One of my favorite poets, Robert Frost, began a poem with, “‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’ and ends with ‘good fences make good neighbors.’” The wall keeps falling down, so the poet and his neighbor meet every spring to repair the wall.
But that’s nothing new. Just after creation in the garden of Eden, God very carefully and clearly explained where the walls were built — there was one around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were to neither eat nor touch the fruit from that particular tree. They could eat of any other tree in the garden.
I have a question, and it might be the most important question in the Bible! Why did God create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The answer to that question is the key to our relationship with God, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it!
After Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Eden, God began to seek out and find a people for himself. It’s a seven-step path, but in Ephesians 2, Paul boils it down to a three-step path. First,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.”
— Ephesians 2: 8-9
The first step looks back to that original sin in the garden of Eden and all the sin that followed it. The first step is justification by faith and it’s a bundle of God’s grace, our repentance, and forgiveness. God forgives us, and we begin to forgive ourselves. Second,
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
— Ephesians 2: 10 The second step lives in the present. Salvation is a bundle of Jesus’ death for our sins and our faith in his sacrifice. God forgave us in the first step and in this second step Jesus gives us a second chance at a new life.
Third,
“You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself.” — Ephesians 2: 20
The third step looks into the future and finds sanctification. This third step is a bundle of the Spirit’s power in us, real world testing outside and around us, and perseverance, all working together to offer us a taste of heaven.
And having said all that, “Why do you think God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
