Before we begin with this topic, allow me to give you a glimpse into the bigger picture that emerged over 12 years of in-depth study.  This was not a time of study that I “decided” to do – it was a work of the Holy Spirit in answer to my prayer to be shown the meaning of Calvary.  With the increased understanding that came year after year it reached a point where I felt the Lord had caused me to step back and view a span of thousands of years.  What I “saw” broke my heart.  The view was incredible, as it moved swiftly from Creation; through the books of the Law; the prophets; Jesus and the New Testament records of Him; Paul’s exhaustive writings pointing readers to Jesus; the warnings of error from Paul and others, and, finally, John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ.  All I could see was Jesus – the need for His coming; the REAL reason He died; how He was rejected and abused and, most of all, the impact He had on all mankind for all time.  He truly is the Alpha and the Omega.  But what have we done with Him and to Him?

When we sit in our little space of time and read the Bible – whatever “version” we have – we are prone to tunnel vision.  We see only issues, doctrines, biases of translators, denominational beliefs, traditions from parents, teachers, preachers – the list is endless; all of which often lead to error.  Do any of those things point us to Jesus?  We are called to make disciples – not after ourselves but after Jesus.  Yet we see all around us preachers with huge followings.   What is behind it all?  What is the root of all error?  The answer is simple – flesh, with its knowledge of good and evil.

With what I am about to say in the next paragraph, I beg your indulgence.  Stay with me through the coming weeks until you get the whole picture.  Please don’t filter things through previously held beliefs and doctrinal positions.  Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth as I endeavor to share what He has shown me.  This article on the knowledge of good and evil will lay the groundwork by showing how “sin” entered the world.  It’s all in the bible – we need only to read and accept it for what it says and forsake our tunnel-vision thinking that comes with tradition.

The “sin” issue is only one of those “tunnel vision” things that have been inflicted on the Body of Christ and subsequently the world.  Christians see “sin” and want to tell the “world” of their sin so they will “repent and ask forgiveness.”

When the Lord took me to the beginning of Creation in the first chapters of Genesis, He showed me something I had never heard taught or written about.  The “un-heard-of” topic was “the knowledge of good and evil.”  I had heard much about sin entering because of Adam’s transgression, but never had I heard anyone touch on the knowledge of good and evil; much less show its relevance in how sin entered the world.  The belief seemed to be that “sin” was merely something that happened because the first man disobeyed God.

In Genesis we see that it was the knowledge of good and evil that brought about man’s eviction from the Garden of Eden.  It was not simple disobedience – there was something more sinister involved.  God told Adam and Eve, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16b-17)  Did Adam and Eve die physically?  No, we know they did not.  How, then, did this “death” come?  What is the death that they died?  There is only one reasonable answer: they died spiritually.  They were now separated from God, the life-giving Spirit.  God did not take back His breath (spirit) that He breathed into man.  He left man in his fleshly, sinful state; with the plan to one day reconcile man to Himself through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The same Spirit who breathed life into man at creation now breathes Life into man at re-creation – the new birth.

Genesis 3:22-23 tells us, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”  “Man” refers to mankind – both male and female.  They had become “like God,” just as the serpent said they would.  That God-likeness was man’s knowledge of good and evil.

What is so sinful about the knowledge of good and evil that God would forbid man to partake of it?  Why was the serpent so determined to cause man to receive the knowledge of good and evil?  He had heard God speak to man, telling him he would die if he were to eat the fruit (and acquire that knowledge), so that old serpent lied to Eve.  He told her they would not die, but would be “as God.”  As mentioned earlier, God pointed out that they were now “become as one of us, to know good and evil.”  So He evicted them from the Garden of Eden lest they eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their fallen state.  What a sin it was to become as one of Them!  And man continues on that same path.  What a price will be paid for such presumption!

We can see now that the knowledge of good and evil was best left in God’s hands.  He knew that trouble would come if man came to know the difference between good and evil.  Until man ate the forbidden fruit, his knowledge was of God, and God alone.  God and the Garden of Eden were Adam and Eve’s whole world.  God was their Source for everything.  Acknowledging God would have been effortless for them.  But when they came into the knowledge of good and evil they became resourceful and “cunning,” as the Hebrew word for “naked” means.  There were two words translated as “naked” in the same passage.  The first one meant “nude” and the other meant “cunning.”  No wonder they were ashamed!  With eyes wide open, a whole new world opened up to them.  One of the first things Adam did was blame his disobedience on “that woman” God had given him.

How grieved the Father’s heart must have been!  This magnificent creature He made for Himself to have fellowship with no longer relied on Him.  Instead, Adam may have even told the Lord God that he now was capable of making his own choices, using his new-found knowledge of good and evil.  But God is Love, and as John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world...”  And thousands of years later, Peter wrote how God “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

The law of opposites

With Adam’s new-found knowledge he forsook the “full acknowledgment”¹ of God, which is the meaning of the Greek word for “knowledge.”  This leads to the question, “What would be the opposite of the ‘knowledge of good and evil?’”  I believe the answer would be “the knowledge of God.”  The answer to one “knowledge” must be another “Knowledge” – this time the Knowledge of God Himself – not man’s knowledge of himself with his God-likeness.