The tree of knowledge of good and evil. God put Adam and Eve in paradise and gave them one rule: Don’t eat it. They couldn’t do it.
Chances are if God hadn’t put the condition, they’d have left the tree alone. You know how us humans love to break rules. God knows it too, and he knew that by telling them ‘don’t’ that they would. So why did He do it? Coz he’s God, not Hitler. He gives us choices, he gives us options, he gives us wisdom and strength to make the right choices. We generally don’t.
But if He knows that, why not just take the option away? Coz he’s God. He made man, not robots. Spiritual truths. If you feel tempted to argue, you’re probably not in the Holy Spirit programme.
But I digress. Lots of people think it wasn’t a tree at all, even though the forbidden fruit sells a lot of Macs…just check the logo. A lot of people think the fruit was a lot more gymnastic. I won’t get into that.
My issue is with the knowledge. You can’t eat an apple and suddenly discover ’stealing is bad’. Especially if you have no idea of what stealing is! So what was the knowledge? Simple : guilt.
There was just one rule – don’t eat the fruit. They ate the fruit. They felt bad, because they had broken the rule. They felt ashamed. They had never felt shame before, and they recognized the difference between shame and innocence. So the knowledge of good and evil is guilt. It’s knowing how it feels to be right, and knowing how it feels to be wrong.
So yes, they died in the moment they ate that fruit. They died to innocence. And the only thing that saves us from that death, from that guilt, is faith. It’s believing that somewhere far away, a good man died on a tree for our badness, and rose from the dead.
You can’t learn good and evil by eating a fruit, and you can’t unlearn guilt by looking at a cross. But you can believe both by faith, and you can’t live without faith; not in this world, and not in the next.
So then, was it a tree? Get on your knees and ask Him yourself, He just might tell you. And was it really a snake? How come the snake got punished for the devils sins? Did snakes have legs in Eden? And didn’t Eve find it strange that this particular animal was talking to her? Ama she was a Dr Dolittle? Hmm, now that I need to find out.
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Crystal Ading' is a professional author, editor, rock lover and mother. Her work is available through threeceebee.com.