The Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Knowledge of God's Moral LLaw.

A few days ago it occurred to me that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which was the instrument of Adam and Eve's disobedience of God, the Fall, Original Sin, and our inherited sin nature, may represent the Moral Law of God. I've often wondered what is meant by the knowledge of good and evil. Of course in one sense it is easy enough to understand that our original parents were innocent of the knowledge of evil so that it came to them through that sin and of course we know we have tht knowledge. But i didn't really get the import of it, why that particular name for that tree and so on.

Unbelievers like to deny what the scripture tell sus, that this was a great calamity for the human rce, and like their father Satan they read the passage to mean that God lied and that we acquired powers He didn't want us to have, powers that made us AS "GODS" AND God didn't want rivals or some such nonense, nonsense tht is a terrible blasphemy against God.
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But I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of "knowledge" in scripture, such as in that passage in Hoszea I've mentioned a few timees now, where God says "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.." Often I've heard that preached as referring to practical knowledge of various dangers we encounter in the world, poisons, diseases, who our enemies are and so on, and certainly that's a kind of knowledge that helps protect us from such dangers.

But as I read that passage it became clear to me that in context God is talking about knoweldge of His Moral Law, such as the Ten Commandments. He says His people commit various sins such as sealing and lying, swearing false oaths, murdering, committing adultery and so on, right before He says they are destroyed for lack of khnowledge. Also that they don't want to have this knowledge, they rejecit. That doesn't sound like the kind of practical knowledge so many impute to it since why would we reject such useful warnings against harm?

So surely the meaning there is that God is condemning the leaders of His people for not teaching His commandments to them to protect them from the real danger, which is the death that comes from sin. "The wages of sin is death." And death includes every other kind of suffering, diseases and dangers of every sort that can become the instruments of suffering and death to us. When God gave the Law through Moses how did He put it? He was giving them the knowledge they needed for life or death or something like that, "therefore choose life." Choosing life meant obedience to the commandmeents. If we belive and obey the commandmenets we will live, if we violate them we will die, and that means we will be subject to all kindsof suffering short of physical death as well.

then I was listening to the Book of Proverbs and was struck by the repeition of the word "kowledge." It is used more or less synonymously with "wisdom" and "undderstanding" and it's all about tknowledge of the dangers that come through sin, the death that comes from sin. Long life and health are promised to those who obey the commandments of Wisdom, who is the wsisdom of God. '
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What is this knowledge or wisdom that is the main focus of so much of the Bible? Can't it becammed "the knowledge of good and evil?" That is what led me to the meaning of the Tree of the Kowledge of Good and Evil as represen6ting a new condition for Adam and Eve in which they came under the Moral Law of God which runs the universe. It's not a happy knowledge beause they are now sinners and being subject to the Law of God means they are subject to death and disease and iseries of all kinds.
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I recently heard on some radio show or other that Hindu parents teach their chidlren about Karma in a certain way that I didn't catch, but it was their teaching that moral system that caught my attention. Karm is at least a form of the Moral Law that people haeve intuited, and I was thinking how right it was that they teach it to their children. It seemed to me that although we get moral instruction from our parents in one form or other it isn't a systematic form, it's piecemeal and imperfect and shouldn't we be taught the moral law of God? Christians certainly, at least the Ten Commandments. And you'd think we would be, or think thaty we are taught it but I'm not aware that anyone teaches it to their children in any systematic way. Even the churches don't really. We may learn the commnandments but I don't recall learning that life and death hang oon them. Maybe it is taught in some places, I just haven't run across it.

And I don't think I've ever heard the Tree of the KNowledge of Good and Evil taught in terms that relate to the Moral Law. Again I may have and just didn't register it. But it hit me as a revelation. Not that I get its full import I'm sure, it raises more qustions than it answers, but at the same time it is a satisfying way of thinking about it.
If we were taught that the universe will punish us for transgressions of this law wouldn't we be a lot more careful than we are? I say the "unoiverse" because there is something inexorable about the Law. God is in some sense synonymous with His Law, He can't violate it, it is inherent in His Being, it IS him in some sense. But it is applied with fine intelligence that takes into acccount degrees of motivation and understanding and balances it with a zillion other transgressions and obediences all in the flash of a momnent's judgment. It makes no mistakes. God makes no mistakes. "The windmillis of the LORD grind exceeding fine."

The Law bites. When I was an unbeliever I scoffed at the idea that there were any spiritual forces in the universe. I'd become a miserable aheist in my teens after being sent to church as a child and learnign a few things about God though in a pretty garbled fashiohn. I was a believer but not a very well taught believer. Then I met sophisticated teenagers and became an atheist and remained in that condition for the next thirty years. Scoffing at what i'd once believed.

If you scoff at sin you get smacked down. At least if you are God's child you do. I've been smacked down quite a bit. It makes me wish I'd learned at least the karma version of the Law as it might have protected me from a lot of smackdowns. But karms is a very shallow and distorted version of the Moral Law of God and now I'm wishing we were all taught more about the biblical Law. I think a lot these days about how the nation is going to hell in a handbasket as it were, and how people have no idea that they are "storing up wrath" by their beliefs, by the evil laws that are being passed by our government and that sort of thing. The natio itself is under God's judgmednt for those laws, but the individuals who promote them have no idewa what they are doing to their own souls. In a way it's a big comfort to know that the current lawlessness and insanity will be punished by God in the end, but I wish people would wake up NOW, that the country could be saved NOW, that God would sensd revival NOW.
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I'm sorry my typing is so bad. I have to mention it from time to time. I can't see what I'm typing, it's a very faint image and if I have to stop to correct something I get copletely lost becauae my eyes are so bad. I can often feel with my fingers when I've hit a wrong key but I don't dare stop to try to fix it because I'll end up having to retype a whole paragraph just because I an't make out what I've written.

Anyway, I wanted to write a post, yet anjother post, on the subjeject of God's Moral Law, thoguth this encounter with the term "knowledge" in the Bible. There's probably more I should say but I'll leave it for another post. >

Well, one thing that needs to be said is that the New Testament teaches that the Law is a "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," meaning that the Law can't save us, it can only condemn us because we are sinners. We can't escape it. Only Jesus Christ was sinless, no other human being can do anyhthing but sin. And the longer we are a Christian, a serious Christian, the more we become awayre of the depths of our sinfulness. It would lead to despair if it weren't for the knowledge that Christ paid for our sins so that we don't have to be condemned. "there is now no condemnation in Christi Hesus>"

Agai Again, sorry for the messy typing. I know there are lots of errors just in that last paragraph.