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The Fall Of Man

The account of the fall of man is given in Genesis chapter 3.

-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Gen ch3:v1-8
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Gen 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Gen 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. (KJV)

I want to hit this on the head right now. The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is not a "magic tree" or a tree with "magic fruit". The garden was created for God whilst at rest to enjoy the best of His creation. Every choice herb and plant and fruit bearing tree, God placed in the garden for His own enjoyment. The garden was not the property of man, neither was man in dominion over God. God placed man in dominion over every moving creature He had made, and in this garden, God permitted the man and woman to eat of any tree except the tree in the midst of the garden, which we know as this tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tree then is God's own property reserved to Himself only, and was not "poisonous" or "hallucinogenic". There as simply the fact (As Dean Gotcher puts it) "This is my tree and not your tree".

God had stated;

Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (KJV)

What was this knowledge of good and evil that was "of the tree"? The tree was similar to every other tree, there was no distinguishing characteristic other than the commandment upon it. Clearly the knowledge of good and evil was the consequence of breaking the commandment, not from the presence of the tree in the environment, but from the issuance of the commandment upon the tree and not of the tree upon itself as to its appearing in the environment.

It was a "tree of the knowledge..." because of the commandment, the knowledge was due to the requirement in the sensuous and carnal nature of man that would have to be uitilised by him to break God's commandment. That method at the heart of "good and evil" is (without distinction between the two) and would be to covet the fruit of the tree; that the man would have to state within himself that the garden was actually his own playground and God was for his purposes in the environment, an irrelevance.

The knowledge of good and evil is not, and can not be a separation of terms: For the commandment was given with a curse of the utmost severity, and Adam knew the tree was not to be touched, looked upon or the fruit to be eaten. He knew breaking the commandment was "not good". Likewise he knew God and God "is good". Clearly to break the commandment was an act of evil, and as clear defiance of all that was good, (God alone is good). Adam and Eve both knew the difference between good and evil.

The tree requiring knowledge by the sensual examination of the environment then is to treat as with irrelevance the commandment, and the motivating of the carnal self of the man is to then be able to deem any absolute or "wrong of evil" to be indiscernible as either right or wrong under the reasoning upon his senses (as to anything he may simply covet or desire.) "Good and evil" all become relative to the pleasure from the senses, regardless of consequence.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil required in the man the mechanism of carnal lust that blurs the line between good and evil into the juxtaposition of pleasure and disappointment, so that knowledge of good and evil become melded into one: the act of pleasing the senses and finding the environment as the measure of right and wrong, and not the absolute difference of true/false, heaven/hell or mine/yours.

Then we find that Adam was initially innocent of guilt, rather than of the difference between good and evil before he ate from the tree. Adam could correctly discern evil from good until he chose to evaluate good and evil for himself upon rejecting God's commandment and ultimately God Himself as irrelevant.

There is no truth in the idea that Adam as an "early man" was deprived intellect or could not know the difference between the absolutes of right and wrong before the fall, and that somehow his intellect was gifted anything positive in the account. In reality he began to "be evil" himself in discerning right and wrong upon his senses (relative to his environment) without correctly discerning the absolute force of the commandment and therefore began to treat God Himself as irrelevant.


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