The Tree of Knowledge of Good & Bad

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad

In the first pages of the Bible in (Genesis 2: 8~16) it is written:

God made man out of the dust of the earth, breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living being.

And Yahweh planted in  the garden of Eden two trees:

     The Tree of Life, which man could eat of its fruit if he wanted to live forever the kind of life he was living…

And:

     The Tree of Knowing what is Good and Evil, which God forbid him to eat it’s fruit under the penalty of death ! (that is, living exiled, outside of God’s loving presence and care).

We know what happened, since mankind lives now mostly an  unpleasant and difficult existence…So, the question arises:

Why did God give to our ancestors, Adam and Eve, the possibility of choosing something that would bring such disastrous consequences upon them and their descendants?

Allow me to explain to you what I have come to understand  after reading, studying the Bible exhaustively for five decades. I will write with all the  simplicity of a child, as God will have me do:

Even though the Creator is surrounded by myriads of servants, angels  and other beings, he still wanted to have around himself some creatures that will be very much like himself, so that they may become his closest companions, his best friends.

Actually, he wanted them to be more than friends: He wanted them to be as close to himself as a wife is for her husband! There is no closer to that!

(I will have to drag you a bit into my personal life in order to illustrate better my explanation!):

I am without a wife, and I suffer terribly because of it. I have a daughter, who lives with me, and is the best daughter anyone could have, a wonderful companion and a true blessing to me! But, I am not satisfied: I want, I need to have a good wife, (even many such good wives, if I am to be honest…)

Now, if God was to appear to me, one day, and offer me to make me such a girl as I want her to be, beautiful, with golden hair, blue eyes, fair skin etc., a wife that will never leave me, disobey me or hurt my feelings (as my previous two wives did)… if he was to make one such dream-girl to measure for me, (so to speak), I would jump out of joy, and be very happy… for a while.

Yes, only for a while! Because, after a while I would realize that this beautiful girl in the flesh is just a…robot. She has been programmed to be as she is, and this takes away from her much of what I truly want from a wife!

In reality, what I want is to have a wife that can leave me, can disobey me and hurt me, and be unwilling to love me wholeheartedly etc., but who choses not to do all these things because she appreciates me and loves me!

I do not want a robot made out of flesh, but a person like myself who can choose for herself, and does me the honour of choosing to love me, to make me happy in whatever way she can, because she knows that, she, herself, will only be happy when she is near me and receives back my love and care that I have for her.

That is the kind of wife I want, and that is the kind of companions our Creator wanted to create!

In order to achieve that, he placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil right in front of their eyes, thus making them free: Free to happily keep on being close to him by not eating of its fruit, or free and able to disobey him and break that relationship with their Creator and God.

Adam and Eve chose the later option, and we all bear the consequences of their action.

It was all part of God’s plan! His specialty is to turn a negative to a positive, a failure into a success, a weakness into strength.

After the “fall”, when men choose to live just as they wanted to, God started observing each one of us carefully!

He is searching for those of us who would seek him out of their own initiative and free will, who would search for him and want to please him.

Whenever he finds such a rarity, he reveals his nature to them, so that they may  love him exceedingly, more than they would love themselves, their family or their life, for no one is as good, righteous, loving, giving and worthy of being adored than the Only true God and his Son, Jesus Christ who revealed him to us…

Then, God tests each one of them in order to determine how much each one truly loves him, how much he (or she) is willing to deprive himself / herself of pleasures for him, and how much they are willing to actually suffer in order to please him. He needs to know how faithful they will be to him, how good their heart truly is, and much more.

And one day, he will choose the best of them to become his closest and most honoured companions in his Heavenly Kingdom, for ever.

Others, (depending on the love, trust, faithfulness and submission they had shown  for him while on earth), he will choose them to live happily closer or a bit further away from him, in his Holy City.

Everyone will get as much honour and happiness and blessings as he or she deserves!

As for those humans who refused to repent of their rebellious and evil attitude towards him, (those who rejected his only Son Jesus Christ who went as far as dying on the cross in order to redeem them and restore them into God’s presence and loving care), God will reject them in return.

He will and make them pay eternally in Hell, according to the evil and self-centeredness they demonstrated on earth, each suffering to the degree that he or she deserves.

We are being watched, carefully observed! We were given a free will so that some of us will freely chose to please God.

Let us repent and forsake  our self-centered lives, and let us be God-centered, living with fear, obeying, loving and appreciating our Creator and God.