Freedom's Roots

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Yoke of slavery comes from placing confidence in the flesh. It's placing your trust/confidence in something that cannot deliver, that cannot provide. It's eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead of eating from the Tree of Life and all the other trees that were growing and were pleasing to the eye and good for food and that were placed in the garden and freely given for food.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not placed in the garden for the purpose of feeding Adam and Eve. Then why was it placed there? I think perhaps it was placed there as a visual marker to manifest that there is indeed a presence of good and evil around humanity and that we are freely given the capacity to choose whom we will believe in regards to what is good and what is evil, or whom we are leaving it up to in judging what is good and evil...God or ourselves. The serpent saw that the only opportunity for us to replace God from that place of authority is by causing us to mistrust God. If we completely trusted God with every single ounce of our being and in His heart towards us, why would WE need that knowledge between good and evil? If we were in absolute pure intimate fellowship and constant union with God, the way it was before sin entered into humanity, then I ask again, why would WE need to have the knowledge of good and evil? Would the only necessary reason to have that knowledge be because of the RESULTS and EFFECTS of sin entering into creation? We wouldn't need that knowledge with the absence of sin! Creation was completely and utterly subverted in the mind of Eve before it was subverted by her sin in eating from that tree. She was under the delusion that she NEEDED and therefore desired to have that knowledge. The only way she was under that delusion was by falling prey to the crafty serpent that went about accomplishing this by lying to us about God, about ourselves, and about that tree; the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Scripture says that after the serpent lied to Eve, THEN did she see that this tree was 'good for food and pleasing to the eye..' But...so were all the other trees growing there and which she was free to eat from. This tree was no different in that sense.

Eve believed a lie about this tree, a lie about God and a lie about herself. The lie about this tree was that it was somehow different somehow better than all the other trees she was free to eat from. Because she saw it was desirable for gaining wisdom. But God didn't say by eating this tree she would gain wisdom. That is what she assumed based on the lie the serpent told her about this tree. The lie about God was that God was withholding wisdom and goodness from her. That He didn't want her to have something she wanted and could therefore not be trusted. The lie about Eve was that she was lacking in something she needed, and that she could get it on her own, apart and in opposition to God.

These two trees were the only trees placed in the middle of the garden.

"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees growing out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:8-9

Interestingly, I just noticed that the Lord had made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. So, the Tree of Life wasn't the ONLY tree that was meant to be eaten from. The Lord had not commanded them to eat from the Tree of Life only. His only command was this: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

So, it's not an either or, black or white issue of what tree to eat from! The first command that came from God to the first human being was this: "YOU ARE FREE". Not, "You shall not...”

God is about freedom. He is not about prohibitions. There was nothing wrong with eating from any of the others trees. And the trees that God said they were free to eat from weren't nasty, ugly trees. No, they were pleasing to the eye and good for food. There was nothing wrong with what God had created, or with His command to man. The only thing the crafty serpent could do to wreck it all was to lie about God, lie about the tree and lie about Eve. He did this by fooling Eve into seeing God in a false way, a way that would portray God as untrustworthy and withholding goodness from Eve, and that Eve could attain this aside from God, and in not taking his command and His warning seriously because she now mistrusted God and His heart.