We might admit we do not like our theology tinkered with. Yet just as much admit we need our theology tinkered with. And if by theology we mean both a study (or diligent attention) that informs our understanding of God, and the means by which we all live in that understanding, we may understand those first two sentences. For what may be revealed of further need for, and to us of revision, always must bring some unsettling. But unsettling is not at all a bad thing of itself when ministered of God.
For us, and if we believe, the matter of having everything shaken that can be shaken (by God) is not to some end of His mere toying (or toying with us) but to the end of a firm establishment and rather that “only that which is unshakable remain”. And of all, it would surely appear reasonable if any believer desire truth, and to be established only in and by truth, that this shaking be neither foreign in experience nor be denied the testimony that it is a good thing for us.
Having all in Christ, as none would deny is our inheritance made clear the moment we believed yet requires enlargement; for both right handling and no less, for appreciation. And God our Father is much about seeing to it that His Christ rightly be accorded the right gratitude He merits. To the end of even being truly believed in all matters. For a true man deserves nothing less. And such gratitude for His Christ is always “passed along” in, to, and by, a righteousness undeniable in our Father. For in their being one with no separation what one accords the Christ, he likewise accords the Father.
That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
As Christ therefore cannot be over honored, any short changing of what might seem “one” is also a denial of honor to the “other” in their unity. Any denial of the Son is denial of the Father. And God is to be honored for all His goodness. God in all.
But (or better) And we are to grow as believers. Even toward such as is described here:
But solid food is for the mature, the ones by constant use having trained the senses for distinguishing both good and evil.
That right there disabuses us of any notion that such distinguishing is either immediately made known to us (though it be a goal), or even innate to us. No, only the believer has such made available to him in and through Christ and His working(s), and this even by many revisions and renewing of mind. In spirit are all things, and all things made to and for us of God’s Christ, yet the mind must be renewed…even to that particular (and O! so strenuously resisted) frank, but true confession… a man does not know right from wrong, good from evil (himself surely included) until Christ enlightens.
And how much we have built (as all men are absolutely so inclined) that remains of any and all of our presumption that we already know or have always known “good from evil” must be unsettled. We dare not take our notions of “good” and there ascribe them to God (for they would surely inhibit if they were able) but rather receive of God what He means by “good” (and no less evil) through the work of His Christ in us to provide light. And here, is it not every believer’s testimony that has walked more than a few steps with Christ, that much or what was once thought good…even to personal advantage, are to be considered…dung? Shown not as bright shining as once they appeared when now seen in the light of Christ.
And though this has been said many times and in many places, it bears repeating knowing good and evil exist is not at all, neither does it confer upon any automatically a right discerning between or among them. And certainly not any implication that, even in that knowing, there is any power granted to choose rightly between…or among them.
I can have, or be presented with two doors behind which I am told one lay life and behind the other lay death, and even to such surety that I believe it. I may have even watched many in their choosing of either right or left door with none ever succeeding. Sometimes death comes from right…sometimes from left. None have ever “made it”. I know for sure that death is there…which also informs to some extent that “The Presenter” is at very least true about death being there.
But I know nothing of life, nor even by previous watching, and may even wonder if “The Presenter” has deviously set death behind both and only told me life can be real and known. And nothing has informed me, even in all my watching if it may be of others, which is there…for me. This is quite experientially [sic] itself, the experience of death…for me. I desire a one…but do not know what or which to choose, and have no power to look through those ultimate of doors. But now I am sure without doubt…death is a real thing.
A foolish analogy, surely. But perhaps not wasted. What if someone, may He even be called “The Presenter” already knows of all our inability to either choose or discern rightly in any measure what life looks like…precisely because we are already…dead? Also and no less to good and evil? Yes we may have some convincing both exist…yet, we do not already know we are dead? Even in all of evil?
How to disabuse us of that illusion we so treasure? Even and what is so often called “free will”. Alive enough to make choices, good enough to have or hold some right recognition that would propel us to in our thinking we have choice and are at all able to make a “right” one? And how, or when…did such happen to “our self”? How did we enter, or have thrust upon us delusions and illusions? O! how foolish we are, and even perhaps have been in our readings and considerations.
Something happened. And it happened there in the Book of Beginnings. And you and I have heard, surely, have perhaps considered (not so surely) many of the explanations, many of the expositions of “its” meaning, many of the reasonings attaching themselves to that “it”, nevertheless this “it” stands plainly and without obscuring to its being plain…except to the deluded…”in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die”.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Do you doubt? Do you doubt the emphatic in surely? How it is not nor could ever even be inferred as “kinda like” or be “some sort of”? Does God know of what He speaks? If one says yes, then the next and obvious question might be “But do we?”
Does one see how revisit…even to some revision is absolutely necessary?
Even if one might say in all contradiction of Christ’s word(s), the apostle’s revelation(s) or try to confine it in some way to: “But this only happened to a “them” (Adam and Eve) historically” How foolish one shows one’s self. Know you not that all who came from Adam even as all “in” Adam, are of Adam in all his estate…that what is pronounced over Adam, declared to Adam, is no less “yours”? And your estate? There cannot be no knowing of this. It is irrefutable. Yet, how so?
For to deny Adam in any way, to deny for sake of claim of better standing before God of any natural form (and God knows what is being held on to “of the natural” and carnal, especially in mind) is to no less, and also deny (by denying that pronouncement of death) the also giving of promise. There is no way around this. Even if one claims Christ and any salvation made known to him of Christ…he must face he has come through Adam in all his deadness…in order to also that in coming through Adam to any seeing or acknowledgement of all that was also promised…as even to the crushing of the deceiving serpent’s head.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Our deliverer, the Christ of God, Lord Jesus.
And if we are not speaking the truth before God, and likewise against what remain of carnal thinking and reasonings to our “once estate” as being held to ourselves as in some way we are, or once were superior to Adam either in “our” affections, actions, dispositions…and even choices, God will show just how dead is dead…in such thinking.
Some will rejoice as appointed. No doubt some will growl.
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