Is there a better answer then God's ways are above ours?

I have always believed that the tree was there becasue that was God's one command, the one way they could disobey God.Sin is disobedience. If the tree were not there they would have had no choice but to obey God. That does not prove love and loyality for God if they had no choice. But God gave them a choice, to obey Him or not. God gave this choice becasue of His great love for them. He would not force them to love him and obey Him.

 

If Adam had never sinned...

Some have said that God would have never have had to become a human being in a mortal (subject to death) body.
Therefore no resurrection of Jesus Christ would have been necessary, therefore we also would never be resurrected in a glorified body.

Plus, we would never experience God's forgiveness and His redeemimg love.

All speculation of course.

HankD

 

I believe God created mankind because He wanted beings that would love & worship Him for who He is from a Free Will. He could have made us robots. The Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil was there as an option. Obey God because we love Him and for who He is and because we choose to do that, or disobey Him because we are masters of our own souls and have a free choice to do what we want to do.

Something else to think about. If you had billions of dollars and could buy anything or have anything you wanted but you wanted a special person to love you, wouldn't you want that special person to love you just for you and not for what you could buy them or do for them?

Isn't there a desire in every person to be loved, period? Not for what we have or don't have, not for what we can or cannot do? Just loved. And couldn't that desire to be loved have originated from God? ??? (we are created in His image...)

So perhaps God just wanted to be loved but He wanted to give His creation an option to choose. Thus the Tree. And isn't it interesting that the Tree was the focus that caused the downfall of mankind in Eden. And the Tree is also the focus that is the Salvation of mankind via Jesus Christ?Two trees....

 

Here's a brain bender to ponder:

Before eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, how could they have known it was wrong to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil?

Brian

 

I Look At The Inevitability Of The Situations Beginnings and Outcome..

Its Gods Planning That Creates The Situation...

Offering The Lamb Slain Before The Foundation of The World... His Only Son
Planning The worldwide Flood...He Created The Earth Before He Created The Garden Of Eden.
The Creation of Satan and His Parameter of operation
The Placement Of The Man, the Trees and Satan In The Garden.
No Hedge around Adam or Eve.

The Question Should Be..Should God be Fully or Partially Responsible for Adams Choice ?

Some would think that the offering of the Sacrifice would implicate God in the Fault.

Adam Died On The Same Day He ate of the tree ...Just As Promised.
notice the sacrifice..atonement Day..Jubilee

God Just Didnt Waste Time.....

 

Interesting point. We must remember that the Godhead, the Trinity, is sufficient unto itself. There is perfect love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is nothing lacking in their relationship that would require the creation.

"God is described as love (which is his nature then it too is eternal) to have love there must be a giver and a receiver, love is reciprocal, there needs to be an exchange, otherwise it's self love which is not real love. If God were to be only one person he would have need of the creation as the object of his love which would contradict the love and sufficiency that God is by himself. Jn.17:24 Speaking of the Father. "for thou loved me before the foundation of the world."

Here we find the Son as the object of his love before anything existed. This is not a love of the future but was active and real just as much in eternity past, as it was in the N.T. time and as it is today. The Son is pre-existent just as the Father is. To change this is to lose the Biblical God of the scriptures."(from www.letusreason.org/Trin7.htm)

Also, we must remember that Adam and Eve had perfect free choice, they had no inherited sin nature that their choices were corrupted by, such as we do.

So why did God create this universe? We are not told. We must trust His purposes. We know that everything works out ultimately to His glory, whether it is His love, mercy, and grace being shown or whether it is His justice, righteousness, and holiness being shown.

One redeemed by Christ's blood,

Ken
Were it not for grace...

 

God could have designated any tree among all those trees as the "no-no" tree.
As to the question, why ? I think , by reading the Bible, that the reason is still the pre-eminence of Christ, the God-man, in all things.
Let me explain.
Adam, according to the Bible, is of the earth, earthy. In fact, back in Genesis, God told Adam that he is dust, and to the dust he reverts.
That shouldn't have been the case, perhaps, if he chose life, instead of death, when given the choice by God. Adam was the only one who was given a choice, not the whole of mankind, and being the corporate head, the ancestor of all men, he blew it for all (Romans 5:12). He was disobedient.
Now, God, of course, in His foreknowledge knew this would happen and already knew in His mind what He would do.
He would send His Son, Jesus Christ, and instead of Adam, Jesus will have the pre-eminence in all things. And He will redeem a people for Himself, whose names God already had written down, and whom He also had foreknown (Romans 29-30).
Christ is to be the head of these people, and they shall be justified thru Him, and will spend eternity with God giving all glory to God, and claiming none for themselves, for all He had done for them in Christ.

 

Because God had said not to eat it. So they knew they were not to so it.

 

Because God had said not to eat it. So they knew they were not to so it.</font>[/QUOTE]How would they know it was right or wrong to obey or not obey what God said?

 

Well, one could say that there is a difference between 'right and wrong' and 'good and evil', but we are really just dealing with the wrong. God said that they were not to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. Okay, so now they know it's wrong, but they still didn't know it was evil.

What a horrible few days it must have been for Adam after he and Eve were sent from the garden. The full implications of his actions dawning on him. The death of his direct line of communication with a perfect-loving God, and the awareness that he had done something he knew was wrong.

Going back to Bugman's first question, I know this doesn't hit the nail directly on the head, but the tree doesn't matter! It wasn't the fact that God had made a tree from which Adam and Eve were told not to eat from that matters. What matters is that God said don't eat the fruit!

God could have very well said not to step on this rock, or swim in this pool; He could accomplish His purpose a number of ways. Personally I think He chose the tree because it lines up so nicely with all the other tree/fruit metaphores in the bible. I mean, try thinking 'and you shall know them by the rocks they step on' being placed in the Bible. It could work, but the tree metaphore works a bit nicer, (in my opinion anyways).

When someone asks "Why is this here?", or "Why did that happen?", it's often better to see what God is really up to in the situation, and what He's trying to tell us.

Anywho, I'm sort of rambling/preaching...

Jonny
^_^

[ June 17, 2002, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Moss ]