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The Tree of Knowledge
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Howdy! Glad you’ve joined me again this morning. Hope you had a really good rest last night, and are ready to pick up where we left off yesterday.
My coffee is ready, my cup is poured, and I’m ready to fire on all cylinders. Actually, I’ve already had my first cup, and I’m starting my second.
Pour your cup of Expresso, or Green Tea, or whatever is you’re having today, and let’s go.
Let me start today by recapping a part of what we discussed yesterday, as well as adding to where we’ve already been.
Creation was set in motion for the exclusive purpose of bringing into being, nurturing, and bringing forth to maturity a Bride, if you will – a people – who would be the co-equal counterpart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan's deception of Adam and Eve in the Garden was no surprise to God. It didn't catch Him off guard. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all knew before creation even began that Adam and Eve would succumb to the enticement of the Serpent to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.
The Garden of Eden, along with all of its delights, and the Tree of Life -- and the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil -- were created as the initiating place within a kind of laboratory, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. It was the environment in which this unique species of being -- mankind -- would be given its first opportunity to choose relationship and union with the Lord by a freewill choice.
A Bride, after all, who was to become co-equal with the Lord Jesus Christ -- a Bride who was to be His counterpart, His other self; a Bride who was to merge into and join with this One, this Being who was Supreme above all other beings; a Bride who was to fellowship in a place of love and intimacy with this Being who was both Lord, King, and God incarnate -- must, of necessity, choose Him and His desires to the setting aside of all other choices.
Wheww!! Was that longwinded eloquence or what? Almost ran out breath with that statement.
The Garden contained the first opportunity for choice: The Tree of Life, or the Tree of Knowledge. This would be the most important choice mankind could make, since to choose the Tree of Life would be to choose the desire of the Lord over the temptation of the flesh. To choose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would set in motion events which, if left unchecked, could bring an end to the entire plan of Creation.
For Adam and Eve to choose the Tree of Knowledge would initiate the deadliest virus anyone could possibly imagine within the human frame: the "Knowledge Virus." This virus would bring death to virtually every member of the human race.
It would also create and set in motion a series of events which would force those who desired relationship with the Lord to overcome spiritual forces pitted against them -- evil spirits and wicked principalities who would take up dominion over the whole earth, whose entire existence revolved around defeating the heart's desire of the Lord Jesus Christ. These would be spiritual forces which could only be overcome in the place of union with the Lord. It would also force mankind to overcome mountainous obstacles which were designed to entice, subvert, and attract the desires of human flesh and human will.
Unchecked, the quest and thirst for knowledge is a virus. I sometimes refer to it as the H.I.V. of the spirit. We’ll come back to this in a minute.
This choice, as I said before, was the most important choice to ever face mankind. To choose the Tree of Life after the serpent’s inducement to choose the Tree of Knowledge, its enticements and delights, would be equivalent to a total rejection of the legitimacy of Satan and his lies. To reject the Tree of Knowledge would be to overcome the screaming of the flesh for creature comforts and tasty goodies.
It would be tantamount to questioning the Serpent, “Since when do you dispute the veracity and validity of God’s word? Where do you get off assuming that your statements and claims are on a par with the Lord God? You are a created being like us – not THE CREATOR!"
Hmmmm….. The consequences of such a response and choice would have forever sealed the destiny of the human race. It would have instantly sealed the fate of that old Serpent, Lucifer, and rejected the validity of his existence. He would have been a non-entity, as far as the human race was concerned. The seed of Adam and Eve would have been born into this world with that choice of the Tree of Life veritably ingrained and incorporated into their genetic structure. Relationship with the Lord would have been the natural and automatic choice of their descendants.
It didn't work out that way, did it? Adam and Eve blew it! They chose the Tree of Knowledge. They bought into the Serpent's lies and insinuations, believing that "acquired knowledge" would put them on a par with the Lord God.
Somehow they had forgotten that they had been created to be in union with the Lord -- that in the place of that union, their strength, their power, their authority, their very existence superseded the most sagacious argument Satan could bethink. They missed the fact that the wisdom of God functioning in them surpassed the Serpent’s most inventive artifice.
Yup!
But it didn't take God by surprise. Creation’s plan had already taken their choice into account. They were going to have to overcome incredible spiritual obstacles. They were going to have to overcome the thirst in their souls and minds -- no, a force which would absolutely rule their beings -- for more, and more, and more, and more knowledge. So long as they succumbed to this quest for knowledge, they would forever learn, and learn, and learn, and learn, and never come to the knowledge of the Truth!
Knowledge would lead them, and their descendants -- the human race as a whole -- to wrong conclusions. Knowledge would steer men and women down a path which would lead them to conclude that man had somehow evolved out of the primordial goo -- the chaos which existed on this planet prior to present Creation. Knowledge would lead men and women to discover......Science! And their minds would become further mucked up because they would fail to realize that "science" is the domain of the Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who set all of these things in motion.
Let me pause for a second. You understand my use of the word, domain, do you not? It is the realm where one’s dominion or rulership is exercised. Thus the “scientific domain” is a realm where God makes the rules. Men attempt to discover those rules, and often get things messed up because they try to explain science exclusively in a natural realm.
Continuing with the overview…..
Men would use science improperly by attempting to gain knowledge through the study of history, the study of geology, the study of the laws of physics, the study of mathematics, and the study of the human frame itself. They would pursue that study to the very exclusion of the domain which controls the realm of the soul, the realm of the mind and the realm of the flesh. This domain controls the realm of every natural thing which exists -- whether past, present or future.
It is the realm of the Spirit!
This pursuit of knowledge would lead men and women to prison. It would lead them into servitude to the very being who enticed Adam and Eve -- to the one who tricked them into trading the Tree of Life and intimate relationship with the Lord for the momentary pleasure of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: Satan himself.
I made the point earlier that eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil produced a virus, the H.I.V. of the spirit. In the natural realm, there are no known cures for H.I.V. Medical science has found ways of delaying some of its catastrophic results, but they are only delays – not cures.
Knowledge acquired through human pursuit is often the deadly enemy of knowledge gained through revelation from the Holy Spirit. Revealed knowledge produces life. It produces more intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. It produces an authority that supersedes natural or physical authority.
Academic knowledge satisfies the ego momentarily, but leaves one’s spirit empty. Academic knowledge is a tool of the Fear of Man, and that enemy uses knowledge to separate folks from one another, dividing them into classes we call “educated,” and “uneducated,” or perhaps “brilliant” and “stupid.”
Academia now has a politically correct term they call “being learning disabled.” It is man’s excuse for the fact that he just doesn’t know how to communicate Truth. It is man’s excuse for their own ignorance of spiritual warfare, or dealing with spiritual issues that affect one’s ability to grasp and retain “acquired knowledge.” It is sheer ignorance of a realm of the spirit in which an individual has a spiritual blockade to “natural learning.”
Natural learning and academically gotten knowledge have become gods in this age. The currently taught philosophy is that “Knowledge is Power. Knowledge is King.”
Hogwash! The truth is that knowledge can be deadly when left to stand on its own. We’ll discuss this in a just a jiffy.
Personally, I’ve learned a lot through academic pursuits. Funny thing, though. My academic pursuits, my education in colleges and universities has led me down a path toward ignorance. What I’ve learned from academic pursuits is that the more I learn, the stupider I get – at least in terms of any benefit to my spiritual life.
Sure, I may understand electronic engineering a whole lot better as a result of my studies. I may have a better grasp of English than a lot of folks. I may be able to communicate things on a level at which folks can understand and learn. But those skills only provide abilities to function on a natural level – a level that is transitory at best.
Let me put it another way. Every piece of knowledge I have learned through the acquired methods or academically is subject to change or revision. Human knowledge is constantly in a state of flux. Every piece of knowledge or wisdom I have received directly from the Lord is permanent. It is not subject to change. It will not flex or be modified with time. That’s what differentiates knowledge gained from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from revealed Truth through and by the Spirit of God.
None of those bits or pieces of education or acquired knowledge make me a better person. They have nothing whatever to do with my character or makeup. They do nothing to improve my ability to communicate with the Lord and/or fulfill the most important aspect of human existence: the dimension of the spirit.
As much as I have enjoyed teaching over the years, I’ve come to realize it is the reliance on academic or acquired knowledge that contaminates the spirit. Understand the difference?
I’m not saying that it is the knowledge itself, but reliance on that knowledge that is destructive to one’s spirit and or spiritual existence. That’s the trap folks generally fall into.
Remember God’s warning to Adam and Eve? “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.”
Was God simply saying, ‘Don’t touch,’ because He wanted to see Adam and Eve fail – so He could suddenly show up with a flaming sword and say to them, “Out of here!”? Of course not.
It was a command given in love. It was a warning of what would happen if the human race began to ingest the wrong kind of knowledge or use methods to acquire knowledge apart from that which He reveals in and through the Holy Spirit.
Thus the partaking of the fruit of that tree brought the Fear of Evil and its huge family of fears; the Knowledge of Good, along with pride, arrogance and religion to replace the once-personal relationship between God and man; and – for the first time in history – death. Adam and Eve were not created to die. They were created to live in fellowship and communion with God.
And from what I can see in Scripture, they lived in the Garden for a couple of thousand years prior to their fall.
Consider a unique parallel in Scripture. (I’m drawing a picture for you based on my understanding – this isn’t some new, screwy doctrine.) Adam and Eve were created at the beginning of the sixth day. They lived through the sixth and seventh days in fellowship and communion with the Lord.
The apostle Peter, in his second general epistle to the Body of Christ, wrote,
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
If we take that as a literal application to Adam and Eve, we can state that they lived in the Garden for two thousand years – two days in God’s economy.
At the beginning of the third day of their existence, and the eighth day following the beginning of Creation, the serpent enticed Eve to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Fear was born into the human race. Knowledge came to mankind, but so did death. Thus Adam and Eve lived for 930 years following their eviction from the Garden, and they died
“in the day…. (they ate)…thereof.”
Adam and Eve died on the third day of their existence – reckoning time according to the methodology Peter used. They died because they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
When John the Baptist saw Jesus and baptized Him in the River Jordan, he said of Jesus,
“And now also, the axe is laid unto the root of the tree.” (The KJV has it plural, but the Greek text has it singular.) What tree are we talking about? Why, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, of course!
When Jesus died on the Cross, he is said three times in the NT to have been hung on a tree. In Acts 5:30, Stephen is preaching, and he says,
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hung on a tree.”
Jesus was hung on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember, it was their errant “knowledge of the Law” that drove the Scribes and Pharisees with such hatred to crucify Him.
It was imperative that the Tree of Knowledge be destroyed. It was imperative that Jesus take all of the sins of mankind that began with eating from that tree. He took those sins with Himself when He was hung on the tree, thus dissolving and destroying the penalty for those sins on behalf of all those who would enter into a relationship with Him, acknowledge His Lordship, and repent.
Repentance from partaking of the fruit of that Tree, however, is more than simply saying,
“I’m sorry,” to the Lord. The implications extend into every aspect of our daily lives. Death is the certainty to the human race from eating that fruit. Thus, Jesus had to hang on that tree, take all of the effects of that tree’s contamination of the human race and put it to death.
Had he simply died on the Cross, it would have killed the penalty but not provided resurrection from death for those who have partaken. Therefore, even as Adam died on the third day from partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so also did Jesus rise from the dead on the third day.
Resurrection life became a reality for all who accept His sacrifice. Eternity with Him became the promise – the restored promise – for partaking instead of the Tree of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
This is a critical foundation for all of us in our understanding. Without this understanding, making sense out of the Fear of Evil, its family of fears, the Fear of Man and its family of fears, and the Fear of Death with its family has no place to begin. In the days and weeks to come, we will revisit this discussion and complete our conversations in dealing with and expelling these spirits of fear.
May this day be exceptionally blessed for you. Be blessed in your labors. See you tomorrow!
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
EKKLESIA HOUSE
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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This article may be reprinted, reposted, copied and re-used – in whole or in part – with proper attribution.
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