QUESTIONING LAW AND ORDER

QUESTIONING LAW AND ORDER

“Has God said….?”  Gen. 3:1

In considering the Bible account of the fall of man, it is necessary first to note carefully the process of mans temptation. In the story of Genesis is clearly revealed the great distinction between testing and tempting. Man's position in the economy of God was one in which he was in the place of testing. That testing became definite enticement towards evil through the agency of evil already existing, and expressing itself through its prince, the devil. The method of the enemy was full of all tact. He first asked a question which was calculated to create the sense of restricted liberty, and so cast an aspersion on the goodness of God. To paraphrase the question, he said, in this garden is there some tree forbidden to you? Are you at any point of your will limited and restricted? The answer of the woman admitted the limitation, a limitation which certainly existed. Then the very essence of evil is seen in the interpretation of that limitation. Whereas the limitation in the purpose of God was wholly beneficent, and intended to hold man within the only sphere in which he could make progress towards the largest and fullest pos­sibility of his being; the enemy suggested that it was im­posed by a desire on the part of God to keep man from progress and enlargement of capacity. Thus it is seen that at the back of the method of the devil is an aspersion cast upon the character of God. Man was made to QUESTION THE GOODNESS OF LAW. Appealing to the INTELLIGENCE of man, the enemy created an aspersion, which was calculated to change the attitude of his EMOTION, and so capture the final stronghold, that namely of his WILL. He declared that man's intellectual nature was prevented from development by this limitation. By this declaration he created in the mind of man a question as to the goodness of the God Who had made the law, and thus imperiled the relation of the will to God, as he called it into a place of activity outside, and contrary to, the will of God.