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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Two Trees
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)
Notice the order—the tree of life comes before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The order is important.
The Tree of Life is Jesus Christ.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: (John 11:25)
The Tree of Life is also those who grow from His roots.
Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. (Ezekiel 47:7)
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1,2—NIV)
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the eternal moral law of God.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (Romans 7:7)
"I had not known sin, but by the law." Therefore the moral law of God is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve would not have realized they were naked apart from the moral law of God any more than the Apostle Paul would have known sin apart from the Law of Moses (an abridged, covenantal form of the eternal moral law of God).
Every person born on the earth is faced with these two trees.
We all have sin in us, but before we are a Christian we may not realize this just as Adam and Eve did not realize they were naked. It is a shame to be naked, the Bible declares. God does not approve of nakedness. This, of course, does not apply to babies who would be unaware of shame if they were informed of it.
We may know that certain things are wrong. Our conscience warns us of this. But we have little or no idea of the depth of worldliness, lust, and self-will that resides in our personality. No person can understand the deceit of his or her own heart.
Before we are saved God does not require of us that we find out how much our personality deviates from the Divine will. If He did we would only be cut off from God because of our guilt.
When the Apostles preached in the Book of Acts they did not tell their listeners all they were doing wrong, the sin dwelling in their personality. They told them that God had provided an atonement for their sin, Jesus Christ, and they were to turn away from the world and be baptized in water that they might receive a blanket forgiveness of their sinful state.
Unsaved people are in no condition to learn of the various sins dwelling in their flesh.
To be continued.