The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, \u2018You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.\u2019<\/p>\n
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, \u2018Did God say, \u201cYou shall not eat from any tree in the garden\u201d?\u2019 The woman said to the serpent, \u2018We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, \u201cYou shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.\u201d \u2019 But the serpent said to the woman, \u2018You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.\u2019 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.<\/p>\n
1 Happy the one whose transgression is forgiven, \u2022<\/p>\n
and whose sin is covered.<\/p>\n
2 Happy the one to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, \u2022<\/p>\n
and in whose spirit there is no guile.<\/p>\n
3 For I held my tongue; \u2022<\/p>\n
my bones wasted away<\/p>\n
through my groaning all the day long.<\/p>\n
4 Your hand was heavy upon me day and night; \u2022<\/p>\n
my moisture was dried up like the drought in summer.<\/p>\n
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you \u2022<\/p>\n
and my iniquity I did not hide.<\/p>\n
6 I said, \u2018I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,\u2019 \u2022<\/p>\n
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.<\/p>\n
7 Therefore let all the faithful make their prayers to you<\/p>\n
in time of trouble; \u2022<\/p>\n
in the great water flood, it shall not reach them.<\/p>\n
8 You are a place for me to hide in;<\/p>\n
you preserve me from trouble; \u2022<\/p>\n
you surround me with songs of deliverance.<\/p>\n
9 \u2018I will instruct you and teach you<\/p>\n
in the way that you should go; \u2022<\/p>\n
I will guide you with my eye.<\/p>\n
10 \u2018Be not like horse and mule which have no understanding; \u2022<\/p>\n
whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle,<\/p>\n
or else they will not stay near you.\u2019<\/p>\n
11 Great tribulations remain for the wicked, \u2022<\/p>\n
but mercy embraces those who trust in the Lord.<\/p>\n
12 Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in the Lord; \u2022<\/p>\n
shout for joy, all who are true of heart.<\/p>\n
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned\u2014 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.<\/p>\n
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man\u2019s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man\u2019s sin. For the judgement following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man\u2019s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Therefore just as one man\u2019s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man\u2019s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man\u2019s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man\u2019s obedience the many will be made righteous.<\/p>\n
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, \u2018If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.\u2019 But he answered, \u2018It is written,<\/p>\n
\u201cOne does not live by bread alone,<\/p>\n
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, \u2018If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will command his angels concerning you\u201d,<\/p>\n
and \u201cOn their hands they will bear you up,<\/p>\n
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n
Jesus said to him, \u2018Again it is written, \u201cDo not put the Lord your God to the test.\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, \u2018All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.\u2019 Jesus said to him, \u2018Away with you, Satan! for it is written,<\/p>\n
\u201cWorship the Lord your God,<\/p>\n
and serve only him.\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.<\/p>\n
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, \u2018You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.\u2019<\/p>\n
I want us to forget about the serpent in the story. I do not think he is the focus of the Garden of Eden.<\/p>\n
I think this story is more about the purpose of humanity rather than who is to blame for tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I think this knowledge distracts us from our purpose in life. When we get interested in a subject, don\u2019t we sometimes let it take over? Don\u2019t we become obsessed with that knowledge? When that happens, we die to so much \u2013 don\u2019t we we really miss the mark?<\/p>\n
We all know that the Greek word used for sin has this other meaning \u2013 that we miss the mark, and in the case of this knowledge of good and evil, we miss the mark of being innocent or even the reason that Adam and Eve \u2013 indeed that we ourselves \u2013 were placed in that garden. We are to till and keep the garden as we were given it, or indeed we may even improve it \u2013 and I am speaking as a gardener.<\/p>\n
If we lose that purpose, when we are driven out of Eden, any personal comfort has been forsaken, that we do not understand our place in the world, that we have no reason to keep on going, like all those existentialist characters from French literature of the last half of the twentieth century. Isn\u2019t that why the angel with the flaming sword bars our way back to Eden? Isn\u2019t that why we feel abandoned in the desert to make our own way, to toil and work all our days? We feel we have been driven out of the Garden and we must struggle all our days, just like the philosopher says. We have lost the womb of Eden, the family home with loving father and mother. We are wandering strangers in strange lands, like Moses\u2019 father.<\/p>\n
But humanity can never recapture innocence. It is like Pandora\u2019s box, or when the genie is out of the bottle. Once out, it cannot be put back. Once we lose our innocence, we cannot recover it. However, when that child-like innocence is lost, we do know the difference between good and evil. When Adam \u2013 or indeed, we \u2013 eat of the tree of knowledge, it is imperative to choose the good, \u201cto choose life\u201d as the ancient christian writers put it to their audiences. Life is not the cynical self-interest of the worldly. Life is where we are in love with our neighbour. Life is the Good.<\/p>\n
Jesus proposes the Good to us in the Gospel. Jesus shows us how we can live well when we live in faith, hope and love. Sinfulness is not the natural state of humankind. I propose that sinfulness only arises with the knowledge of good and evil, just as we have it in our reading from Genesis. Everyone errs at some point in their lives, we all step off the grand highway of the Lord at some point. But we know we need to get back on. That is when we know we are sinful.<\/p>\n
The infant is not sinful. The child may be dirty and smell bad, but evil is not its nature \u2013 well, I don\u2019t think so. The teenager is difficult and not inherently demonic (although we do call them \u201clittle devils\u201d all the time). It is when they go off on their own, when our children become \u201cof age\u201d, when they legally can drink their beer and cider that we do judge them good or evil, because at that age they can get up to so many more bad things than they can when they are under their parents\u2019 control.<\/p>\n
Yes, there is a time when we do know the difference between good and evil and so we would act upon that knowledge. Isn\u2019t this why we hold our politicians accountable? Isn\u2019t this why there are so many investigations into historical crimes? Isn\u2019t this why we feel guilty about so much in our lives when we reach \u201cmaturity\u201d?<\/p>\n
But why does Paul say this?<\/p>\n
Therefore just as one man\u2019s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man\u2019s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man\u2019s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man\u2019s obedience the many will be made righteous.<\/p>\n
Why is humanity condemned by one man\u2019s trespass? How can Paul interpret the Genesis passage in this way? And then why has the Church followed this interpretation? \u2014 It seems to me that we have become confused. The symbol of Adam and the person of Adam have become identical in the history of the world presented in Genesis.<\/p>\n
Adam is told in the Garden of Eden that on the day he eats of the tree of knowledge, he \u201cwill surely die\u201d. That is a significant symbolic statement. It is symbolically true, not in the sense of the symbolic logic of the scientists, but it is true in the sense of the logic of symbols. Symbols have their own lives and they are what constitute life as we experience it. Coincidently, I picked up Carl Jung\u2019s memoirs just to remind me of what he had said about his life. As I glanced through, I found that Jung described his life in these terms, and he thought analytic psychology investigated that life of symbol, as it is manifest in the life of the individual. In his book, he showed how he came to understand himself in terms of the meanings of his life, in what he took to be symbols in his life. \u2014 But I am not here to do a book review. Rather, if you are interested you can read the book yourselves and perhaps we could all talk about it some time.<\/p>\n
This logic of symbols drives us through the course of our lives. The realm of life is governed by myths, dreams and mysteries as another philosopher tells us. Humanity is depicted in everyday language and the meanings of life disguise themselves in objects of desire and design through those interesting vignettes we remember about yesterday and our earliest memories. Those stories recreate the Garden from which we have banished ourselves and the desert in which we wander.<\/p>\n
When we learn of good and evil, we become people isolated, each one of us is alone, and then we project our limitations and fears on all around us. This is that death to which God condemns enlightened humanity with the prohibition in the Garden. This separation from others is what we have to overcome symbolically and literally in the whole of our lives. Eating of the tree of knowledge brings us to a new knowledge of God \u2013 a knowledge that we have to transcend in order to enter the promised land of the Kingdom of Heaven which is the new Garden of Eden, a garden of delight because therein dwells our Lord<\/p>\n
Readings Old Testament The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, \u2018You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, … Continue reading “First Sunday of Lent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2331,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"purple.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2194","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2196,"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2194\/revisions\/2196"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tolutim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}