Outdated lingo... "original sin"

“By defying God and eating the fruit, they doubted his goodness—God must be keeping something from us—and challenged his authority—we know what’s best for us better than God does.” 

                              -Explore God blogger

     The trickery is not in the enticement, but the lie “you will not die." The tree gave knowledge of good and evil, thus being like God in this knowledge. This is one of the defining differences between us and The Creator. We were created with limited knowledge, only knowing that which is good. The Creator being the Origin of what is good, knows what is not of him, that which is outside good; evil. However this knowledge does not affect who The Creator is, like it does us, for it is we only who were created. The problem with humanity is that we cannot handle this knowledge. God notified them that eating this tree would bring death. It is an interpretation upon the reader that this is a command because of the “you shall not,” but to view this as a command is to misunderstand the purposes of commands. Paul says that the law was to point out our sin, yet no sin existed when the “you shall not” was spoken. Is telling a child they are free to play in the front yard, side yard, backyard, and even in the drive way, but they cannot play in the street because they could be hit by a car a command of authority? Is the “you shall not” a dictation of power and law or a statement of protection and love?

     Authority is exerted because of a desire to rebel. Humanity at this point had no such desire. Humanities focus was on accomplishing the purpose of the Creator (to be an ever expanding carbon based presence of God on Earth). The “shall not” statement was a warning concerning the destruction of humanities purpose. Since there is not really any “authority” to be exerted, they could not have been challenging God’s authority.

     Now, they did believe the lie; that what God said is not reflective of reality. And why did they believe the lie; because there was a compelling argument against the Creator? Or was it because of their past experiences of being let down by God? Since neither of these is described in the story we can safely assume those were not the cause. The only thing we have to go on is the enticement, “You will be like God.” Man and Woman would no longer be the arbiters, but the standard bearers of all that is. The I AM would be replaced by the WE ARE. The enticement was of self-focused delusions. The interest in self was the “original sin”, and the same sin we still commit today.

     So how is our selfishness abolished? By clinging onto the selfless act of a loving God taking our curse of death that was not his punishment and offering our lives to be lived through, thus fulfilling our original created purpose.

Sin = Disobedience???

Our problem might not be disobedience.

Many say that the “original sin” was Adam and Eve’s disobedience, yet Paul taught that

sin existed before the Law. The Creator did give an oral command to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.  The oral command was disobeyed, but is that all there is to sin? In the book of Romans, it was stated that death came through sin. Consider that when reading the words “Do not eat for you will die,” and there seems to be something a bit more complex to this sin idea than just disobedience.

Our God is one of logic and sense, for our universe is reflective of that and if he were not logical then we could by no means say that “God is good” for it is only logic that can differentiate between good and bad. Much of the writings in the bible relate God’s will or desire, his purposes. God is one of purpose and not of purposelessness (logical deduction). Therefore there is purpose to why eating of the tree would

bring death and purpose as to why the tree was called Knowledge of Good and Evil. These two purposes are directly tied to each other.

The Creator declared everything good, and humanity was created in the likeness of the one who created it. Thus, humanity was originally good and had knowledge of what was good, for it was natural. This tree was of knowledge of good AND evil. By eating of this tree humanity became dual natured. Humanity carries the intrinsic value of the created good, but also operates in the futility of self-based enthusiasm. It is from this dual natured existence that death is now our curse and the perpetuator of our ongoing sin (self-based enthusiasm).

The curse of death is not a punishment for disobedience but a consequence to the choice of eating the fruit. This was clear from the start. For if you eat, you will die. Humanity chose self, over The Creator’s purpose, thus bringing the curse of death upon humanity. The other curses the Creator placed on man, woman, and the serpent fell on them like a domino effect. Humanity was made from the dust of the earth and in death humanity returns to the dust of the earth. The spoiling of our Earth is in the curse of death, for it is in toil that humanity labors to survive, and it is in pain and suffering that we continue to survive as a species. The serpent (representing all of the animals on earth) was changed bound the ground to eat the cursed earth, no longer in peace, but death and enmity. All of this not because of disobedience, but because of what they ate, and how it changed them.