The Cyber Kazbá

 This blog post is in a series of posts that I am doing on a Biblical Theology of Salvation. It will make much more sense if you read the preceding posts before you read this one. You can find the posts here:

http://cyberkazba.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

The Fall tells a story of man’s first sin. But what exactly is sin? We theologians throw this word around and often times people have one idea in their head when we theologians mean another.

I have heard one person say sin is any thought, word, motive or deed done in commission (doing something you shouldn’t) or omission (not doing the right thing) against the law of God. This I believe is a good starting point but it often is too wordy and many people are still stuck on the last three words. The Law of God, what is the law of God? Did Adam and Eve have the Law of God? Sure God told them not to eat from the tree, but does that mean they never had a selfish motive?

I think the Fall narrative gives us a clearer and even more simplified idea of what sin is. There are two important points in this narrative that will allow us the reality of sin as it took place in the Fall.The two keys I believe are the nature of the garden/cosmos and the nature of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

If you will remember in my previous point on creation that the heavens and the earth were created as a temple (dwelling place) for God. The earth was His sphere of reign, His dome of kingship, His Kingdom. This kingdom was declared by God as “good” and was characterized by Peace (heb. Shalom).

Peace, did not necessarily mean absence of war, or a quiet relaxing night (though certainly that was included!) but peace was how things are supposed to be; it’s when God’s kingdom is manifesting itself entirely.

Adam and Eve were to be co-rulers of this kingdom. They were to “keep” it. They were to reflect the relationship of the trinity to one another and to all of creation. They were to bring the glory of God by displaying it to all the earth as it reflected from their relationship with Him.

This is why Paul says: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (rom. 3:23) Sin is in essence falling short of the glory of God in the manner that we no longer reflect it properly to others and the world around us.

Dallas Willard once said that a possible reason Adam and Eve discovered their nakedness was because the glory of God literally fell away from them. They stopped glowing.

So sin is anything that stands in contrast to character of God and properly transmitting it to creation. Or sin is anything that is in contrast to Shalom.

Also, the tree is a fascinating part of this story. Why did it have such a mysterious name? What exactly does it mean the knowledge of good and evil? Shouldn’t any moral responsible agent have access to the knowledge of what is good and what is not? Why is it so bad to have this knowledge that it will bring sudden death to the one who has it?

I would argue that in fact the knowledge of good and evil is not something a created being should have. For one thing, knowledge often times is much more than just intellectual gain of information. It is more often experiential. We say things like, “Yeah I know how that feels.” “Do you know  how to drive a car with a stick shift?” etc. So experiential knowledge is not always something we should value. We should never have to know what it feels like to bury one of our children. Or know what it’s like to kill a man. etc.

But I would like to take this knowledge a little further than that even. Certainly it was not good for Adam and Eve to experience a fall from the glory of God. But even further than that is they did in fact gain the knowledge of good and evil.

The serpent in essence didn’t lie to them on that. They did become like gods in a sense here. They gained ability to decipher (for themselves) what is good and what is evil. And this, I am telling you, may have been the biggest disaster that occurred at the Fall.

The responsibility of calling the shots on what is good and what is evil is not a responsibility that a created agent can handle. First and foremost, humans’ perspectives are so limited. Its near impossible for us to decipher all the layers of motives, thoughts, actions and words that take place in one moral decision.

But never mind that we are convinced that our opinion is right or our cause is just. We rationalize and justify our actions so that we can declare them good. We judge others based on our own analysis and declare them evil. In essence we have seated ourselves on the throne of judgment on all that is good and evil. God is no longer consulted as we make decisions that are convenient for ourselves all the while we are mostly ignorant to almost everything but ourselves.

Perhaps the worst is when this “gift” of judgement enters into self-reflection. We judge ourselves either too well or far too poorly. Pride or self-deprecation are essentially the same thing. We make a judgment call based on our limited amount of information/experience and act like it’s the golden truth and often times we are trapped in it.

The knowledge of good and evil is like giving a package of C4 to a 2 year old.

Adam and Eve did not have this prior to the Fall. All of their judgement on reality was solely based off of what God declared to them. They had to accept these judgements not because they didn’t know anything different but because they had faith in them and trust in Him. The is why Paul can say; “Anything that is not done in faith is sin.”

So sin is not just an attack on Shalom but is also living without faith. Us humans who have the knowledge of good and evil have to learn how to not trust our judgments, and learn how to accepts God’s judgments of reality on faith.

We have to accept that many things we do are destroying ourselves and others. We have to stop pressing our judgments on others. We have to humbly release our seat on the throne of truth and submit to God.

We have to accept that we are made in the image of God and have incredible worth even when nothing in our mind/experience tells us this. We have accept that God loves us when we feel unlovable. We have to trust that God’s judgment on reality is the best thing for us because He really does have the proper perspective on everything.

This is salvation. When we are rescued from our own trap of reality that we have created for ourselves and submit it to the reality of God’s judgements. When we staring living in accordance with the Word of God by faith then we can begin to reflect His glory to the earth.