I would like to take a new look at Genesis and the “Fall” and maybe shed some new light on it.
The setup of the story starts in Genesis 2 and continues in Genesis 3 for the climax of the fall. Go ahead and read this first to have some background.
If you will notice in this story that once God set the parameters in the garden of Eden, that the focus was instantly put on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In our beliefs and understanding of this small but powerful message, we may have overlooked something. Let’s look!
If I was standing at a y intersection of a road with two signs on it, that told me what was ahead of each road, I have to contemplate which way I wanted to go and why. Let’s say that one sign said that I could go somewhere where it was a paradise and that I would be able to chose all the great things that I could do and know what was good for me. The other sign said that I could chose a way of life that was designed and built for me by my creator.
Now, when I had chosen my path and decided to take it down it’s long and winding road, it was when I took that first step in the direction of the paradise road that I was wrong. It was not when I was already at the branches of the tree of knowledge of good and evil picking the best fruit on it, that I “sinned”, you see I had already chosen my path by “not” taking the first step to the “Tree of Life”!
This is what I believe we need to re-look at the genesis story to see it’s true meaning of the Life of God in us that we have missed out on. Adam, by walking towards the tree of knowledge of good and evil, instantly had decided not to walk towards the Tree of Life,God. It was in that moment that God was saddened and already planning to show Adam that his decision would cost him and his generations dearly.
Does this premise change anything for you? should it? why is it different than the sin being started by biting the apple at the tree?
Let me maybe shed some light on it,as I see it.
If we see the fact that We(God’s People) Adam(corporately)have chosen not him but those things of the world,or satan. Then, God in his infinite wisdom was then going to work on getting them to “repent”(this word has been misused by many a pastor or people of faith that has actually taken us down even a different road,that is another story),repent only means “to go the opposite direction”, so if we take this meaning and apply it to the story of genesis, then it would mean that Adam’s first step was toward the Tree of Life and God. Wow, now that would be a whole new story wouldn’t it!!
In God’s perfect wisdom, he wasn’t going to spank us and put us on the right road to him, no, He was going to let us see for ourselves that our innate qualities of humanness was going to be our downfall. Boy was He right on that one.
This, in itself was, and is the way that God would show us that it would not be our righteousness, that we could be saved from this path, but His righteousness(by dying on the cross) that would save us and get us on the right path.
It is the ability of Life of and in God thru Christ that His plan would bring us back to that crossroads and to have us(God’s people,Church) take that first step to the Tree of Life!!
The Eternal Purpose 