Ty, vm, for offering your best effort at answering my question, which is the better than a good job, that is if good is tangible. This brings me to a better understanding, yet in an intangible way, of your view, if that makes sense. If not, I don't know how I could explain myself, except maybe to say that there are a few posters that, if I notice has posted, I enjoy reading, and that I'll refrain from mentioning because I'd rather they remain humble but, I will risk it to say that I am adding you to my good read list.
Thank you very much or your kind but probably undeserved words. However, I've been thinking about my reply and the more I do, the less satisfied I become -- primarily because I tried to cover a lot of ground using a shot gun approach. Unfortunately,
that kind of approach does not lend itself to identifying and focusing on the really important issues to the point of being misleading. So, if you'll bear with me a bit longer, I'll try to emphasize some of them now. Primary among them is that the law of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is one not intended to be to our good. Adam and Eve were fooled into eating its fruit by Satan, so any fruit it produced was of Satan - to include its law, thereby making it his law, not God's. The law in question, and one which natural man is moved to follow, is a law which ostensibly leads to eternal life - but it doesn't and can't. How do we know that that law was intended by Satan to provide a counterfeit to God's law, thereby making Satan appear as God? We can know because its antithesis is the Tree of Life - God's tree, also in the garden - but both being mutually exclusive of each other. If you'll notice, the fruit of the Tree of life only gives eternal life - no preconditions or prerequisites were associated with it whatsoever - it is life in its purest and most eternal form. So, with the law of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as with all laws, comes the requirement to satisfy or achieve it. But, it trying to do so, we violate God's law from the Tree of Life.
The Book of Romans names the equivalent post garden of Eden laws for us. In the New Testament, God named the law of the Tree of life as the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and the law of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as the law of sin and death:
[Rom 8:1-2 KJV]
1 [There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.
While we tend to take our focus off what occurred in the garden of Eden and place it into the background as something over and done, however, I believe it is the very foundation upon which the entire Bible was built and rests - to both the good and the bad. blessing and curse. It is the root cause, and directly related to, everything else that occurred afterwards.
[Rom 5:19-20 KJV]
19 For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
(** "one man's disobedience": Adam
"obedience of one": Christ)
20 Moreover
the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound:
(** the law entered" from Adam's disobedience i.e.. the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil)
i really hope this reply makes sense and adds missing detail to my prior reply. If it doesn't, or if it's unclear,
please don't hesitate to let me know.
:Thanks,
Roger