Two Trees, One Choice…#oops! Another Bite

In our last post we read how Adam and Eve went from a blissful experiencing of being in union with God to hiding among the trees (not a bush), fearing God’s condemnation, judgement and wrath. Their eyes opened, they birthed a new chapter of human history of living through a distorted and grotesque identity of orphanness and separateness. All from believing the accuser’s lie that they were not already like Father and had to do something to become so. Knowing good and evil they felt condemned and perceived such condemnation as originating in God’s true heart toward them now revealed: God may present as loving but in reality, He is always keeping account! This distorted perception caused Adam to hide from and reject Father. That was one nasty piece of fruit!

Adam was obsessed – as the entire human race is still – with knowledge of good and evil. We believe our righteousness is a reward for having earned a heightened, existential state after years of dedicated service, asceticism and willpower: a place solely reserved for the spiritual elite. Knowing good and overcoming evil…as if!

The Triune God, however, is obsessed with Life and Relationship. When God came to Adam and Eve to enquire about their fruit compote, did He prove the accuser’s lie and verify Adam’s now warped perception of Him by judging and condemning as Adam now expected? By weighing, in that moment, what was good or evil and coming to a legal pronouncement? Did He mention sin? Did Father shame or blame by shouting and chastising? Absolutely not! He is Relational. He never said, “What have you done?! You muppet!! Do you know what this means!? How could you!?” Nope…He gently asked His children, “Where are you?” This was not a geographical enquiry but a relational one. As in, “Where is my little princess?”, (the one you know is in there, when your two year old throws a wobbler….I’ve no idea what that is!) It was seeing Adam as He always saw him. Father’s Heart was entirely focused on restoring communion and fellowship once more with His precious children!

Father was not interested in Adam’s sin…per se (I am introducing some meat into your diet here). Unbelief is the issue, with its resulting death and dying unleashed in Adam and all mankind which now prevented communion with the Triune Life. Such union was always God’s eternal plan even before creation, remember?

The problem was, when Adam tasted the knowledge of good and evil he believed the lie he was thus like God…just as the accuser said. Adam can no longer trust God but fears His wrath for he felt judged and condemned in himself. Adam judged and condemned himself and assumed this was Father’s heart toward him. You too would hide! But, Father was not whom Adam believed nor perceived Him to be: a harsh judge. Father is not a two-faced dad who conceals his worst attributes as best He can until one day He explodes with anger as a specific trigger is tripped. Adam thought he tripped that trigger with his fruit smoothie. Adam saw through a tainted, distorted lens of knowledge and legalism, believing God was therefore like him, creating god in his own image. Adam forgot, he was like God. We are God’s dream and idea, He is not ours. Creating god in our image is religion and will sentence us to a life of miserable legalism, performance drivenness and dead works, a joyless striving that sacrifices our dreams, our families and our rest.

If you are still thinking of that word I wrote earlier, sin, please understand that sin is not a legal term. Its image is that of a beast waiting to devour you because you have forgotten who you are and whose you are: you live accordingly, as if apart and independent from God. It is rooted in identity. The greek word translated “sin”, hamartia, has its root meaning of, ‘without form’. It is a slipping into non-existence, a death of your true innocence, your true sonship. Jesus said He never came to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17). To save us from our own delusional state of being, a twisted and distorted mindset that blinds us and keeps us in darkness We grope along a wall like we have no eyes to see at all, stuck in a desolate place as a dead man (Is. 59:10). Yum! The Light of the World came in flesh but we loved the darkness having grown accustomed to it. Are there any more blind than those who will not to see, for they think they know the truth?

Knowledge of good and evil, a sinful state of existence, causes you to hide. Adam was petrified, fearing condemnation and death at God’s hands. But God is pure Love and Life itself! Oh, Adam would burn in an Eternal Fire for sure, but it is Father’s Love and Passion for His children that is the very fire that burns eternally! (More meat!) Adam and Eve could now only perceive such Love and Passion through their minds eye (knowledge) as a gross misrepresentation and perversion. Father became Judge. Love became wrath. Joy became fear. Passion became suffering. But God never changed! Nothing changed in His love for Adam nor His creation. Thus, to prevent Adam from living forever in this cancerous state of dying in death, slipping into non-existence, God placed Adam outside the garden so as he would not eat from the Tree of Life.

We judge/d ourselves! It’s this judgement of ourselves and all its perverse consequences and cancerous manifestations that Jesus took upon Himself on the Cross. Not a judgement intended for us that originated in the twisted heart of a malevolent Father, Son or Holy Spirit! Jesus became sin. He became our death and dying, our non-existence. And He killed it! He crucified it and we were co-crucified with Him, and co-raised to new life an entirely new creation in Christ Jesus, the last Adam. Adamic nature undone as Christ restored our original innocence, cleansed our conscience and redeemed His image and likeness in human skin. Finished. Thank you Jesus!

It’s not about covering yourself, trying harder, improving your performance or cleaning yourself up to present yourself as holy. It’s about what He alone has already accomplished. You are His image and Likeness in flesh, His Righteousness, His Holiness, His Peace, His Faith, His Joy. You are as He is.

We are free to come out from the trees, (a lie, for there is no separation, not even a leaf!) and behold Him once more, seeing ourselves in Christ Jesus, Father’s beloved child. Pure, Forgiven, Holy, Accepted, Righteous. As we always were to Him!

Thank you, Father, for Your Grace! For Christ’s finished work. For the Anointing and Witness of Holy Spirit to our sonship! The new Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the Law of sin and death!

“Why did Jesus die? He died because the Triune God loves us with an everlasting and passionate love, because the Triune God absolutely refuses to allow us to be destroyed…Jesus Christ did not become human to fix the Fall; He became human to accomplish the Eternal purpose of our adoption and in order to bring our adoption to pass, the Fall had to be called to a halt and undone…” C Baxter Kruger; Jesus and the Undoing of Adam.

As He is

Ger