August 23, 2013

Glorification in Temptation by Kevin Corr

Personally, I’ve found that a common question among people of the church stems from the beginning of time: “Why would God have created the Tree of Knowledge in the garden of Eden in the first place? Wouldn’t Adam and Eve never have sinned if it was never there?”  I can understand why this question concerns people: if God gave us free will so we can choose to love him, could we not have chosen to love God even without that tree’s existence?  To be honest, I’m not sure that while God was creating the earth, God made that one particular tree with the intent that it would have the potential to be the downfall of mankind (though, being omniscient, I’m sure he knew anyways).  I doubt that that tree was any taller than the rest, or any greener, or it’s fruit any more tasty.  In fact, I believe that the Tree of Knowledge could have potentially been any other tree, but what gave it it’s title was just the fact that God commanded Adam and Eve to not eat from it.  As such, it wasn’t the fruit of the Tree that made Adam and Eve ashamed, but disobeying God’s command.  Like all of God’s command, they are of the utmost importance, but in this case, I would much rather have had Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command than God never declaring the Tree of Knowledge at all.
    Allow me to explain.  First off, obviously I do not condone the sin that Adam and Eve committed, but what I mean is that I’m glad God gave Adam and Eve the opportunity to sin rather than never giving them that opportunity at all.  Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan to sin and I think that just like with the Tree of Knowledge, temptation has an association as sin itself-- temptation equals sin, the Tree of Knowledge equals sin.  This is certainly not so however, temptation only leads to sin if you give in to it, but temptation is like a coin-- there’s another side to it.  When you resist temptation, when you resist the opportunity to sin, you are not merely avoiding sin, but you are glorifying God.  “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4), therefore the other side of the coin- resisting temptation- is living according to the law and commands of God; what could be more glorifying to God?  Looking on this side of temptation, such an opportunity could practically be welcomed so as to glorify God, rather than falling into sin.  Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of Satan to bring sin into the world, but Jesus resisted multiple temptations from Satan to never be bothered by him again and “angels came and were ministering to [Jesus]” (Matt. 4:11).  Analyzing the difference between the two scenarios, Adam and Eve only had each other, while Jesus had received the Holy Spirit by this point in his ministry.  While temptation may be scary because of the risks involved in falling into sin, with the Holy Spirit we can conquer temptation and Jesus was given even further support upon resisting temptation.  Though it may be difficult at first, the more we stand up against temptation, the easier and more opportunities we will have to glorify God.
    It may be crazy to think that there are opportunities to glorify God even when facing temptation, but this is where the question of the meaning of the Tree of Knowledge is answered.  Would Adam and Eve ever had sinned if there wasn’t a Tree in the first place?  Assuming that the Tree was the only means that Satan could tempt Adam and Eve, then I would have to say the answer to this question is no, the two of them probably wouldn’t have sinned.  But the other side to this is that they never would have had the opportunity to glorify God.  I’m not saying that if the Tree was never there that sin would’ve never entered the world (after all, Paul says in Romans 3 that man does not seek good so there may have been other opportunities for man to sin), but if this is true then there also would have never been an opportunity to glorify God.  Personally, though the risk was great, a world where we’re never given the opportunity to glorify God hardly seems like a world worth living in, even without sin.  I believe that God thought the same thing when he made the Tree and He may have been disappointed by the results, but He also knew the reward.  Since he gave us a second chance through His son, whenever we feel the sting of sin when falling to temptation, we have another opportunity to resist it and know the reward of doing so.

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