Is that really You Lord?

This question might be in somebody of us, when we're reading this article. But let us challenge ourselves and let us be open for God's wispering voice into our hearts...

Enjoy!😉 

 http://thomasbuchanan.wpengine.com/

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EDEN  REVEALED

By Rev. Thomas H. Buchanan

          This concept of the garden of Eden experience is not my own idea but that of Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his book “How Good Do We Have To Be?”  My intent is not to steal his idea because I am going to convey it in my own words as well as make a few insightful additions.

          This view of the garden experience brings us insight and Godly hope beyond simply the sin and punishment of humankind.  Because  we were first created in His likeness as well as His image, the knowledge of good and evil had too eventually become part of our nature.

          This current aspect of our nature seems to have been a cruel trick by God to make us slaves to sin,  punishment and thus destined to failure.  I hope this essay will show you that this initial human experience was an act of God’s love in elevating man kind above that of animals. 

          In the Hebrew Bible Adam and Eve’s disobedience was never referred to as sin.  The word sin did not occur until Cain killed Abel.  This tells me that the intimacy between them and childbearing activities was also not considered sin.  This idea can be backed up by reading Hebrews 13:4.

          There are three things that makes us different than animals after the garden experience.  (1)  We now have to work for a living instead of being fed like both humans and  animals were before the fall.  (2)  We now have a longer and more involved family life structure which now involves pain, hurt, sorrow, loss and etc.  (3)  We now have to deal with morality and mortality.

          The difference between humans and animals is that the knowledge of good and evil introduces a moral dimension into our existing behavioral actions and consciousness.  With that comes the awareness of consequences.

          Our true inheritance from Adam and Eve is not just sin and punishment.  Their disobedience excelled the human race to a level of  being  uniquely human and uniquely having the likeness of God within and able to express it to others.

          What we call the original sin could have been viewed by them as God’s not wanting to trust them with that knowledge.  The complexity of morality and mortality will inevitably cause us to veer from our potential.

          As the serpent enters the scene he is described as one “more cunning than all the other animals God had made.”  This implies to me that humans were restricted to the animal family at this time.  The serpent is the only one recorded as having told Eve that the fruit was forbidden because God wanted to keep certain knowledge exclusively for himself.  This could imply to her that this is where God got His knowledge of good and evil and did not want them to be like Him.  Until now they only knew obedience with no thought provoking deviations.

       

      The Hebrew Bible does not refer to this act of disobedience as sin.  Would they have ever considered the fruit had not the serpent questioned God’s reason or if it had not been forbidden?   They seemed to have never considered it until now.  If it had not been forbidden the tree would not have been any different than any other tree in the garden and would not have elevated man to the position of likeness and thus uniquely human.

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     SUPPOSITION:  

     Could not the fruit of the forbidden tree been the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22-23)?  I say this because we could never have experienced them if we had not been recipients of their disobedience.  The tree was named but the fruit was not named.  Could it be that to have God likeness we would have to have His qualities that we find in the fruit of the Spirit?  There would have been no need for love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness or temperance had there not been this failure on their part.  This also opened the door to free will choice between good and evil. 

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     To be uniquely human and not animal opens the door to a wonderful, complicated, painful, rewarding, moral, and mortality minded life style that animals can never have.  Is it original sin or is it the birth of the human conscience that God really wanted for His likeness creation?  Likeness requires willful choices, not only of good and evil but having a moral aptitude about our choices.  This could never have happened without the forbidden and disobedience that God for knew.

     Our lives are infinitely more complicated because of the moral aspects of our choices.  We can now experience loss, dread, frustrations, jealousy, betrayal, depression, creativity, accomplishments, and goals, while having the knowledge of them and their consequences.

We might venture to say, at this point, that having the knowledge of good and evil and a God likeness that it must be frustrating to God as well, having to deal with us.    In my upbringing Eve’s actions were always condemned along with the serpents attempt at destroying God’s likeness creation.   In God’s infinite wisdom the serpent’s desire to destroy only elevated humans to the place of bruising his head instead of standing tall along side of him.  We should not look down on Eve but that she is embarking on a journey for all of humanity that will elevate us above the normal anthropological animal.            Eve’s actions are not a story of sin and death but an account of giving us humanity and life.  The acknowledgement of their humanity came when they admitted something wrong had happened.  In so doing they  imposed on themselves and us the dread of the day we will die and return to the dust from which we came.  Thankfully we know that our spirit man will return to God while awaiting resurrection day.      When the serpent said “you shall not surely die”  it was something completely unknown to her because there had been no death or the knowledge of it at that time.  This was not the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of something not heard of or known before to her.  Was this a sin or disobedience or that of curiosity?      Being a human parent now is infinitely harder than being an animal parent.  Animals are born with everything they will ever need to know to exist.  Animals rely on instinct while human life necessities have to be learned.  The awareness of right and wrong is uniquely human to which animals are unable to comprehend or have to live by.  As we strive to defeat or postpone death we engage in activities such as having children, investing in things that will out last us or by becoming creative.  Our God given talent, because of our Godly likeness, allows us to enter into the creativity of our creator as well.      Animals can be useful and obedient, but we on the other hand can be good and Godly.  Eve should be viewed as a heroine, leading her husband into a new world of moral demands, decisions, and consequences.  Whether it was curiosity,, bravery, stupidity, or seductive in nature, it was still part of God’s plan for a like minded creation.      Religion is the voice of Godly morality that reaches out to us and helps us through the boot camp of life’s difficulties.  Sharing insights and experiences to which we can turn to, to help us understand the mind of God and His forgiveness, love, mercy and grace toward us.       If  Adam and Eve had not done as they did man would have been rewarded with never having to work, Eve would have no pain in child bearing or child raising.  There would be no need for parenting because all the children would have all they needed and needed to know to survive at birth.  No tears, no regrets, and never knowing what it is like to cry or laugh.  We would not be creative.  We would never desire something we did not have.  Eventually the garden would be overgrow with neglect for there would be no one to tend it, subdue it, or have dominion over it as Adam was instructed to do in the beginning.      In conclusion I can now see the hand of God where I used to see failure and judgment.  God’s trickery was not to trick Adam and Eve but tricking the serpent into elevating the human race while cursing his decedents.  His decedents life was reduced to a life of deafness and loss of legs to stand up right again.  The loss of hearing was so he could not hear and repent while the loss of his legs reduced his stature and influence to contempt for ever.       It is not just man and woman anymore but a fully likeness human being.   They rejected the Tree of Life, which would have given them eternal life, in favor of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which gave them and us a conscience.  In so doing they chose to be human rather than live forever.    God created Satan evil from the beginning (John 8: 44,  I John 3: 8, and Isiah 14: 12-14) knowing that he was to institute free will into the human race.  Free will not just servitude. WOW!!!      Food for thought: Wisdom will always change its owner first. Life requires participation, not egotistical superiority and greatness. Humiliation is good at exposing our self-righteous persona. A Godly person is one who has no “I” to protect or project. Our worst enemy is the one we see in the mirror.