Knowing Good and Evil

Is abortion right or wrong? Is homosexuality good or evil? Is turning refugees from your shores the right thing to do? When is war ever justifiable?

Everyone has his own opinion. Today, what is good or evil has become vague, and what is right or wrong, unclear. Instinctively, we feel the need to reach out for answers, believing that experience, expertise and education would give us the wisdom we need.

And so it has been with Man right from the beginning. In the story of Genesis, Adam and Eve sought wisdom by eating the fruit from the tree of ‘knowledge of good and evil’ and indeed became like God.

The common understanding is that consuming the fruit gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil, but how does the humble fruit actually achieve this?

By becoming the light that reveals the potential of good and evil already in Adam and Eve, the potential for good and evil in each of us.

By choosing to eat the fruit, Adam and Eve knew they had disobeyed God, and the subsequent shame they felt, hiding from God, showed how clearly they knew right from wrong.

Conversely, however, if Adam and Eve had chosen not to eat the fruit, they would still have known what was right and what was wrong!

This is the knowledge of good and evil. 

Good and evil were something that they created from their hearts, through the choice that they made and the action that followed.

In choosing disobedience to become “wise”, to become like God knowing good and evil, they became their own gods; they chose death. God had already told Adam in no uncertain terms, that in the day that he eats of the tree “you shall dying (surely) die”.

Had they obeyed and not eaten, they would still have become “wise” and been able to differentiate and know good and evil. This time, though, they would have become like God through obedience and lived to enjoy life always with God. 

The Son of God became human like us, increasing in wisdom and stature, able to differentiate and show us good and evil, through love and obedience, unto death, even the death of the cross. For Jesus, to obey Father God is to love Him. To love Father God is to obey Him. Love is ever joined as one to obedience and obedience to love in relating to Father God, as should have been the case in Eden. As a human being, he lived love and obedience, as a God and man preferred valid option, for man to be like God with God. His resurrection from the dead, ascension to heaven and being crowned King of kings and Lord of lords, attest to this.

For this reason, God has validated his life and actions by highly exalting him, and granting to him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ (the man) is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

A man has become like God, the man Christ Jesus.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was in Eden to also empower Adam and Eve to become aware of who they are and the impact their choices  for good and evil.

Today, Jesus is with us, to empower us through Holy Spirit, to become aware of who we are, differentiate between good and evil, and participate with us to create good for ourselves and others, through love and obedience to God. It was not and is not an easy thing to do, to create an impact for good and not evil. The road is straight and narrow, requiring much effort and sacrifices through love and obedience to God.

Jesus is God and man’s measure for differentiating and knowing good and evil.

Only by allowing him to empower us with Holy Spirit, to participate in our lives, with his knowledge of good and evil, through love and obedience to God, can we become agents creating good and all that is right for life. 

Today, through Jesus, all of us have been given a choice to know and differentiate good and evil, through love and obedience to God and be participants with God for good and all that is right for life.

What is your choice today?