Did God REALLY say?

I don't think what I am about to write will be "groundbreaking" but the thought behind this post occurred to me recently while watching a sermon about Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The premise was that when Eve and Adam ate of the tree, they were asserting their independence from God. In essence they were telling God, "We no longer will trust you to decide what good and evil is, WE will now decide on our own." This idea, which I think is very valid and makes more sense than the simple act of eating a piece of fruit ruining society for millenia, is what gave rise to the next thought...which is now the basis for this post.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they did become like God in that they would now KNOW both good and evil. When I use the word KNOW, I would like to replace it with the words "personally experience". So, the thought would go, " When you eat of the fruit, you will become like God, personally experiencing both good and evil." God created all things "good", yet knew that Satan and his evil angels had rebelled. He had experienced sin already and a saddened heart caused by the heavenly rebellion. He did not want Adam and Eve to have to experience this knowledge of sin. Satan of course did, as he wants all of God's good creation to suffer and experience pain, sadness, loss, death, sickness, etc.

So, I think this passage has a double meaning. One being, that after Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they would become autonomous and rebellious against God's laws and would make their own as they saw fit...and the result of this rebellion would be that they would EXPERIENCE the evil results themselves, as would the rest of humanity. They would now know, from first hand experience, both good and evil.

This is where we are today folks. Making our own way as opposed to taking God's word and obeying it. Result : death, sickness, rape, murder, pride, vanity, lust, abortion, selfishness, hate, envy, cheating, stealing, ....all the while, we still see good...we still see love, friendship, caring, joy, honesty, commitment....we KNOW both good and evil. And we DO both good and evil. Jesus is the perfect picture of a human actually LIVING all good, all the time. Something I WISH I could do but fail at repeatedly and daily. What did Jesus experience? He was a man full of sorrows, well aquainted with grief. Why? Because all of humanity around him were not living as he was...and they also hated him for being God's obedient son. We are a rebellious people. Rebels get chaos. They think they are achieving freedom...but instead we become slaves.

Look at our world...we have all the choices of what we want available to us...and yet, our whole world is enslaved to so much pain. Every problem is so complex that not one nation has found an answer that works flawlessly. We are ENSLAVED to this world and the results of sin. God told us we would see death if we ate of that tree...and not only Adam and Eve have rebelled, but each of us has ever since....to our own pain and suffering....which God desired to spare us. He continues to want to spare us this pain....which is why he gave us Christ...to escape this slavery. He has a new Kingdom for us. He invites everyone, but some still want the fruit of the tree instead. Those who eat of it will surely die. God really DID say.