"Why Adam Had No Clue" (audio transcript from James Flanders)

This one made a lot of sense. In fact, it made a lot of things that have always been cloudy suddenly clear. I always wondered why Adam and Eve would have eaten the fruit. Now it makes sense!

You can find the original audio as well as several others dealing with the topic of evil at this link:  http://www.jamesflanders.com/3/category/evil/1.html
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Imagine what it would be like right now this second for you to be whisked away to THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Eden! Think about it. My goodness… the weather is perfect year round…  Your job is basically to pick fruit and eat it… and it doesn't even make you sweat. There's all sorts of amazing animals there… and there is no enmity between you and them…

Lions and tigers and bears…. Oh my… they don’t eat meat… Neither do you… so all creatures are getting along… Can you imagine that? Giving a lion a hug?

And there you are… the perfect picture of health… a perfect body… no stains of sin… no sickness… imagine that…

For you and me… living where we live… in this age… in this eon… having experienced all that we have experienced… seeing all that we have seen… Oh man… the thought of Eden… it truly is paradise… and if we were taken there now… appreciation is probably too weak of a word.

We would so very much appreciate it… We’d ge giddy with delight…  We would be singing songs of praise!!!! Saying "Thank you God, you are wonderful."

Because we would be able to understand and appreciate Eden as a paradise.

Now strangely enough, if you’ve ever read the first two chapters of Genesis… you've probably noticed that not even once do we see Adam expressing any appreciation… or thankfulness… or praise to God?

Check it out for yourself… read through those first few chapters of Genesis.

Here’s Adam… he's in the Garden…. It’s beautiful… his job is to pick fruit when he’s hungry… Eve is there with him…. They’re both the most perfect specimens of male and female… running around naked… they don’t wake up to an alarm clock… the weather is perfect year round….  Life was  good… so good that I can’t imagine it being any GOODER than that…

Yet… Adam had zero knowledge that it was good at all.

He didn’t know that perfect health was good. He didn’t know that having wonderful tasty fruit readily available was good. He didn’t know that having the perfect woman Eve by his side in all of her beauty was good.

It was so amazingly good… but yet unlike you and unlike me… living where we're living, when we live... he had no point of reference… he had nothing to compare it to… he could not comprehend what good was because he had no knowledge of good.

Try to wrap your mind around this.

He was surrounded by goodness… but he had no comprehension that it was good… He had no knowledge... no understanding of good. He was missing it.

So in that Garden God planted a tree.

Remember what it was called? It was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…

Now here’s the thing… Although that’s what it’s called… Typically we don’t see it or understand it as being what GOD calls it.

We just assume Adam knew good because he was surrounded by good. But he didn't understand good.

So this tree is the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and EVIL.

The name of that tree helps us to see that Adam… surrounded in goodness…. Had no clue… no understanding… no appreciation for that goodness… he had no knowledge of what he was surrounded by.

You’ve heard me talk about it before… in fact over the last couple of days as we have grappled with the issue of evil… or the problem of evil… trying to comprehend why God would have allowed evil… or better yet… as Scripture states… why God created evil… He created the adversary… right? We saw that over the last couple of days.

And ecause Adam had nothing to contrast good with… he could not comprehend it… He had ZERO appreciation for it… ZERO thankfulness….

And think about this… Adam had no sense of joy… he knew no joy… because he had never experienced misery.

He did not know that good was so good… because he had known no evil.

So… Adam simply being placed in Eden… a place beyond good… that place of absolute goodness… in and of itself could not reveal to Adam what goodness itself was or the goodness of God because there was no contrast.. nothing to relate it to… no point of reference for Adam.

You have a point of reference. You have here and now and what you've experienced. Adam did not have that.

We always picture Adam and Eve being in perfect bliss… giddy with joy over their living conditions… but again… we only imagine that because of our point of reference.. the contrast.

We have the hardness. We have the difficulty. We experience the pain. We've experienced the pain of sin... The sin of others and the pain of our own sin right here where we live.

Adam and Eve had no clue…  So… again it tells us that GOD planted the tree.

The tree  was planted to serve a purpose. And  when you begin to understand the vastness and the greatness of God’s ultimate plan… and where all things lead to… at the end of the ages… the end of the eons… You see that God’s plan itself… was good… and it would all be for the good… for the benefit of and for the blessing of His creation.

What the adversary would do… thinking He would make a mess of things… Which from the temporal perspective he did make a mess of things…. However… He would ultimately be accomplishing the will of God.

Now hang in there with me... keep listening.

I say that in the same way that I believe the adversary as he worked to plot against Christ leading to the crucifixion... from the temporal perspective it seemed the adversary had thwarted God’s plans. But had he? No.

It was God's plan that from before the disruption of the world that Christ would die.

The adversary was unwittingly helping to fulfill what God had declared from before the disruption of the world.

Think about it… Was God’s will thwarted when Christ was betrayed? When Christ was beaten? When Christ was crucified? The answer is no.

Christ Himself prayed in the Garden… “Father if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless… not my will but yours be done.”

God’s will was done… Christ was betrayed. Christ was arrested. Christ was beaten. Christ was crucified.

The adversary and all of his scheming appeared to get the upper hand. But he was was actually fulfilling God’s purpose, fulfilling God's will in this whole thing we call redemption, and  I'm convinced it was the same in the Garden.

A verse I mentioned yesterday of the day before in Ephesians 1 Paul tells us that God works all things according to the council of His will…  which would include the death and resurrection of Christ.

And if all things are working according to the council of God's will that would also include what theologians frequently call "the fall of man" even though that terminology is nowhere in Scripture.

Adam having his eyes opened… knowing good and evil… death entering in… it must have been... it had to be... God working all things according to the council of His will.

God was not the instrument causing Adam to sin... that was the adversary. However, who created the adversary? Who planted that tree?

We saw yesterday that "the adversary was sinning from the beginning." It was what he was designed to do. If y9u missed that study, give it a listen.

I’m convinced nothing at any point in time was God’s plans being thwarted even when the enemy has worked his hardest.

At no point in what's called "the fall of man" was creation slipping through God’s fingers. It was all part of His perfect design… which would eventually take all of his creation in the earthly and in the heavenlies into a place of appreciation… joy… happiness… and praise that could otherwise never be experienced… if all we had was an Eden experience.

Now let be intentionally redundant just to drive these things home because it's every important.

Let me ask...

How could Adam appreciate perfect health without understanding imperfect health... and without having an understanding of sickness and disease?

There would be no way for him to even know what perfect health was without those things entering in.

Adam had an abundance of food… but it meant nothing to him because he had never felt deep hunger much less a famine…

And what we looking back imagine as being sheer pleasure between Adam and Eve… the perfect physical specimen of manliness… and the perfect physical specimen of womanliness… those two had to be stunningly gorgeous... right?

We imagine whoa!!!  They must have experienced incredible pleasure and appreciation for one another. However it seems that it didn't mean much to them.

They wouldn't have even know pleasure as being pleasureful because they had never experienced pain.

And so in Scripture… we don’t read anything about them being thankfulness or having an appreciation for the amazing blessings in spite of the fact that they were surrounded by goodness..

The goodness of GOD was not even acknowledged by them even though they lived immersed in it… to them it was meaningless.

Adam was apparently incapable of love and adoration or worship because of what he did not know.

So… in the wisdom of God… GOD planted the tree…

The tree didn’t just spring up and take God by surprise… The adversary didn’t plant it…

GOD planted the tree. God created the adversary. The serpent came and tempted them. They ate of the tree.

And what we have been taught to call the “fall of man” actually in reality... because of God's greatness... set in motion the very forces that would remedy the defect… the defect which caused them to eat from the tree in the first place.

It's kind of mind blowing. Isn't it?

The goodness… and love… mercy… and grace of GOD… would only be able to be known through those events that took place.

Think about it… How could God display mercy and grace and love without beings who would need mercy and grace and love.

God is love... but no one would truly know God's love without being put in a position of being absolutely unworthy recipients of it.

God is light!!!!! How would we ever know light and appreciate light without experiencing darkness?

Think about the creation of God... the stars in the sky...  they are constantly shining… burning brightly non stop… but we can only see them when darkness comes comes upon us. It's through the darkness that we see their beauty. If there was no darkness we would never see their beauty. We couldn't comprehend it.

All things are known through contrast. Contrast is a necessary part of knowing. Without it, there is no knowing.

Something else… it’s obvious… but I’ve got to say it… God did not plant two trees.

There was not a tree of the knowledge of good… and a separate tree for the knowledge of evil... because they go hand in hand. You can't know one without the other.

So… again... How can a God who is good… who is called love… reveal Himself without contrast?

HE can’t…. so He did things as He did… With the goal… of ultimately fully engaging the affection of all his creatures. That's what He wants. He wants love.

And in 1st Corinthians chapter 15… although Paul words it a bit differently... he let's us know that when everything wraps up... even going beyond what we read in the book of Revelation...  that God's gonna get what He wants. Read through 1st Corinthians chapter 15 and see if you can find it. It's a very short little phrase.

So anyway,  through all the ages… through the eons… God is at work doing things in such a way… that we will be taken to the place of knowing Him… and for lack of a better way of putting it… appreciating fully and completely what He has prepared for us and being capable because of what we've gone through here to absolutely enjoy it, and relish it, and celebrate it, and give God praise and honor and glory for it.

Think about it... How much of a drudgery might it have been…if God simply created all of us and threw us in some place like Eden to experience perfect goodness... but to never be able to KNOW it.

GOD wants us to KNOW it!!!!

And so God has put in place periods of time…in Scripture it calls them the ages… or the eons… depending on what translation you are using... through which during these ages He will accomplish His goal… and He will bring His plan to what we would call the perfect consummation.

And those ages… those eons… what God is doing in the midst of them... I think that’s what we'll talk about next time because it's something that is very rarely talked about in religious circles even among those who call themselves Christians.

My friend I’m so glad you are with me as we grapple with some super heavy topics.

My names is James Flanders and I sure appreciate your love, prayers, and your support.

Be blessed my friend. Be blessed.