And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Luk 18:19
Some one asked the other day within a discussion, "What is your opinion of good and evil? What is good? What is evil?"
My response was that I believe for the saint of God, measuring between good and evil is almost irrelevant as we walk by the Spirit. I also shared an excerpt from a writing by Preston Eby which sums up and echoes my thoughts with regard to the subject of "good and evil."
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on the other hand, is not life, but death. The truth of this can be seen in the very ingredients of the fall! When Adam sinned, of which tree did he eat? Why, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Hear this! The elements of that tree were not only the element of evil; they were the elements producing a knowledge of both good and evil! The tree ministered to man a knowledge of good as truly as it ministered to him a knowledge of evil. Thus, the fall of man introduced him into a realm of duality, of admixture: good and evil. The fallen man is both good and evil! How prone we have been to declare the unregenerated man only evil! It is true that the element of evil in some men predominates, but it is also true that the element of good in other men predominates. The good in man has not been corrupted to the point of non-existence. It is for this reason that the philosophers and psychologists have discovered that within man are some illustrious virtues and innate goodness and have reached the mistaken conclusion that the nature of man is good. They have merely discovered that within fallen man there is still the principle of good which naturally causes us to want to do good.
The problem is that when man came into the knowledge of good and evil he did not come into a better condition. Man came to know good and evil but he didn’t come to KNOW GOD! He now possesses a knowledge of the good and of the evil, but he does not possess the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD! Man passed into the knowing of good and evil but he did not BECOME HOLY! He merely added evil to his good producing a mixture of the two, but in so doing he forfeited THE LIFE AND GLORY AVAILABLE TO HIM IN THE TREE OF LIFE! He chose good and evil but missed Life!
The knowledge of good and evil concerns itself only with external behavior, judging all things on the basis of whether they are good or evil. Man, as long as he walks in this consciousness of the fall, the knowledge of good and evil, can understand and judge only within this framework: is a thing good or is it evil? He then presumes that if a thing is good it must be acceptable and godly. Nothing could be farther from the truth! If good was acceptable with God then man could surely be justified by the works of the law. The law is good! But the good of man is the good of the creature not the good of the Creator! It is the good of the soul, but not the good of the Spirit!
In the garden of Eden we have two revelations from two kinds of trees. First, life is the nature of God, whereas good is the nature of man. Second, life is good, but not all good is life! The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil show us that on the highest level life and good are definitely different; life is neither good nor evil. Life, good, and evil ARE THREE DIFFERENT AND INDEPENDENT THINGS. The good of God can only be experienced through participation in the life of God. Evil mingled with good produced death. And even before man fell, all of his good, of itself, could not give him life. There was no life in good, just as there was no life in evil. Only the tree of life possessed the power of life! If man had been partaking of the tree of life he could not have fallen. Can we not see by this that good and life are things which pertain to two different worlds!
Just as evil is something other than life, so also is good something other than life. Just as evil is not life, so also good is not life. Evil and good, though different in nature, are really of the same world for they come from the same tree. Neither one contains life or is life! Thus in the scriptures, good and evil are not two trees, but one tree. Life is in another tree, being something of another realm, from another world, pertaining to another kingdom. This is how it is that a man, by his own determination and effort, can improve considerably in his character and actions and yet still be entirely VOID OF THE LIFE OF GOD! He can be upright, honest, truthful, caring, compassionate, influential for good in the world and yet have no more spiritual understanding or life than a dog or cat. This is because his goodness is completely apart from life! It is of his own good human effort, and not a product of indwelling life ............ (Eby)
The walk of a believer has everything to do with to learning to rest in our making decisions by the Spirit. Keeping with the subject at hand I read this exceptional metaphoric example (below) of how futile it is to measure "good and evil" which is an exercise of the carnal mind. This excerpt comes from a writing on prayer by L Hensley.
In the famous Classic Star Trek episode, "The City of the Edge of Forever," McCoy goes back in time and changes history for the worse by saving a street missionary named Edith Keeler from a violent death. She goes on and forms a peace movement that prevents the United States from entering World War II soon enough, so Germany invents the nuclear bomb first and wins the war. She was right about "peace being the way, but she was right at the wrong time." Kirk and Spock have to go back in time and prevent McCoy from saving Edith Keeler's life in order to set history straight again. Captain Kirk has to stop McCoy from saving her life even though he is deeply and profoundly in love with her. So Kirk grabs McCoy just as he is about to push Edith Keeler out of the way of a speeding automobile. Then he has to watch tearfully as she is impacted and thrown into the muddy street. Surely there must be times when God feels like Captain Kirk. He has to stand by and let the good die, and the evil live, and close his ears to the poignant prayers of the sick and suffering! We question God's love and integrity when He refuses to help the innocent and the sick and dying but He sees the alternate futures. We do not. Nevertheless it must be so hard to just stand by and do nothing, or even worse, to deliberately stop the McCoys of this world from saving the Edith Keelers of this world. I would not want to be God! (Hensley)
I pray this has helped you to see more clearly that there is only one "Good" and His Goodness came to this earth in the form a "servant king" named Jesus. May Christ's Spirit within you show forth His Goodness toward all mankind and the world.
Jack
PS. This is an added meditation appropriate for the subject along with a saying I copied from one of the old Christian mystics.
"Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20)
We know we must leave sin because we can appreciate how horrible it is. We do not so quickly leave "our righteousness" because we think somehow it has been "purified". Mark well however that God does not fix the old man, but destroys it. He does not tell us to clean up our life, but to lay down our life. It is not enough to forsake the wrong: we must allow Him to crucify the right. That is, we must learn to hate our thoughts that we may have His mind. We must give up our "spiritual" desires in order to have Christ as All. (Brogden)
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"Even's God's worst evil is good, while man's best good is evil"
...................................................Unknown Christian Mystic
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