Genesis 2; Genesis 3
Gen. 2; 3
The loss of innocence closed evidently the simple enjoyment of blessing in thanksgiving. The knowledge of good and evil being come, God, in saying “the man is become as one of us,” has declared that man, to be with God, must be with Him as suited to Himself as knowing good and evil—in a word, in righteousness. One must (as knowing good and evil) be suited to what God is according to it.
But there is a certain modification of this to be introduced, not the diminishing or lowering of required righteousness (δικαίωμα), so as to allow of any evil (for that is impossible: God cannot allow evil—He would not be holy if He did); but the taking the measure of the knowledge of good and evil according to the real light and moral condition of the position in which he is. I do not mean as fallen in this position, but according to the moral elements of the position in which he is with God. If he is perfect to the level of that position, he may righteously live there and enjoy God there: man never was; but it was put before him. It is the law. If as man he loved God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, he would righteously as man be happy with God; because he would meet the mind of God perfectly as knowing good and evil in the position in which he was according to the knowledge he had of God; he would be perfect according to that. Man was never so because he had lusts; but the case was put; he never de facto could have been so, because he got the knowledge of good and evil in and by sin. Unfallen Adam had not a bad conscience; but he had not a good one. The truth is, there was no such position of man, because he set up to be like God, knowing good and evil; he made the measure for himself in desire and would have risen up to God by robbery—would have been equal with God. He broke through to be with God; and now he must be with Him or shut out. He cannot of course be independently equal, which would be absurd; but he must be morally fit according to God’s presence or be excluded from it. There is no return to innocence, or to the tree of life, on that ground.
The law, however, never took the ground of introducing into the presence of God as He is according to the absolute revelation of His nature: Christianity alone does that. The law keeps man without, hiding God— “Thou hast said that thou wouldest dwell in the thick darkness.” It gives to man then without, but from God Himself, a perfect rule of right for the creature as such, condemning withal all that entered into man’s state contrary to this, and, further, putting man into relationship with God, on the ground however of natural creation but assuredly in the rest of it—a thing really impossible now that evil was entered, and meant to show this; but still for this very purpose established on this ground.
The perfect rule was loving God with all the heart and loving one’s neighbor as oneself; sin and lust condemned; and the sabbath added to all. But for a sinner evidently this had no reality but to condemn, and it did not profess to bring to God. It gave a rule to a people outwardly who were already brought into relationship with God, but with a barrier and a double veil and a priesthood; but it gave the perfect rule of right and wrong to the creature who had the sense of it according to his nature in the creation. But he was a sinner. There could be no rule in respect of sin save condemning it, but the law contained, as Christ spewed in extracting it, the perfect positive rule. In this respect the perfection of the law’s bearing is most wonderful. Only it was the opposite of bringing (an unjust) man to God, who was concealed. He has been manifested in grace in Christ; but through His death the veil is rent. Christ suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
This accordingly is according to good and evil as known of God Himself; and as walking in the light as He is in the light, we are to be fit for God as He is, rejoice in hope of His glory; we joy in Him. Our estimate of good and evil is the divine one; what is fit for God’s presence? In view of this Christ has made the expiation: He is sitting in the full condition belonging to it as man at the right hand of God. It is an unspeakable blessing but the necessary result, we may say, of the work being God’s according to His counsels and wrought by Christ; for where should Christ be as to His person or in desert of His work? Then the Holy Ghost is come down thence, while Christ is there, according to infinite love, to bring us in spirit into it, to bring us through the rent veil into the holiest of all.
Such is our knowledge of good and evil and the fruit of Christ’s work. The darkness passes, the true light now shines. Our coming to God is renewed according to His image in righteousness and true holiness. It is an immense blessing. There never was really any being with God on another ground than in the light as He is, as brought by grace and power out of the darkness into the light, knowing good and evil. He cannot, with this knowledge, do anything short of Himself (i.e. what was fit for, worthy of, Himself). So that, as when man was ruined and got into darkness with the knowledge of good and evil, God only could deliver him, He delivered him necessarily for His own glory according to His own nature. He put man provisionally on another ground of perfect creature blessing (but as a sinner apart from Himself) to bring out where he was in sin, and which therefore spoke of sin and a positive curse; but this was by the by for a special end. The only real thing is innocence, or glory. Innocence in human condition is earthly, or in an angelic condition sustained is heavenly. Hence, morally speaking angels could not be brought back because of the knowledge of good and evil into the light with God (and so man in the case of Heb. 6) But, innocence lost, with the knowledge of good and evil the work of God is according to His own glory and hence necessarily brings into it. The law provisionally spews the abstract moral perfection of a knowledge of good and evil in a creature, but was in fact founded relatively on prohibition of evil which brought in, when really apprehended, the conviction of sin.