What is God's Economy?

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Wasn't the result of that eating bad as God had said, that is --> death?

I see the knowledge of good and evil tree as allowing man to take control of matters for his own purposes. That is, man could independently decide for himself whether he should pursue something or not, rather than seeking the Lord and following His choices - as Jesus demonstrated in His actions that He sought His Father's will and did not act in His independent knowledge of things.

I think it comes down to what the source of the knowledge is.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil didn't "allow" man to do anything. It's a tree. GOD gave man the "freedom to independently decide for himself"...not the tree. God is not a puppet-master...or a tree. He gave us a free will. Man has the freedom to seek the Lord or not. Witness Lee's ministry was to take away the freedom of believers to choose for themselves.

What is our freedom? Obey or disobey. Mankind isn't still eating of that tree, are they? Is much of mankind still living a life of disobedience?

What they consumed in the garden that day was pooped away...3000 years ago. But man still lives in obedience or disobedience. Mankind lives with the consequences of decisions to choose God or not.

Who decides what the source of knowledge is? You? Witness Lee?

I prefer blockhead to knucklehead.

Nell

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Nell

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil didn't "allow" man to do anything. It's a tree. GOD gave man the "freedom to independently decide for himself"...not the tree. God is not a puppet-master...or a tree. He gave us a free will. Man has the freedom to seek the Lord or not. Witness Lee's ministry was to take away the freedom of believers to choose for themselves.

What is our freedom? Obey or disobey. Mankind isn't still eating of that tree, are they? Is much of mankind still living a life of disobedience?

What they consumed in the garden that day was pooped away...3000 years ago. But man still lives in obedience or disobedience. Mankind lives with the consequences of decisions to choose God or not.

Who decides what the source of knowledge is? You? Witness Lee?

I prefer blockhead to knucklehead.

Nell

Saying it's just "a tree" is simplistic and short-changes its effect. It was a fruit-bearing tree and its fruit was eaten in disobedience. It was food and had the result of death. Does man largely live independent of God now, by constantly making choices of what they see as either good or bad? Sure. Sounds like that fruit is still having an affect.

Roman's 7:17 says sin dwells in the flesh - how did it get there? What is born of flesh is flesh, so we were all born into this world with sin in the flesh. Again, how did it get there?

(and I don't know what you mean by the "blockhead/knucklehead" comment)

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Saying it's just "a tree" is simplistic and short-changes its effect. It was a fruit-bearing tree and its fruit was eaten in disobedience. It was food and had the result of death. Does man largely live independent of God now, by constantly making choices of what they see as either good or bad? Sure. Sounds like that fruit is still having an affect.

Roman's 7:17 says sin dwells in the flesh - how did it get there? What is born of flesh is flesh, so we were all born into this world with sin in the flesh. Again, how did it get there?

(and I don't know what you mean by the "blockhead/knucklehead" comment)

I didn’t say it was just a tree. You did.

You also said a tree “allows” as though it was some sort of “sentient being”. Trees don’t “allow”.

You are shortchanging the effect of disobedience.

It was disobedience that resulted in spiritual death, not food.

How did sin get into the flesh? Disobedience. Again, disobedience.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Saying it's just "a tree" is simplistic and short-changes its effect. It was a fruit-bearing tree and its fruit was eaten in disobedience. It was food and had the result of death. Does man largely live independent of God now, by constantly making choices of what they see as either good or bad? Sure. Sounds like that fruit is still having an affect.

Roman's 7:17 says sin dwells in the flesh - how did it get there? What is born of flesh is flesh, so we were all born into this world with sin in the flesh. Again, how did it get there?

(and I don't know what you mean by the "blockhead/knucklehead" comment)

You are trying to ascribe some kind of responsibility to the fruit as the cause for mankind's continued disobedience against God. Really? Do you really think that our sin nature came from a piece of fruit? That death came from a piece of fruit from a tree that God Himself described as "good for food" as well as "makes you like God"? Can you see how those things (what you are claiming plus what scripture says) cannot go together without contradiction or without creating a false or malicious God?

You surely recognize that Adam & Eve disobeyed God BEFORE the fruit got into them, do you not?

No one is short-changing the tree's effect. You are creating an effect that isn't there and telling others who disagree that they are shortchanging what is actually your unscriptural overlay onto the text.

Before you write any more posts about this topic:

Pleeeeeeease go back and read Genesis 2&3. Where did death come from in Genesis? From the fruit or from God cutting them off from the tree of life? Give me specific verses, please.

Pleeeeeeease go back and read Romans 5. Does it say sin entered "through the offense/trespass/disobedience" or does it say sin entered "through the fruit"? Give me specific verses, please.

Hi Trapped,
you pointed out that "Adam & Eve disobeyed God BEFORE the fruit got into them".
Helpful to me.
Did you learn this from somewhere? Pls refer me to it.
Or, the enlightenment came while you were arguing in this discussion?

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi Trapped,
you pointed out that "Adam & Eve disobeyed God BEFORE the fruit got into them".
Helpful to me.
Did you learn this from somewhere? Pls refer me to it.
Or, the enlightenment came while you were arguing in this discussion?

Gen. 3:13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The (1) serpent deceived me, and (2) I ate.”

Nell

[Sons to Glory!]

Thanks. This was all discussed before. May the Lord open my eyes if there is something here.

But just to be clear, I may be unduly discounting the disobedience aspect . . . however, don't discount that God used a fruit-bearing tree. That is, something to be eaten. Lots of talk about eating that is emphasized in the Bible, right? So why is that?

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Thanks. This was all discussed before. May the Lord open my eyes if there is something here.

But just to be clear, I may be unduly discounting the disobedience aspect . . . however, don't discount that God used a fruit-bearing tree. That is, something to be eaten. Lots of talk about eating that is emphasized in the Bible, right? So why is that?

Why? Because...“Descriptive passages describe what happened; they give us the historical narratives and the stories of the events that took place. Prescriptive passages give us clear commands and instructions as to how we are to live our lives.”

The operative being “clear commands.”

http://theologyfortherestofus.com/20...ible-passages/

Witness Lee built his ministry by turning descriptive biblical language into “commands”, some of which, he admitted not even he could keep, much like what you are doing with “eating”. “Eating”, in the Bible, is largely a metaphor or word picture as a means of spiritual growth.

Bill Mallon shared this with a group of us one time, and the lights came on for me. I began to look at Lee’s ministry from that perspective from that point on, asking “is this teaching based on prescriptive verses or simply describing something that happened?”

Example: Lee’s delegated authority prescriptive teaching based on the verses describing an event among Noah and his sons.

Nell

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Thanks. This was all discussed before. May the Lord open my eyes if there is something here.

But just to be clear, I may be unduly discounting the disobedience aspect . . . however, don't discount that God used a fruit-bearing tree. That is, something to be eaten. Lots of talk about eating that is emphasized in the Bible, right? So why is that?

You are going to get an echo into silence of a response because the Bible never makes an issue of the fruit of the tree itself. It's not there. Jesus said his food is to do the will of the Father. So even if you try to point to fruit or food.....Jesus just keeps on pointing straight on to obedience instead.

Sons to Glory, did you read the chapters I mentioned in my previous post where I implored you to do so and answer the two simple questions before saying anything more about the topic? Why are you avoiding everything I and others are saying and yet turning around and praying for your eyes to be opened "if" there is something here?

You are praying for your eyes to be opened while your Bible is closed. What's going on here?

I'm actually being genuine in my concern. It has been very, very strange to repeatedly encounter a straight refusal to comprehend plain words, plain language, plain inference, plain implication by a professing truth-seeking Christian.

Is this too uncomfortable of a mental shift for you?

If so, I'm sympathetic to that discomfort, but in this particular case, there's nothing to lose by it. The truth of what the word says with this story doesn't condemn you, doesn't blame you, doesn't mean you've committed an unforgiveable sin. It's just means sin in general is a bigger deal than Lee ever taught it was. But you know that already. So what's going on?

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi Trapped,
you pointed out that "Adam & Eve disobeyed God BEFORE the fruit got into them".
Helpful to me.
Did you learn this from somewhere? Pls refer me to it.
Or, the enlightenment came while you were arguing in this discussion?

Hi Unregistered,

The long story is that it's just what the Bible says and shows. I've always had a problem with Witness Lee's teaching that "God doesn't care about right and wrong" and so a while back I sat down to read the verses, as well as some of his ministry, to see where the Biblical support is for that, because it's a pillar of a teaching in the local church. Much to my surprise, there is nothing in scripture where the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is described as containing poison, or death, or any of the things Lee said about it. It's described only positively, but yet is forbidden to eat. I read numerous other Christian articles online to confirm that others also saw that there is no reason to claim the TOTKOGAE was itself evil, and they confirmed it.

Lee went so far as to call it the "tree of death" and said that Satan was crafty and subtle in hiding what it really was, but the problem with that is you would also have to call God crafty and sneaky because God also called the TOTKOGAE the TOTKOGAE, and not "the tree of death". So Lee's being off on just where death came from ends up making God an evil God, which is obviously not true.

Once you realize the TOTKOGAE is not "the source" of the problem, it's not where death came from, it's not where sin came from, it's not "forbidden because it's bad" but "is 'bad' only because it's forbidden", then you start thinking "okay, why DID they eat of the tree then?"

Listening to Christian apologists who have to answer these kind of questions all the time like "why did God put the tree in the garden in the first place", the apologists hammer home pretty hard that God gave man free will. Free will to choose to eat of it or not eat of it. So I started looking for things in the verses that I could blame God for. And the more I scoured the verses, the less there was to blame God about! God created a garden with thousands of trees in it (by the presumed size of the garden based on it's description by numerous rivers), all pleasant to the sight, all good for food, and He forbade literally only one. God didn't trick them, He didn't make it difficult, He provided countless other choices. It's like someone takes you to a large buffet restaurant with 500 different dishes hot and ready to eat, and they tell you not to eat that one dish marked with an X. And you go over and eat the one X-marked dish! Why? You had 500 other choices!

Man really had free will. And man chose to use that free will to disobey God. It really was a fair situation, and God told them exactly what tree was the problem, exactly what would happen if they disobeyed, the whole thing. It wasn't fruit that got into them that caused it. It was their free-will choice to do so. And because man had free will, and he chose to disobey, God can punish him rightly. And He did. With death.

The short story is, yes, I've never had to state specifically that Adam and Eve disobeyed before the fruit got into them until this particular discussion.

Trapped

[Awoken]

Or, as Jesus put it...

Matthew 15:8-20 NKJV
"'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' "

When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, "Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."

Then His disciples came and said to Him, "Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" But He answered and said, "Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch." Then Peter answered and said to Him, "Explain this parable to us."

So Jesus said, "Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."