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Knowing God, The word of God

The Tree of Judgement

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And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “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, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”… And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed…Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” (Gen 2: 16-18,  21-22,  25, Gen 3: 4-5, 7)

The healing at the Pool of Siloam wasn’t the first time a man’s eyes were opened.

When I revisted the account of creation recently I was struck by the significance of the forbidden fruit and of what happened when mankind succumbed to Satan’s temptation. I’m not thinking of the general consequences of the Fall in terms of sin and all its implications, but specifically of how we use the fruit that we ate: the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus commanded “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” (Matthew 7:1) In this article I would like to explore the idea that every every time we judge another person we are taking another bite of that fruit, and at the same time putting ourselves under judgement just as Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden.

Judgement arises from the knowledge of good and evil, which is the forbidden fruit. Before the first man and his wife ate of the fruit, they were allowed access to the tree of life, but not the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We often call that tree “the tree of knowledge,” but we must never forget that its name does not refer to knowledge of information, but to the understanding of right and wrong that brings judgement and shame. In many ways we could call it The Tree of Judgement. We could have life without judgement, but judgement and life we cannot have.    I am not suggesting here that we do not attempt to discern between right and wrong: on the contrary scripture teaches that we “test all things, and hold fast what is right.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) But to prove what is right – what is the “good and acceptable and perfect will of God,” we need to approach all things with renewed minds, minds that have been “washed with water by the word,” and cleansed of the natural, carnal judgement that infected our thinking in Eden. (Romans 12:2; Ephesians 5:26) The creation account continues:The creation account continues:

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Gen 3: 8-11)

Judgement started the rot
I’m not a trained theologian, so I don’t know how this sits with those who are; but it seems to me that it wasn’t actually sin that initially separated us from the presence of God, but the judgement that Adam brought upon himself because he had eaten the fruit. God actually spoke the curse afterwards and drove man out of the garden to make the separation permanent, and the consequences have followed ever since: because of our disobedience, the whole of creation was brought under “the bondage of corruption.” (Romans 8:21) But it was judgement that started the rot.

When sin entered the world, God barred access to the Tree of Life, but in Christ access is restored and for the new creation everlasting life is again our inheritance. Ultimately “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness he obviously thought he could do the same to the second Adam as he did to the first. Because the enemy hoped to see humankind banished forever from the tree of life, I think there may be more than just a scriptural refutation of the tempter’s words when Jesus says to him “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” I think He is also implying something like this: “Man can live, Satan. You thought you’d killed him off at the tree of judgement, but my words are the fruit of the tree of life, and whoever eats them will live forever.”

Cancel Culture
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” wrote Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:9). We may think that judgement has reached new depths of depravity in today’s cancel culture, but the Pharisees cancelled the man born blind when they threw him out of the synagogue 2000 years ago. Jesus said “for judgement I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind,” (John 9:39) echoing the prophesy of Isaiah recorded in Isaiah 11 3-4:

“His delight is in the fear of the LORD,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;”

Jesus makes this very plain to the Pharisees, and therefore to the church, when He says to them “Do not judge according to appearances, but judge with righteous judgement.” (John 7:24) Every time we speak our own judgement over someone (including ourselves) because “the sight of our eyes” tells us that they are naked, we are cancelling something of who they are and are cutting ourselves off from the tree of life; but every time we feed on the words of Jesus and “judge with righteous judgement” we are bringing the fruit of Life into our relationships. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21)

Do we “delight in the fear of the Lord,“ or do we let the first words that come into our minds trip off our tongue when we disapprove of something that another person has done (and usually those other people are the ones who are closest to us)? In Christ, the fear of the Lord will always be our delight, and we will eat from His tree; but if we listen to the voice of our flesh, the chances are we will be standing by the tree of judgement and, as God said to Cain, sin will be crouching at the door and we will need to have mastery over it (see Genesis 4:7).

The choice that Moses put before the Israelites is the choice that God puts before us every time we are tempted to judge:

“I have set before your life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Pursuing Love

Food, Drink, and Unity

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“Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.” (Romans 14: 1-3)


When Paul sends these instructions to the Romans in chapter14 of his letter, his focus initially is on the question of food and drink, but the text leads us into much deeper issues around the matter of unity. In a context where meat on one hand may have been sacrificed to idols, and on the other hand was subject to Jewish law relating to blood, some believers avoided the spiritual minefield of eating meat altogether by eating only vegetables. Paul’s view of this particular aspect of Christian life is clear: “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” (Romans 14:14) From his perspective, scrupulous avoidance of meat shows a weakness of faith, but he teaches that the basis of our relationships with our brothers and sisters is not our view of what they believe, but our acceptance of it: “Let not him who eats (meat) despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him… Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way…if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love…for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (14:3, 12, 15, 17)

Paul widens the context beyond food and drink and other “doubtful things” in verse 21: “It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak,” summarizing chapter 14 with this: “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.” (Romans 15: 1-3)

The priority of Edification
God’s priority is that we build one another up (“edification”). Jesus said “I will build My church.” Anything I try and build will just collapse, probably on top of me. Jesus is coming for a bride without spot or blemish. If we try and remove each other’s blemishes we just make ourselves more blemished – “judge not lest ye be judged.. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” (Matt 7:1,3)  We build one another up to become more like Christ by pleasing one another, not by correcting one another. The unity that King Jesus is seeking among His disciples is what Paul calls being “like-minded,” and the scripture makes clear that this like-mindedness is not only a work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, but also that it glorifies God: “Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 15:5).

Like-mindedness
Our like-mindedness is an expression of our attitude to, not our analysis of, one another, and has its origin in the humility we learn from Christ. It has nothing to do with thinking along the same lines. We probably find the best expression of it in Philippians 2, and I will quote the full passage here, as the words of this famous portion of scripture draw together the threads of our acceptance of one another and our authority in Christ far more effectively than anything I could write:

“Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2: 1-11)

True Unity
If we hold onto the understanding that true unity, indeed “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” (Ephesians 4:3), is really what Paul calls “like-mindedness,” and comes from humble acceptance of the fact that we all stand before God and not before each other, we cannot leave the subject without looking at the three verses that make up Psalm 133.

Here is verse one: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!

As can so often be the case, the power of the original language is diluted in translation. There are lots of words that can be translated as “good.” But this one, “tob”  is the same as the “good” that God felt when He looked at His original, perfect, creation. When brothers dwell together in unity, it is as good as it can get; it is in alignment with God’s purposes. It is as good as Eden. Psalm 133 is a song of ascents: it was sung as the people of God ascended the hill to worship in the Temple. The unity it speaks of is not so much a state of mind, or even a state of being: it is unity in action, a group of people joined in a common purpose, each one carrying their own cross, and each one loving the others as they walk together up the mountain.

The Anointing
Verse two says that this unity is“like the precious oil upon the head,
Running down on the beard,
The beard of Aaron,
Running down on the edge of his garments.”

Our translations compare this unity to the anointing. “It is like the precious oil upon the head…” Not so the Hebrew: in the original text there is no word for “like,” just a repetition of “šemen,” the word for the anointing oil. A literal reading would be “It is the oil the precious oil…” Our unity, the unity of the Spirit, isn’t just “like” the anointing; it brings the anointing. Jesus makes an interesting statement in John 7: “If anyone wills to do His (the Father’s) will, he will know concerning the doctrine whether it is from God or if I speak on my own authority.” (John 7:17) In other words, when we make it our purpose to come into line with God’s will, He will sovereignly demonstrate the truth of His words. I can pray for the anointing all I want, but if I am operating in my own flesh – “on my own authority”- the Holy Spirit will not be present in power. If we want rain, we need to be where the rainclouds are. But when we are genuinely one in the Spirit, “like-minded,” the rain is ready to fall.

Revival
The final verse of Psalm 133 gives us another phantom “like,” which I will now leave out: It is … the dew of Hermon,
descending upon the mountains of Zion;
for there the LORD commanded the blessing— Life forevermore.

So like-mindedness is not just the anointing on an individual; the anointing falls on the whole mountain. The dew of Hermon was known to be abundant; a soaking, not just a dampness. It provided life-giving moisture for the parched lands of Israel over the Summer months, just as the living waters of the Holy Spirit bring His abundant life to revive spiritual deserts wherever He flows. The blessing is commanded from the mountains of Zion, a picture of the Kingdom of God. We often misquote this pslm, saying “The unity commands the blessing,” but this is not what the psalmist wrote. It is the LORD who commands the blessing, and He commanded it to come out of Zion, when we walk in the ways of the Kingdom of God. In the three verses of Psalm 133 we find a progression: when each of us, “by ourselves alone”, pursues like-mindedness as we ascend the hill to worship and glorify God, (v.1) we can expect the anointing to fall on our ministries, (v.2) and ultimately for the waters of revival to bring Kingdom life to our lands. (v.3)

Like-mindedness, anointing, revival. It might not be easy, but it’s as simple as 1-2-3.

Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

By Himself Alone

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“Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to take him by force and make him King, He departed again to the mountain by himself alone.” (John 6:15)

After Jesus had fed the 5,000 He walked on the water towards the disciples. The narrative account of this really begins while he was still on land, after distributing loaves and fishes to the crowd. They wanted to make Him king, but He went off to the mountain to be alone. If we look at this miracle through the lens of what it demonstrates of Christ’s authority and our authority in Him, we can see here the enemy  inciting the crowd to offer Jesus the same temptation that He faced in the wilderness, when Satan offered to give Him all the kingdoms of the world in return for His Worship.

The crowd had seen the power of God at work through Jesus before the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, but it was when they saw His ability to produce food out of thin air that they wanted His kingship. As He said to them in Capernaum, after He had taken the disciples across the stormy lake, “you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” John 6:26). They weren’t interested in Jesus because of what the sign said about Him, but because He conjured free food.

John’s narrative tells us that He departed “by himself alone.” He uses two words – autos monos in Greek – when one would have made the meaning clear enough. So why is the scripture so emphatic? I think there are two sides to this. The first one is clear enough: the authority of Jesus came from the mountain and not from the world; from the Father and not from men. His kingdom was “not of this world.” Satan could tempt Jesus with “all the kingdoms of this world and their glory“ (Matthew 4:8) because he had stolen them from Adam; in Christ, the second Adam, we, “the violent,” seize them back from him “by force.” (Matt: 11:12) Sometimes the glory of the kingdoms of this world can clutch at us like the hands of the crowd were clutching at Jesus; and if we are to walk after the spirit are not after the flesh we have to resolutely turn away from them, as Jesus did, to reach the mountain where we stand in His authority and power.

The second aspect is not so much about Christ Himself and our position in Him, but it’s about us. However, the manifestation of what we receive on the mountain depends on it. Each one of us stands before God, “by himself alone.”  God loves each one of us and Jesus died for each one of us as individuals, and He wants us to love each other as individuals as well. The truth of His great love applies to everyone, but my experience of His love is not the same as yours: we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12) We love one another for who they are ‘by themselves alone,’ we don’t try and make them into somebody else – especially not replicas of ourselves. Even if I disagree with your theology, that is ultimately between you and Jesus. If I think you are an error, I can share what I believe, and whether it’s truth spoken in Love or my own error spoken in love, what is important before God is that it is spoken in Love. The apostle Peter tells us that “judgement begins at the house of God.“ (1 Pe 4:17) This doesn’t mean that I judge you because I think you walk in error, but that God judges me if I’m not walking in love. When we, the body of Christ, become practised in taking every critical and judgemental thought captive to the obedience of Christ and can learn to truly embrace our differences, the love of God will break through and bring unity where the judgement of man has previously brought division. And we all know Psalm 133 and what it is that unity commands. 

So our spiritual authority rests in the power of Love and the mercy which triumphs over judgement, and it comes from the mountain, not from the crowd. Because it’s just as important not to seek the approval of others as it is for us not to disapprove of them. Our spiritual authority has a dual core: it rests in our relationship with God and the love for our neighbour that we receive from Him. We do not love for the power, the influence or any other reward that we can receive from people, but only out of what we receive from God. He is our very great reward. We don’t run to the crowd; we run to the mountain, by ourselves alone. But having been up on the mountain, Jesus headed out across the waves towards His friends. We can only walk on water in the dark when we have stood on the mountain in the Light.