I stumbled on to something today, while studying something else.
It is always like that with me, I will be researching some theme, word, or story in the scriptures and I ‘see’ something else that relates to some other story or theme. All tho it gets me sidetrack from my original studies, I welcome an ‘AHA’ moment anytime!
Everyone knows what it means by using ‘opposites’ in a conversation, right? When you tell some one directions to a restaurant either to turn right or left at the corner of 2nd street, or you tell them that the earth is round, and they say it is flat, or that things are either black or white. It is an ‘either or’ kind of thing.
Now, sometimes we might go just by our ‘assuming’ of what is read by the first condition of a supposedly either or statement, because we are used to it.
I think we may have done this with actually a statement in the bible, and used it throughout the bible as a definite presupposition. It comes in Genesis 2: 9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Let’s look at this, starting with the second part of the verse, The tree of Life is in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil is too. Did you see any opposite statements in that narrative? Neither did I.
In fact, there wasn’t anything that looked close to it. It was like it said “life and Knowledge” as the basic message of it. We have to start with the first statement of that there was “a Tree of Life, for this to be an “opposite’ scenario the last condition of the statement had to say “a Tree of Death”. But it doesn’t.
This is actually an avenue of ‘self acknowledgment ‘or ‘self identity’. This avenue, which if we break it down is one of the precursors of what we of society have called the period of time as “The Enlightenment” period where we have gone outside the realm of God and chose a realm of our own. This could be first ‘sign’ of the ‘individualistic narrative that was introduced into the gospel, altho it has always pointed to the ‘NT’ period for that. We can use this ‘use of knowledge of good and evil’ as a spiraling to the opposite of good, especially with a dose of ‘evil’. Nothing good usually comes with playing with evil, pun intended.
Let’s start with the obvious, (This here is exactly what I talk about is the issue of ‘the lack of biblical knowledge’ of the christians) I have used in my studies the ‘opposite’ method of some of my thinking. If we have been ‘offered’ a ‘Tree of good and evil’ for your use, then that would mean you didn’t have it to begin with, right. So God is giving you the ability to have it to use. I don’t know if we would understand the ‘concept of good and evil’ but for the sake of the argument let’s say we do. Satan says later, “that we are the same as God if have this knowledge of good and evil.” Digging deep into God’s world can and should lead us to the inner Spirit of His intentions. But in basic language, we have chosen to go on our own.
Now I know what you are going to say. That by knowing the things that have been said in the scriptures that ‘Our not choosing the Tree of Life’, automatically means “Death”. We have to take this argument just one more step deeper to find the ‘Truth’. Sometimes we can find the ‘Truth’ by what it doesn’t say. Yup.
Wouldn’t God if He was to give an ‘ultimatum'(this is what it is), He would of just said, “Do you want to pick an ‘apple from the tree of Life or the apple from the Tree of Death? If you want to go deeper still, if this would of been the question, I am thinking two things, one if I had chosen ‘Tree of Death’, wouldn’t I have been stricken dead instantly! Two, Who in their right mind would of not chose ‘Life’. (assuming we knew what life and death actually meant, yes this comes into play).
The Narrative of the story continues, which just all by itself, should tell us something. Did you ‘hear’ it? Did you ‘see’ it?
This scenario of the second tree, the ‘Tree of good and evil’ is an open ended scenario. There is that road that will get us back to the “Tree of Life”. Road back. Now, if you realize that it wasn’t you or me that built that road, It was already there. Then we must realize that the God of Creation built it.
Now, I don’t know if that road was yellow(OZ) or not, but I somehow think it might be stained with the color of ‘Red’.
The Eternal Purpose 