SLICK TEMPTATION-FAILING THE TEST
In considering the Bible account of the fall of man, it is
necessary first to note carefully the process of his 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 accusation, 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. (lawlessness)
Then came the actual fall, and its
essential characteristic was that of independent action. The wisdom and the love
of God having been called into question, man instead of taking
counsel with Him, concerning this suggestion of evil, failed independently, and
in that act of self-separation from God, he fell from the sphere in which it
was possible to realize all the infinite meaning of his being, into that of
utter and irremediable ruin. All the rivers that have made sad the life of man, had
their source in this turning of the will of man from its proper channel, that
of community of action with thy will of God, into the channel less rush of
undetermined and ungoverned activity. By taking of the fruit of
the forbidden tree, man desecrated the sacramental symbol, because he had
departed from that sphere of life of which the non-partaking tree was the
confine. By the assertion of his own will he dethroned God and enthroned
himself. Man as to spiritual essence sinned when listening to the tempter,
he doubted the love, and decided to act as against the will of God. That inward
and spiritual fall of man found its expression in the overt act of taking
that which God had forbidden.
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