posture of complete acceptance we are free to become who we were created to be. In fact it is the ²only way we can. Trying to be our best self without being empowered by God's love (total acceptance) is futile... a "work of the flesh."

For a discussion on being empowered by God click here and here. 

For a discussion on how God doesn't need us but delights in us click here.

For a discussion on the essence of God's life click here.

For a further discussion on being real click here.
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¹God already completely knows who we are so there's no point in pretending to be someone we are not. He even knows what we will do and say before we say or do it (Psa 139) i.e. we never surprise God by our good or poor choices and actions. We may attempt to use pretense to avoid rejection and protect ourselves or bolster our image in the eyes of others but this doesn't help with God. He already knows and sees us (and everything abouts use along with everything else) as we truly are.

²Knowing we are significant and highly regarded-valued by God (so much so he sent his eternally beloved Son to restore us) stirs in us a desire to honor Him. The more we see how much God delights in us the greater our desire to bring him joy.

God is attracted to and delights in his image in us. Even though that image is marred, the potential for us to fully participate and delight in God and the fullness of life among and between the Father, Son and Spirit, is still perfectly intact. God is constantly working to bring that image with our innate potential into greater union, wholeness, and fruition so we (God and I) might mutually delight (glory) in the other to the greatest extent possible. This is the means of our greatest joy and a source of great delight for God.

Why is there pain, suffering and evil?

Whether consciously or not we have ²all turned away from God, the source of love, life, and all things.

God told us the day we turned away and no longer followed his wise and loving direction, we would die... 

*physically - ¹we would return to the dust we came from. And 

*spiritually - we no longer possess the breath (Spirit) of God, therefore we no longer experience the immediate and direct love, life, and presence of God. Without God's life (breath-Spirit) we are no longer able to commune with God - who is Spirit. 

This warning was not a caution God gave out of retaliation but a warning out of His care and desire for our best.

Yet sadly and foolishly we still turned away from God to created things - i.e. to our innate abilities, each other, and anything else in creation - in an attempt to make life work without God (life we already had in Him but turned away from). Why?  Because we believed we could find life on our own, apart from God - who is life and gives life to all things. 

We also believed we could find life in and through creation (which consists of both ⁹internal and external gifts). 

As a result, we continue to this day trying to restore our sense of meaning, purpose, and love apart from God - i.e. the life we lost by turning away from God, its source - in and through anything other than Him. At best God is an afterthought instead of our focus, if he's thought of it all. 

How do we know we have turned? In at least two ways.

1. We ³do not acknowledge all that we are and have comes from God and act accordingly i.e. we act as if God is either irrelevant or doesn't exist (though we might acknowledge or call out to Him as a last resort when we are in our greatest pain and darkness moments). We act as if he is not the Creator and Sustainer of all things. 

We assume everything is either an accident of time plus chance (the evolutionary model) or we simply ignore the evidence all around us that created things must come from a Creator who has a purpose and design for all things i.e. we rarely if ever give a thought to why He created in the first place.

2. We operate predominantly out of fear, not trust in God i.e. If we truly believed God was as good, wise, and powerful as he claimed, we would not be afraid to trust him. As it is *we wrestle with trusting him all the time (and go as far as blaming Him for our self-imposed pain). 

(*For a discussion on how faith is hard work click here when you have finished reading)

Our difficulty trusting God is often not evident until we go through extremely challenging circumstances. When we face our greatest pain is when we have our greatest doubts about God's goodness, love, wisdom, and power e.g.  "If you really loved me God why would you let this happen?" (not unlike what Christ went through in the garden of Gethsemane, yet without sin (i.e. distrust). If faced with extreme challenges few, if any of us would approach our pain as Christ did when he said, "not my will but yours be done." - Christ did what Adam - and we - failed to do. He remained faithful in the face of extreme adversity, even unto death. Unlike Christ few of us suffer to the point of dying, much less by being tortured).

As a result of our turning from God, everyone and everything is now broken, marred, and distorted. Nothing operates according to its original good design - how can it be if we are no longer fully plugged into the very source of life? This is like a sailboat without the wind or ocean. We are now only an empty shell of our former selves and God's intended design (though he is constantly working to restore us... more than not through our pain).

Because of this, the rest of Creation - by no choice of its own - is also in bondage, subject to decay, disease, and death, and awaiting those who trust Christ to be completely ⁴freed and in full union (glorified) with God - the Source of life, love, and all things.  

We and everything else is now broken. Broken things result in more things breaking, causing ongoing and increased pain; spiritually, emotionally, and physically (pain within - fear, anxiety as well as adverse health i.e. disease and eventual death...and pain without, through adverse circumstances i.e. the thorns and thistles of living in a broken world).

Pain is for our good!?

Ironically and incredibly, suffering entering the world was (and is) a ⁵good thing! How?! It would become our teacher from then on and be used by God as a reminder that life without God doesn't work as God intended. Pain is the potential means of humbling us, resulting in our returning to Him (if and when we pay attention and let it).

An old expression says you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink; however, there is a corollary... you can salt its oats. Pain is how God salts our oats.

Prolonged and deep pain can reveal to us the inadequacy of creation to give us what we most need in those times of overwhelming pain and help us see that created things alone (including other image bearers) can not sustain us spiritually and emotionally at the deepest and most important level. Nor can it prevent us from the ultimate loss and suffering of dying (no matter how hard we seek to prolong life).

Pain can be the means of our seeing that only an infinitely loving God can satisfy our deepest thirst and hunger (It is with good reason that Christ called himself the bread of life and the only one who offers living water that keeps us from ever thirsting again).

We must recognize only God, not creation (which includes ourselves and each other. Fellow humans are merely finite. Our need for love is infinite) can sustain us in our darkest times. Pain can guide us to the realization that true and lasting life is only found in the infinite Creator, nothing else. The greater our suffering the greater the opportunity to see the inadequacy of creation to ⁶meet our deepest needs and longings. 

When we peel back the layers and consider all this, we recognize all that God does is good, even - maybe especially - by allowing evil, death, and suffering to ⁷continue.

Why? Unfortunately without pain, we will continue to cling to created things and may never realize how deep and great our need for God is; that only He can meet our deepest and infinite longings, not created things. It can stir us to ⁸return to God. With it, there is a chance and opportunity we might...so pain remains for now as a potential means of leading us back to the Creator, the Source of creation, who is good and always acts for our good.

And if we do return He uses it to deepen our trust in Him even more.

Though we are the cause of the pain, not God, He takes it and uses it for good. The wonder is God uses the fruit of our rebellion - pain, suffering, and death - to draw us back to Himself. And when we turn from distrust back to trust in him, this is exactly what happens.

Because we all have already turned away, there is pain and suffering but if one returns and finds God due to their pain and suffering, it is good and totally worth the pain. Others may intend it for harm but God intends it for good.

From all this, we realize if God did not use evil for good it would not exist. Because He can and does, it remains; at least for now.

The good news is Christ died (by fully embracing our pain and suffering - caused by no fault of his own) so we could one day be completely freed of all suffering (including death). 

Thanks to Christ, we will be freed one day if we receive His offer. Pain and suffering will have done their job and no longer be needed. In the meantime, He invites you to come and choose life. 

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. - Rev 22:17

For a further discussion on why God allows evil click here.

For a discussion on how we best impact the world for God's glory click here.

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Footnotes:

¹This does not mean we cease to exist, it means if Adam still possessed the life/Spirit of God he would have never physically died but lived forever and continued to have access to the Tree of Life. Death was not part of our original design and will no longer exist once we go into eternity and fully into God's presence, the source of life, love, and all things. 

¹Of course not everything about this world is evil and suffering. It is a curious mix of both good and evil. The creation still reflects significant elements of its original design which is good and beautiful - shrouded with a veil of sadness and the sense of something missing or incomplete. Nevertheless, creation continues to display something significant about the beauty and glory of God. So much so that we can not claim we know nothing about God. But this recognition alone is not enough. Pain often is also necessary to eventually leads us to see His beauty.

²Many have returned to God but before we did, this was our approach to life. Those who have returned, now look forward to the day all things will be fully restored with zero pain, suffering, and death. Thanks to God and His Son this is now possible.

³Unless he turns us back to himself.

⁴If you think the creation is beautiful now - and it is - just wait! For those who entrust themselves to him, they haven't seen anything yet!

⁵It was also the normal and natural outcome of us severing our connection with the source of life, love, and all things.

⁶apart from or outside of God, creation was never designed to be the source of our greatest comfort. Only a means of God showing His care for us. Creation was designed to point us to Him and His vast beauty and infinite love, not draw us away from Him. Created things alone - including other image-bearers - are inadequate and can only satisfy and sustain us on a temporary and superficial level. The greater our suffering, the more apparent this becomes if and when we return to Him.

⁷It is, after all, the absence of God that causes our pain to begin with. Pain and suffering are not a vengeful "getting even" by God for our turning away but the natural organic outcome of being disconnected from the source of life. This was confirmed when God did not reject Adam and Eve after their distrust but immediately provided both a short term (animal skins) and long-term solution (a promised savior - Gen 3:15) to their rebellion.

⁸Returning to God is our greatest good for God is good... the source of good and all good things. Without him, there is no creation to be enjoyed.

⁹Internal gifts consist of any natural innate gifts or abilities we are born with, whether artistic, musical, intellectual, athletic, and so on.

External gifts consist of anything outside of us that we use to sustain and improve our lives such as food, water, sunlight, plant and animal life, natural resources (minerals, gems, metals etc) etc. 

When we apply our internal gifts to the external gifts (natural resources) we are exercising our being in the image of God. So these are all good things. The problem is we don't do it to advance and honor God, the Giver of these, but to honor and advance ourselves.

rest

What does it mean to "rest" in God? Is there only one meaning?

I would suggest the Bible teaches there is an initial rest and an ongoing rest. 

After we have come into God's Kingdom and into our initial rest from His rightful judgment and condemnation, we are called to enter into and partake in an ongoing rest (contentment). 

The rest of this article will address ongoing rest. 

This occurs when we live according to two key truths.

1. We thank God for everything - especially the "bad" things - whether we understand why they are happening or not.

2. We faithfully (though not perfectly, necessarily) seek to do everything God calls us to do, whether we like it or not.

The 1st (i.e. hard circumstances) we do not control and must accept (receive) ¹passively, and the 2nd we do "control" and must pursue actively. 

Both require a choice we make by faith, and in this sense, both are active i.e. we choose - "control" - how we respond and how our circumstances affect us, not the circumstances. 

But neither can happen without God's strengthening/ empowering us (i.e. we can't do it in our own strength). But by His strength, which only comes through deeper trust in Him. 

We must come to a place where we fully recognize He is trustworthy in both what he allows (#1 above) and in what he calls us to (#2 above), and respond accordingly i.e. in and by faith. 

This is our choice alone and determines how these circumstances influence and shape us.

The theological underpinnings needed to live this way are infinitely deep, because they are grounded in our trust in the infinite love, power, faithfulness, care, and wisdom of God i.e. they must go as deep as God is vast, and as much as our faith allows us to embrace Him as being exactly who He is and claims to be.

To give assent to and ²faithfully carry or live these out, we must recognize (believe) God ³is always good, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving at all times and in all things. 

If you doubt these things about God concerning you and difficult circumstances, you will not be in a posture of humility and dependence needed to enter His rest. You will remain - abide if you will - in a state of agitation i.e. unrest, anxiety, or fear.

Resting in God is the essence of the now-popular saying, "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good."

Does this mean we will never struggle with believing these things?

Christ himself - the founder and perfector of our faith - wrestled with this in the garden of Gethsemane. He wrestled with both obedience (active) and acceptance (passive) of what God was about to allow him to go through. 

What settled it for him was one very simple decision, "...not my will but yours be done." He came to the place of complete surrender and trust. Once he did, his struggle was over. He was at peace i.e. resting in his trust in the Father, regardless of what He was about to and did go through.

This is why he was able to calmly say to his disciples, "See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer, is at hand.” Matt 26:45b-46. 

He stared pain straight in the face and, out of his total trust in His Father's love, wisdom, and power, was able to embrace the pain, the humbling, and the shame he was about to go through during His crucifixion. From this point forward, he set his eyes on the cross and never looked back. 

Christ was empowered to make this decision because he believed (trusted) his Father was all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving at that moment in that given circumstance. 

We, too, are called to this and can carry it out by the same strength we receive through this same trust in the Father. When we do, we too will calmly (peacefully) and deliberately move forward in life, no matter what is in front of us. 

For a discussion on how God uses evil for good click here.

For a further discussion on why God allows suffering and evil click here.

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¹Passively only in the sense that we don't necessarily have to or can do anything regarding challenging circumstances (of course, if we can, we should take action, but sometimes nothing we do can change things). However, we are never to be passive in terms of faith. Our faith must be actively and willfully engaged to enter and remain in an ongoing state of rest - peace. 

Both being thankful for challenges and engaging others in sacrificial love require faith (in the same way it did for Christ), so in this sense, everything involves active engagement and is not passive. 

²Some have suggested that if you break the word faithful down, it simply means full of faith i.e. faith full. To be faithful (obedient) no matter what we encounter, we must be full of faith.

³To acknowledge these things about God is not easy (it wasn't for Christ either), especially when staring into the face of great evil, struggle, and personal pain. 

What would you say is the biggest thing God is after in the lives of his children? 

Is it not our experiencing a closer relationship with Him?

and

The most important element of any relationship is trust

and

That which requires our greatest trust is suffering, pain, and challenges. We must embrace these and thank God for them. Without faith/trust this isn't possible.

How? The "good" God works in and through all the things we go through - for those of us who love Him (Rom 8:28) - is to make us like His Son (Rom 8:29). In doing so, we experience the same level of glorious and blissful communion with the Father that the Son did (and does). This is the ultimate good end God is working toward, for us, through our struggles. Not necessarily improved circumstances. This has nothing to do with improved circumstances (though it could and sometimes does lead to them, just not automatically). 

What better end is there than to experience God in all his love and glory to the greatest extent possible? 

And what better means is there to participate in this, other than having the same faith (and faithfulness) Christ had? 

And what faith do we have if not a tested faith? 

And what tests our faith most - and Christ's - if not pain and suffering?

Immutability vs Aseity...Does God change

This post may raise more questions than it answers. If so, I think they are worth raising. Anyone who wishes to add to this discussion, I invite you to in the comment section below. 

Is the community of Father, Son, and Spirit, static or dynamic? (The operative word being "community" vs God's essence).

What do I mean?

We are told God never changes (he is immutable). We see this along with His ¹aseity when he describes Himself as "I AM" i.e. Who God is, He always has been and always will be. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He is the only never-changing, ever-present, self-sustained (aseity) being among all beings. 

We might even say he is never changing (immutable) because he is self-sustaining (aseity). He needs nothing or no one - outside of himself - to be fully and perfectly God. 

But in what sense is he never changing? Is he unchanging in every aspect of His being? Does he ever change in the way he expresses or experiences Himself - within the community of Father, Son, and Spirit - or without toward others, i.e. in the "economic" expression of His unchanging essence? 

Does the way - or manner in which - He displays the fullness of His majesty and glory ever change? But this is a different question, right? Or is it?

Is it possible that God can enter into and experience a fuller participation of himself - of His essence? Does God's immutability require that God can never engage in a new or fuller expression of his love within the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit by extending it out to others and doing whatever is necessary to do so? This certainly appears to have occurred during and since the incarnation of Christ. 

Everything is present to God, yet somehow Christ entered and took part in time in a way he had not before the incarnation. Possibly Christ's stepping into time via his physicality was the primary expression of His incarnation i.e. taking on human form was necessary for him to participate in time since everything is present to God. We could say this was a change in how God addressed things outside Himself (vs within Himself, which never changes). A paradox we might not be able to fully grasp and make sense of logically since God is three persons while only one God, yet, in some real way, it is true. 

Some try to address this paradox by saying Christ experienced time as a man but not as God. The problem is Christ was both God and man in one person (he may have emptied himself of certain divine attributes while on earth but he never stopped being God). The best we can determine, he is both God and man to this day and will be ²throughout eternity. Only logic - certainly not scripture - seeks to separate what God appears to have joined. 

Where we finite creatures get into trouble is trying to force things to be logical when God doesn't. There is and always will be mystery within God because of God being infinite and we, in our understanding, power, and presence, are finite i.e. we are limited, God is not. There are no actual contradictions within God but that doesn't mean we are able to fully understand everything about Him. Though we are in His image, God's ways are not our ways and ours are not his. The infinite God trying to explain to finite man all there is to know about Him is like a calculus teacher trying to explain calculus to an ant. The only way that would be possible is if the teacher somehow imparted special knowledge to the ant to just get the basics - and in this case, since the teacher is Almighty God himself, this is not only possible but necessary. But if God chose to do so, it would only be because God did this supernaturally and not because of us i.e. not because of any natural, innate ability we have to grasp the infinite God unaided. Nor would God do so out of something lacking within Him. Remember he is the "I AM" - self-sustaining God - who needs nothing or no one other them himself. 

If God chose to go about things in such a way as to enter a fuller and deeper experience of himself, this is not something God has to do i.e. there is nothing missing or lacking within God. He does not need to and is no less or more God in doing or not doing so. It is simply a fuller engagement and participation in who He already is. If anything drives God it is a desire to more fully participate in the fellowship of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

To say it another way, there is nothing outside of God forcing him to act in any particular

way. But that is different from something within God moving Him to carry out a particular action. All God's actions are determined by who God IS, within Himself, and not by any outside influence. Any and all things done by God come from within Him i.e. are driven internally, not externally. For nothing is greater than God or more worth knowing than God, even for Him.

One thing we can be sure of, scripture must always be the acid test of defining who God is, not logic. I say this because efforts to understand God often look to logic more than scripture. 

I'm not suggesting scripture is illogical, but there are truths in scripture that go beyond our ability to reason and understand (i.e. we are finite - limited). They do not always appear logical but appear to contradict each other. Yet we see this in scripture often. Examples would be how man is fully accountable for choosing or not choosing God but God is the author and "finisher" of salvation or that God is 3 persons yet one God or Christ is fully God yet fully man. As a result, we have different conclusions among great minds on these as well as other theological points. Whereas if we allow scripture to say what it says and not force it to say something else in order for it to work for us logically i.e. in order to believe it's true whether we can make logical sense of seemingly contradictory qualities about God in scripture - we would have less disagreement and get much closer to an accurate understanding of who God is, even though we might not have a full understanding and "closure" about who he is to the degree we would like to ³logically.  

The bottom line is God called us to live by faith, and that is not always simple or easy. We like control over faith and can use logic as a form of control e.g. if we can understand how God operates, we might be able to predict (i.e. "control") how he will work in our lives. Use reason, but when reason comes up short, we simply must trust God, and accept His ways are not ours or ours are His.

What makes God "tick"

The love of God poured out to others is love flowing out from the fullness of God's being, i.e. it is not done out of a need or void within Him, but out of the fullness of who He is. God acts out of fullness, not out of need or something lacking within Himself. God's desire to pour himself forth and the giving of Himself comes from a desire that others benefit by the fullness of who He is. Does God also benefit? Yes, in the sense that he finds joy in seeing other's experience and know him to a greater degree, but not in the sense that this adds anything to God's being or essence i.e. makes Him more God. He already is fully God. He is not becoming God.

Why? Because God needs nothing or no one. He already has everything in the fullness of community within the Father, Son, and Spirit. If God had never created, he would be just as much God as he has been from all eternity past.

However, because God has the greatest worth above all things, and is Father, Son, and Spirit, and desires for us to take part in this Trinitarian community to the greatest extent possible it is only reasonable that God would desire, if possible, to partake of this community to the greatest extent and experience more of who he is in fuller and deeper ways. You could say God "needs" himself i.e. He desires to participate more fully into His love, among and between Father and Son, in by and through the Spirit. And if there is a way for God to increase or expand participation in the love between Father, Son, and Spirit by creating others like Himself as His image-bearers and giving them a will to choose or not choose him, then rescue them from the consequences of not choosing him, this would certainly not involve God needing anyone or thing outside himself.

For a further discussion on how God stepped into time for us click here. 

For a further discussion on why Christ is the only begotten of the Father click here. 

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¹The Aseity (Self-Existence) of God | Monergism

 https://www.monergism.com/topics/god’s-attributes/aseity-self-existence-god

The Aseity (Self-Existence) of God "The Father has life in himself." - John 5:26 

"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things." Acts 17:24-25

²Is Christ less God because he is fully man or less of a man because he is fully God? No, not according to scripture which takes precedence over logic which may appear to suggest otherwise. However scripture is the final authority, not reason.  This does not mean scripture is unreasonable or illogical but when it appears God's words are in conflict with logic, the God inspired words recorded - i.e. the Bible - must be the final authority by virtue of being God's words i.e. God is the final and only arbitrator of truth.

³For a fuller discussion on the limits of logic and the value of paradox and biblical truths in tension, click here.