Retro One
20/01/07 11:29
Homosexuality, Abortion, and Going to the Gym in the
Garden of Eden - November 30, 2006
I’ve been thinking about the good ol’ Garden of Eden lately. I wish things were still the way God originally intended (no pain, sickness, and slavery – just a beautiful understanding of our work, enjoyment, sexuality [back to the nude?!!], relationships, and spirituality), but I also look forward to the day when God will restore that original plan and expand it beyond a garden to a whole new Heaven and Earth for eternity. Woohoo!!
But thinking about that original garden and the whole story of humanity, I wonder why God put those two special trees in the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Knowing that their very presence would give us the opportunity to catapult onto the sinful path that we’ve now tumbled down, why did He even create them? Well, that must be because God knew that He could only be in a loving, passionate, voluntary relationship with humanity if we actually had a choice in obeying and following Him (ie ‘eat from the tree or don’t eat from it&rsquo
.
The reason God gave us for avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was that we would “surely die” when eating of it [Genesis 2:17 NIV]. I have always thought that that statement was God’s threat saying that ‘He would kill us’ if we disobeyed His plan. But maybe that’s not the main point. Maybe God said that because He knew that we would kill ourselves if we ‘knew good and evil’. Perhaps Satan – as he often does – used that truth and twisted it when he deceived Eve saying, “You will not surely die… For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…” [Genesis 3:4-5 NIV].
Look at humanity today and throughout history. When wrestling with issues our natural instinct is to take ‘the easiest route’. Usually, that route is ‘the bottom line’, or, the legal line separating what in the issue is ‘right or wrong’. We don’t want to take a look at the hard questions on the spiritual, emotional, relational, or economic reasons why a mom no longer wants to have the baby she is carrying… - we just want to know when a fetus is actually considered a human being so we can know if abortion is legal or not. We don’t want to ask why God’s original intent for sexuality and family involved the uniqueness of a man and a woman… - we just want to know if some people are genetically predisposed to it so that we have a ‘natural excuse’ for it.
Generally, humans want to know where the bottom line is, and then we dance as close to it as possible without getting hurt (which almost never works, because we almost always keep pushing until we go past the line… - and so we kill ourselves). That is my ‘genetic predisposition’ in a nutshell. I so easily take my eyes off of God and the “tree of life” and get wrapped up in dancing around the line between good and evil. When I go to the gym I start-out with a good vision for being healthy and strong. I set goals and make specific plans that are supposed to help me move toward that vision, but somehow these goals and plans quickly become my slaves and replace my original vision. So I find myself trying to lift 230 pounds because I lifted 225 last time and I have to keep increasing… - never mind the fact that I’m more tired today and I can’t lift it without losing my form and sacrificing the specific muscle workout that I’m actually trying to accomplish with this lift. So I ask ‘what lines can I cross and not cross’ in my relationship with my girlfriend instead of ‘how can our every action right now be part of journeying towards making the marriage that we may one day enjoy together the most meaningful it can be - as God intended it?’ We ask ‘how much can I drink without getting drunk’ instead of ‘how can alcohol most healthily be used for enjoyment?’
To be sure, as long as we’re on this Earth there will always be ‘bottom lines’. The law always has and always will have a function. Unfortunately, if we really knew where that bottom line was more often, I think we’d realize how hopeless our chances of living according to ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ really are. When Jesus talked with the pharisaical people (like us) who thought they had drawn most of the lines and followed the right rules in His day, He just bumped the line higher and showed them how far from the bottom line all of us as humans are. We thought the bottom line was committing the actual act of adultery. Jesus points out that by dreaming the idea in your mind (ie simply looking at a woman lustfully) you’ve already sinned in your motivation. Perhaps you just lacked the actual opportunity to act on it. Murdering someone isn’t the bottom line… - you’re murdering them in your head when you hate them.
Yikes! God help us! Who of us has managed to live by that standard?! We have no chance living according to that! No wonder God didn’t want us to eat from the tree of life after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we realized how far we fall short of God’s ‘line’ between good and evil (I believe we call this His “righteousness&rdquo, it would be terrible to be stuck
living forever in that eternal state of ‘not
measuring up’! It’s a good thing Scripture
reminds us that God sent His Son to die and be
raised to life for us so that we could be set
free from that ‘bottom line’ – the law. Satan
was right in saying that humans would be like
God in knowing good and evil by eating from that
tree. Unfortunately, we believed the lie he
combined with that truth in believing that we’d
actually be like God in being strong enough to
live by it. But – unless you are the first human
being besides Christ to break that record (and
please write me if you are!!) – we aren’t. All
the law, or ‘the knowledge of good and evil’,
can really do at this point is show us where we
so often fall short of what is best.
God, I’m glad You haven’t given up on us… - and I’m glad You’re recreating Eden .
I’ve been thinking about the good ol’ Garden of Eden lately. I wish things were still the way God originally intended (no pain, sickness, and slavery – just a beautiful understanding of our work, enjoyment, sexuality [back to the nude?!!], relationships, and spirituality), but I also look forward to the day when God will restore that original plan and expand it beyond a garden to a whole new Heaven and Earth for eternity. Woohoo!!
But thinking about that original garden and the whole story of humanity, I wonder why God put those two special trees in the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Knowing that their very presence would give us the opportunity to catapult onto the sinful path that we’ve now tumbled down, why did He even create them? Well, that must be because God knew that He could only be in a loving, passionate, voluntary relationship with humanity if we actually had a choice in obeying and following Him (ie ‘eat from the tree or don’t eat from it&rsquo
.
The reason God gave us for avoiding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was that we would “surely die” when eating of it [Genesis 2:17 NIV]. I have always thought that that statement was God’s threat saying that ‘He would kill us’ if we disobeyed His plan. But maybe that’s not the main point. Maybe God said that because He knew that we would kill ourselves if we ‘knew good and evil’. Perhaps Satan – as he often does – used that truth and twisted it when he deceived Eve saying, “You will not surely die… For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…” [Genesis 3:4-5 NIV].
Look at humanity today and throughout history. When wrestling with issues our natural instinct is to take ‘the easiest route’. Usually, that route is ‘the bottom line’, or, the legal line separating what in the issue is ‘right or wrong’. We don’t want to take a look at the hard questions on the spiritual, emotional, relational, or economic reasons why a mom no longer wants to have the baby she is carrying… - we just want to know when a fetus is actually considered a human being so we can know if abortion is legal or not. We don’t want to ask why God’s original intent for sexuality and family involved the uniqueness of a man and a woman… - we just want to know if some people are genetically predisposed to it so that we have a ‘natural excuse’ for it.
Generally, humans want to know where the bottom line is, and then we dance as close to it as possible without getting hurt (which almost never works, because we almost always keep pushing until we go past the line… - and so we kill ourselves). That is my ‘genetic predisposition’ in a nutshell. I so easily take my eyes off of God and the “tree of life” and get wrapped up in dancing around the line between good and evil. When I go to the gym I start-out with a good vision for being healthy and strong. I set goals and make specific plans that are supposed to help me move toward that vision, but somehow these goals and plans quickly become my slaves and replace my original vision. So I find myself trying to lift 230 pounds because I lifted 225 last time and I have to keep increasing… - never mind the fact that I’m more tired today and I can’t lift it without losing my form and sacrificing the specific muscle workout that I’m actually trying to accomplish with this lift. So I ask ‘what lines can I cross and not cross’ in my relationship with my girlfriend instead of ‘how can our every action right now be part of journeying towards making the marriage that we may one day enjoy together the most meaningful it can be - as God intended it?’ We ask ‘how much can I drink without getting drunk’ instead of ‘how can alcohol most healthily be used for enjoyment?’
To be sure, as long as we’re on this Earth there will always be ‘bottom lines’. The law always has and always will have a function. Unfortunately, if we really knew where that bottom line was more often, I think we’d realize how hopeless our chances of living according to ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ really are. When Jesus talked with the pharisaical people (like us) who thought they had drawn most of the lines and followed the right rules in His day, He just bumped the line higher and showed them how far from the bottom line all of us as humans are. We thought the bottom line was committing the actual act of adultery. Jesus points out that by dreaming the idea in your mind (ie simply looking at a woman lustfully) you’ve already sinned in your motivation. Perhaps you just lacked the actual opportunity to act on it. Murdering someone isn’t the bottom line… - you’re murdering them in your head when you hate them.
Yikes! God help us! Who of us has managed to live by that standard?! We have no chance living according to that! No wonder God didn’t want us to eat from the tree of life after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we realized how far we fall short of God’s ‘line’ between good and evil (I believe we call this His “righteousness&rdquo
, it would be terrible to be stuck
living forever in that eternal state of ‘not
measuring up’! It’s a good thing Scripture
reminds us that God sent His Son to die and be
raised to life for us so that we could be set
free from that ‘bottom line’ – the law. Satan
was right in saying that humans would be like
God in knowing good and evil by eating from that
tree. Unfortunately, we believed the lie he
combined with that truth in believing that we’d
actually be like God in being strong enough to
live by it. But – unless you are the first human
being besides Christ to break that record (and
please write me if you are!!) – we aren’t. All
the law, or ‘the knowledge of good and evil’,
can really do at this point is show us where we
so often fall short of what is best.
God, I’m glad You haven’t given up on us… - and I’m glad You’re recreating Eden .
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