Adam and Eve share a direct communion with God, intimate and personal.  Along with the Garden itself, this shared experience establishes the biblical principle of ‘set apart’.  The story later relates the loss of light and power, the loss of relationship and understanding with God.  Entering the world, man must deal with the resultant turmoil within the soul.  The Garden, once real and at hand, becomes an elusive shadow. 

 

 

Scripture describes the Garden as a place where the heavenly realm is shared with the physical realm.  The Garden represents the tabernacle, the place of congregation.  The bows of the trees form the enclosure (overseeing) where God communes with man.   The Garden story was compiled during the Babylonian captivity or soon after (600 BC).

 

 

 

The Garden narrative shares similar ideas to those found in Egyptian and Sumerian traditions, such as the Serpent.   The Serpent is safe as long as it stays on its path but becomes dangerous when it rears up, as seen with the Satan-Serpent (Adversary-Serpent) in the Garden.  The Garden allegory, however it is told, holds weight in almost every culture in the world, and where disobedience, also reflected as a loss of faith or faithfulness, must be dealt with.  As a final settling place within Judaism, Middle Eastern creation narratives become shaped to provide context for Judaic roots.  Also, and most importantly, the One God principle is presented within the Garden narrative, as opposed to previous pagan hierarchies of gods.

Other traditions seem more explicitly assigned to Abraham’s descendants, such as the desire for wisdom rather than eternal life.  It should be assumed that Judaic belief in the soul’s eternal life was firmly established, more so than in previous cultures.  Thus, wisdom would be needed for interaction with the eternal God, His Word, His law, and His code of conduct. The writers of the Hebrew Bible took eternal life as fact, and the attention to wisdom weaves throughout.*

*Ex. 28.3, “And thou (Moses) shalt speak unto all who are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him,” establishes the first formal priesthood; Ex. 31.1-6, referring to Bezaleel; Dt. 5.4-6, Moses speaks, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people,” referring to obeying the law and statutes given by God; I Kg. 4.29, “And God gave Soloman wisdom and understanding exceeding much (perception), and largeness of heart, even the sand that is on the sea shore.”  Wisdom and heart teaching are pronounced throughout Hebrew and Christian scripture and underpin the Way, as Jesus later revealed in his teachings.

To draw the difference: “The hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh is the half-legendary King of Uruk who, according to the poem, felled the great trees of the Cedar Forest with his friend Enkidu to build the mighty gates of the city and journeyed far to find the secret of eternal life from the seer Utnapishtim. It is generally accepted that Gilgamesh was the historical 5th king who ruled in Uruk (widely regarded as the birthplace of writing) c. 2500 BCE” (From Worldhistory.org).  

 The idea of Adam and Eve living within the Tabernacle would identify them as priest and priestess.  Thus, the emphasis on a righteous and pure priesthood is brought forward in the Garden narrative.   Adam and Eve share a covenant life with God.  The Garden story emphasizes absolute sanctity, and later, this sanctity will be expected from the Judaic priesthood.  Also, the continuation of the Righteous Remnant through this priesthood is brought forward in the first six chapters of the Hebrew Bible.  Without the Righteous Remnant, knowledge and understanding would be lost.  Noah and other biblical luminaries develop and reform the knowledge-wisdom-holiness triad as a standard for later Judaism.  Isaiah, who appears much later, is another good example of the Righteous Remnant.

Wisdom in earthly and godly matters will also become a preeminent priestly attribute.  Wisdom fosters a fundamental rightness, fairness, or righteousness instead of using power as a singular standard.  Wisdom is properly wedded to the spirit, for that allows the spirit of God (wisdom)* to assume the center stage.  Opposed is a person’s intellectual standards, or in Jesus’ day, an overabundance of the legalistic view.  The concept of wisdom as a central theme reveals another core of what later develops as the teaching of the Way, or the Wisdom Way unto God.  Therein, the nobility of man, or the lack thereof, will come into a more refined scrutiny.

*Ex. 40.3: “I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.”  The Spirit is the source of wisdom, or wisdom itself.

Still, commoners do not live by the same standard as priests.  We see the difference between village living and priestly retreats (Qumran) or the practice of the Nazarite tradition (See Nazarite John).  Even so, each man is called upon to perform within righteous behavior, the basic code of which is later presented within the Noahide Laws (Noahide Law).  Each man is expected to respond to his conscience, a sense of right and wrong, and if wrong to adopt humility and admit it, thereby negating false pride.  Overall, man is expected to oversee himself with love for God and for fellow man, which Jesus will expound on copiously, and is an attribute integral to the path of the Way.

Biblical literalists contend the Garden account is historical, but then transcribed through figures of speech.  For centuries, this interpretation has become the orthodox Christian view.  Most scholars, however, accept the Garden story as an allegory, usually associated with wisdom parables.  Others have observed it as an altered version of the Babylonian creation myth, or a composite that fits the views of early Judaic culture.  Still others understand that Adam and Eve are a new creation attempt after evil forces desolated the earth, wherein we discover the serpent is already in the Garden.  In whatever way a person may view the Garden narrative, one concept within the story remains clear: through a lack of discernment followed by disobedient acts, Mankind’s consciousness becomes tainted, and he falls from his enlightened condition with God.*  The relationship with God is severely disrupted.  Humankind is now separated from God.

*Sethian Gnostic views are addressed at the end of this article.

♥

 

 

PART ONE

G O O D  and  B A D

 

Right Choice

Man is made “from the dust of the ground” (2.7), he is given the “breath of life,” and becomes a “living being.”  Adam is associated with the soil; Eve will later be associated with Adam.  Both are divinely created beings.

‘Dust’ is noted as dead, or dead soil, by the roadside (Mt. 13.4).  Within Judaism, death, the grave, and dust are spiritual references to being dead to the spirit within or unawakened (Mt. 23.27).  It is the “breath of life (spirit)” that gives life to the mortal coil.

“Of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat,” Gen. 2.16.  The fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad may not be eaten, “thou shalt surely die.”  The Satan-serpent appears as a shining one (Nachash).  His appearance and voice are deceptive.  Midrash: “Just as you did not die from touching it, so you will not die of eating it.”

As the Garden is denoted as a Tabernacle, Adam is depicted as the priest-king, with Eve fulfilling the identity of the priestess.  The sin becomes creating the Self outside of God, and not within the godly tradition of inspiring individuality, but a Self of covetousness and possession motivated from disobedience (rebellion).  Getting or grasping out of season is counterposed to receiving in a Godly order of events.   The motive for eating the fruit is a lust for acquisition, also acquiring power out of season, not couched as a wise decision, but a rebellious decision.*  Further, once created, we continue to possess our creation, ourselves, as we will later see in the story concerning Cain.  

Receiving the harvest (bounty), also represented as the Tree of Life, is not directly dealth with in the Garden story.  Only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil receives attention.          

*See Matt. 18.1-6: humility, (3) “…except ye be converted, and become as little children.”

Having blown life into thee, God expects each person to develop in context of their life.  Soul development begins with a fundamental obedience within circumstances, perhaps a degree of discernment, much as the story of Adam and Eve depicts.   However, once a person discerns, choices naturally follow.  These choices will direct individual experiences.  Experiences, in turn, develop character and individuality within the soul, whether through great trials, great success, or both.  Choice imbued with discernment denotes soul awakening.  Lack of discernment denotes mortal sleep and leads to most of the problems we face in life, as Adam and Eve will discover. 

 

The spiritual life within the Garden is typified by communion with God, which represents wholeness.  

The Garden symbolizes unity, peace, bounty, and physical wholeness.  

Adam and Eve represent a relationship of masculine and feminine unity, or wholeness.  

 

In the Gospel of John: “If you keep my commands you will stay in my love—just as I have kept my Father’s commands and stay in His love” (15.10-17).*  As we witness the Garden story, lack of discernment, disobedience, then bad choices, followed by the loss of unity and wholeness with God, all come into play.

*Complete Jewish Study Bible

  

The power of choice is testified to throughout scripture. 

Sow for wisdom and good choice (discernment).

 

♥

 

The Seduction

 

The seduction begins when the Serpent (Diviner, Shining One) questions Eve about the fruit from the Tree of Desire.*  The seed of doubt is cast onto Eve’s innocent but fertile mind: “You are not to eat from any tree in the Garden?”**

*Nachmonides (Ramban) interprets the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad as the Tree of Desire (ritz hada’at).    **KJV: “Ye shall not eat of every tree in the Garden?”

This fruit, of which Eve is to partake, shares both the good and the bad.  The promised result is to make Eve wise and powerful, “…you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  The word ‘knowing’ does not mean merely knowing about it, but rather it is understood as an intimate experience, to be in it.  Eve may not yet understand what ‘knowing’ means.  As Eve would discern it, she would become exalted into a new power and status, beckoning her toward a certain kind of divinity.

 

The crux of the Serpent’s argument, to freely eat “from any tree,” harbors a much deeper issue.  Satan offers a way to access power outside the authority of God, or God’s plan, an offer to operate under a different rule, which would be each person’s own—you then become a god (declared in your own right) once you step outside of God.*  

*This differs from Jn. 10.34, in which Jesus states: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, Ye are gods.’ “ This refers to the heavenly council and to be like unto them.  Jesus later teaches, ‘the Kingdom of God is within you’ (Lk. 17.21); therein, you should be like this godly council. Continuing in Jn. 10.35, “If he called them gods, unto the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;”  “unto the word of God came” refers to ‘instilled within’ or ‘to be like or of Him,’ or awakened to Him.

To some extent, the process defines itself, as the seduction becomes more than standing up to authority as questioning youth is wont to do, but represents a shift into a different color of consciousness.  The Serpent offers ease of accomplishment, results without using discernment or making reasonable efforts, and a deal too good to be true.  ‘All you have to do is eat this,’ he promises, ‘and you can have what God keeps from you.’  Presumed to be a true freedom, unrestricted or uncounseled by God, and ruled by thy own will, the Serpent’s whole approach is divisive relative to God’s nature and not a pathway of wholeness developed through measured steps.

Satan is associated with the Serpent (not a snake), the dragon, or the sea dragon (Tiamat, feminine).  He is reptilian (water).

Read Ezekiel 28.13-19, (18)”…inequity of thy traffic, (19) “…never shalt thou be any more.”

 

GENESIS 3.1-7

Genesis 3.1  Now the Serpent was more subtil (=wise, clever) than any beast of the field which the Lord God (=Elohim) had made.  And he said to the woman, “Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of the Garden’?

Instead of a statement, a question is asked.  A question may be answered in many different ways, opening the door for a return comment.  This approach infers craftiness, and that the questioner is shrewd and one who could or would look for any weakness in Eve’s reply.   “Can it be that God has said?”  A question is pronounced by insinuation as to God’s instruction. This approach is constructed carefully and intended to lead Eve to a conclusion. It is not couched as a direct argument, but to seed doubt, to sway.

“Every tree of the Garden?” indicates lust or overwhelming desire—”Why not have everything,” infers choice without wisdom or as it pleases you.  “Pleasant to the eyes,” in v.6, will become the focus of Eve’s response. 

Most scholars accept that the Serpent was one of the beasts of the field; however, scripture does not actually say this.  Regardless of the Serpent’s Garden status, the Serpent appears as an interfering spirit, a seduction into ‘other than God’ or other than wisdom.  

3.2  And the woman said unto the Serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the Garden: (3) But the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the Garden, God has said, ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’

Disobedience (or sin) is related to soul corruption or spiritual death.   Biblical literalists assume Adam and Eve had eternal physical life, but the reference here is couched within a spiritual standard.  Whether to obey God’s standard or not obey (rebel), this infers spiritual death.   We also know from experience that trials taken out of season rarely end well and can profoundly affect the soul, and Eve seems to be in such a situation. 

3.4  And the Serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not surely die: (5) For God doth know in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods (divine beings), knowing good and evil.

Satan’s first contradiction questions.  The second contradiction is direct.  Satan gives his reasons for supporting the lie, which accuses God of falsehood—”Ye shall not surely die.”  ‘It is God who is the liar, not me,’ Satan insinuates.  The death is spiritual, not physical.

Ye shall be as gods = be as God.

3.6. And when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired (acquired) to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Usually taught as the lust of the flesh (food, eyes). However, the component of “to make one wise” seems to clinch Eve into acting; it also infers boastfulness within the Self, a presumption of wisdom, apart from or outside of God.   At this point, the intellectual fabric of Eve’s mind is woven, grasping instead of receiving within God’s order of events, acquiring instead of receiving harvest from God’s bounty—good is everywhere within the Garden. Still, Eve chooses otherwise, sealing the separation.  No longer God-centered, Eve becomes Self-centered.

Eve has now configured (intellectualized) the situation for herself.  The transition into the mortal Self is now initiated.  This fall is often described as Eve and then Adam no longer operating through a body but are now possessed or trapped by the body, that is to say, they are now fully incarnate.  Eve’s destiny is now bound by what she can see and understand, with godly vision sublimated—obedience lifts a person into the Garden consciousness, whereas disobedience thrusts the person into circumstances—the spiritual fall reflects what will become the fall into circumstance, no longer the good of the Garden.

The world awaits!  Although this outcome may seem simplistic to some, it is a reality that we face on a daily basis.  The flesh weighs heavy, and they have fallen into circumstance and the consequences thereof.  Eve’s real harvest will become a calculus of wants, lusts, cunning to obtain, and in the mind of man, eventually greed or greed for power instead of coveting righteousness.  Man’s power to execute such warrants is now established, and to take merely by desire is also obtained (license, intellectual justification).               

The wisdom Eve saw (eyes opened) was an instrument or construct of deceit.  It is a kind of magic Satan weaves within the fabric of the conversation.  The Satan-serpent’s wisdom is better described as craftiness, wise in evil or deceit, not a normal, balanced intelligence.

3.7  And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; they sewn fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

The sexual component within the story is usually discussed at this point.  Here is the basic discussion: by the Satan-serpent introducing Adam and Eve to sex and sexual desire (forbidden fruit), they become locked within the body in a way no other first-time experience may do.  Although sex is not forbidden, it seems this has more to do with timing or season, as well as the circumstance of Satan’s involvement.  However, they are now fully incarnate (3.2), “the eyes of both of them opened,” and is a first-time experience.  They also experience clear-cut consequences from their actions. This disobedience leads to the sowing of fig leaves for covering, implying a sense of guilt.  The transition from puberty into adulthood, both in the physical and the spiritual, means entering the world in a whole new way; you are now responsible for your actions and your relationship with God.  And finally, Cain becomes the child of Eve’s experience with Satan; Abel is the child of Adam.  The seed of man on Earth is mixed, and is no longer the pure seed of Adam and Eve.

Most scholars resist this sexual component argument, finding other aspects of the story far more important.  However, this argument is widely accepted, is important, and focuses on the Seed of Man.  This ‘seed theme’ is repeated throughout scripture.  We find it in the story of the Watchers, the story of Abraham, Lot’s daughters, and even Gideon, whose tribe was considered the least important and whose family lacked prosperity, but with the right seed sown becomes a mighty warrior.  The topic concerning the Seed of Jesus has had thousands of commentaries written.  The Way itself focuses on what seed you plant, how you nourish it, and the result (Mk. 4.28).  The allusion Jesus makes in 4.28 denotes a good spiritual seed, which grows by the nature of things, or more closely, develops by the spirit.

Note that only Eve is seduced, and she partakes of the fruit for the wrong reasons.  In effect, the Eve-priestess creates Self, or soul-self exhaulted above the spirit, much as Satan has done himself.  Her actions are not after the traditions of God but is lent toward the creation of self-centeredness, or out of season desire.  As the story is portrayed, wisdom is not mediated.  Eve also symbolically separates herself from Adam as she reaches for the fruit.  Also, Adam and Eve become “naked” through the loss of this likeness to God.  God does not sin: Adam and Eve have sinned, and they are no longer like God.  With this emphasis, the shame deals more with a shift in spiritual identity.  Adam and Eve have separated themselves from God and godly standards.

The Garden story has a number of ancient versions, of which the Serpent being the messenger of the One True God is the Gnostic view.  However, verse 7 does give us a final outcome.  We find that Adam and Eve are far from being like God, nor is any profound understanding of Good and Evil pronounced, or any other enlightened condtion.  They are simply naked, inferring sexual awareness had sprung forth, but more so exposong spiritual vunerability.  They experience fear.  The conclusion must be that the Serpent had lied to them.  Regardless of all viewpoints concerning the Garden story, including gnostic views, all of these stories end with Adam and Eve having to leave the Garden.  Later we discover that Adam has become like all other men, and we find a much lower standard that man creates than the clarity of Adam’s initial experiences.  This does not speak well for alternate versions.

If God oversees, His time and His timing are essential.  God’s timing (season) has now been negated.  The mystical ascension so many seek, and which Eve sought (wisdom), is best represented and kept in the character Christ demonstrated: completing his mission (will of my Father), obedience (not my will), loving God (1st commandment), loving others (2nd commandment), and many more attributes could be mentioned.  Eve’s scale of abandoned principles is overwhelming.  Jesus will later delineate the teaching of the Way so that those not knowing may know, and those who drift may follow.

 

Ancient forces now begin to move within Adam and Eve.  As ancient as the serpent, comes a voice beckoning from a primordial consciousness—one that will elicit false pride, arrogance as to place, and to rule and possess rather than serve.  Unleashed now that the door has been opened, man becomes two natures, now soul ascendent instead of spirit ascendent, split apart.  Man’s grievance is with this new Self that has become created, and with it the separation from God.

 

*

 

Eve

Remember that Eve is in a delicate position and does not know the good from the bad.  Thus far, she has encountered nothing but good.  All she knows are personal choices: which berry or apple looks good to eat.  There is no deduction when it comes to such a choice; no thoughtful configuration is required.  However, confrontation based on value or a specific standard has not yet arisen for her, nor the confrontation between likes and preferences, as opposed to either obedience or wisdom.  The Serpent’s reasoning fits right in place and is well-timed.

In light of this confrontation, Eve does not seek wisdom from God; she neither asks nor knocks on the door before entering.  This lack of attribution to God may be the actual sin.  She separates herself from counsel and does not inquire either of God or Adam.  Like many of us, she bursts through based on personal likes, preferences, and desires.  Separation from Authority (God) and Experience (Adam) now occurs for Eve.  In the narrative, Eve is directly associated with Adam, and it is Adam she abandons even as she reaches for the fruit.  She has abandoned her firm spiritual base for living and, in doing so, has put herself in a precarious position.

Eve’s role is traditionally portrayed as supportive.  However, as a created being, she also assumes uniqueness with authorities of her own.  The word ‘refined’ could be applied to her.  Her uniqueness is in providing lineage, that which Adam cannot produce.  She is without the obstructions Adam might be entwined with, such as direct responsibility for the Garden.  She does not carry the burdens of Adam and, in that sense, is free to bring her uniqueness into the polarity relationship.  In comparison to Adam, however, Eve’s experience is generally lacking.  And so, the essential quality of the fruit becomes rebranded as good, with the added allure of withheld knowledge serving as the bait.

 

Adam

In the counter position, Adam has had responsibility, for he has named the Garden and the animals.  He is familiar with the cognitive power of naming; he has made decisions in the context of God’s pathway.  His perceived role is a kind of kingship.  He, more than anyone, should know to ask God before indulging.  Many think that Adam’s love for Eve has carried him forward into partaking.  Even so, Adam is portrayed as abandoning the wisdom path through life, nor does he oversee circumstances, and regardless of his love for Eve, or perhaps because of it, Adam fails. 

Like many of us, Adam proceeds incautiously.  God has already given the cognitive mold of the good and the bad, and Adam possesses a certain type of knowledge in these matters, in that he has done some naming himself.  Those names are not given at random but are established with a cognitive grasp of what is before him, and delivered with power.  However, Adam makes assumptions based on the words of another, Eve’s declaration that it is good, and enters into what will become man’s entirely fallen Self-circumstances.  Adam does not remain in the obedience-wisdom tradition.  God-circumstance seemed to be working up to this point, but he, like Eve, is portrayed as listening to another voice.

As mentioned, perhaps Adam’s love for Eve hinges on this decision.  No one mentions that Adam lived in the Garden without someone of his own kind, someone to love.  Adam and Eve’s personal relationship must have been light-filled, penetrating, powerful, and full of sensations.  The biblical story seems to be telling us that it is important, if not essential, that we should have someone to love.  Love is the creative element that enhances all things.  Now, between themselves, this love is blemished, and toward God, it is now broken.  Later, when we meet Cain, this shift in consciousness will have morphed into widespread lawlessness and violence.

Another aspect seldom mentioned is Adam’s lack of watchfulness.  Adam does not use the values and experiences already enhanced within him.   Adam shifts into perceiving and judging relative to circumstances as opposed to standards, which is common in today’s world and prospers moral calamity, and in that sense, Adam enters into worldliness and abandons godliness.  His cognitive power is diminished.  He, like Eve, seems to be completely taken in by the Nachash, the shining Serpent.

 

Circumstances will await Adam and Eve.  Beforehand, good was everywhere.  Now, good and evil have to be ascertained in the midst of desires.  Thus, the Garden allegory initiates Mankind’s long journey through trial and tribulation, and finally into what will become the wisdom teaching and pathway.  The Garden story depicts what man was and could be, and later depicts man as he is.  The conduit to God, which is the Garden itself, is sealed off, and man must now seek God for himself, and amidst ever varying circumstances.  The final result within the Garden is that wisdom becomes lost, or perhaps was never allowed to develop.  Personal willfulness, one’s ideas not rooted in the spirit, takes wisdom’s place.  A new construct in thinking has been created, and man has created it, and then become captured by it.  The Garden story illustrates the spiritual fate of man on earth.

 

Within Jesus’ ministry, the spiritual principle of obedience is emphasized.*  

* Mt. 7.21; Jn. 4.34, “…do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work.”  Also, Mt. 16.24: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”  This statement infers a discipline or discipleship with obedience interwoven. In the Garden, Eve does the opposite and embraces this newly constructed Self, and Adam acquiesces.

 

 

 

The Garden story focuses on fundamental character attributes, one of which is obedience.  But why obedience?  The answer is that wisdom cannot be learned without obedience to the task or lesson, as the experience would not be thorough, and the learning remains incomplete.  The obedience God delivers is not meant to control or suppress, but allows the blade to become honed or a pathway taken step by step, much as we see Adam originally doing.  To have properly learned life’s lessons, instead of jumping forward out of season, would have saved Adam and many of us from great troubles.

The Path of the Way that Jesus* teaches remains fundamentally connected to the spirit within and without (Oneness, wholeness), but practical as to individual development.  Obedience is one important part of this practicality.  Obedience is a part of every religious or spiritual discipline, and is somewhat true concerning various worldly disciplines as well.  Obedience moves the constellation of Self along a structured logos, wherein one discovers a much greater soul identity.  We discover over time and experience that simple obedience can bring rewards that the eyes of men do not readily see.

*Referring to the Essenes,they believed the Messiah was to give the final interpretation of the Law and the Prophets.

 Another view is that Eve’s lack of faith in the continued good, which had already been demonstrated, speaks to a lack of gratitude, which in turn fosters rebellion, or at least bad judgment.   The difference between grasping to acquire (out of season) and receiving a harvest (in season) is fundamentally different, and that is why the process of receiving can be one of the most difficult to learn.  For we seem forever grasping, but putting ourselves in a position to receive and then actually receiving seems not so easy.  

Some patience may be required.  Gratitude must play a key role in this transition.  Good is everywhere if one looks.  Receiving the greater good and casting the rest aside is reflected in the story of Cain and Abel’s sacrifice.  Eve did not cast aside the tempting voice, nor did she seek to perceive the consequences, she essentially abandons the standard of Good.  God opens to those who sow into Him, and seek.  There is no mention of Eve seeking anything, but she moves in the spirit of desire.

Jesus relates many parables related to this basic lesson of receiving the good, as in the Pearl of Great Price (Mt. 13.45-46).  The Path of the Way is intended to bring all people forward in the manner Jesus taught—sow good seed, speak from the spirit in matters of importance, and commune with the spirit of God through prayer.

*

 

It is true that Adam and Eve are learning in the context of a burgeoning awareness.  We might liken ourselves in the same manner.  So, during this time of development, the seduction is well-placed.  Eve sits near the tree, near the place of temptation, and where seduction will be much easier to accomplish.  The Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Bad are positioned in the middle of the Garden, much like these elements are placed within our lives.  Adam is nearby.  Within the story, another lesson is revealed: regardless of where you put yourself or end up, the final choice becomes one of discernment that should lead to a wise choice. 

For example, we discover that the Nazarenes distanced themselves from unnecessary temptation by living in retreat and semi-retreat communities.  In a similar temptation story concerning Abraham and Lot, whilst Abraham stays away from Sodom, the youth sees Sodom’s flickering torches in the night, leading to many undesirable consequences.  In the case of Adam and Eve, they possess undeveloped wisdom (growth), so they must respond to the authority of obedience; opposed are the authorities of likes and dislikes, preferences, lust, or even negligence.  All negative attributes have an authority of their own, just as positive attributes do.

This last thought concerning lust is directed to the words spoken by Eve, “to make one wise,” which was first insinuated by the Satan-serpent (who knows good and evil).  But wise in what manner?  Would this be a wisdom that mimics Satan?  Much like yourself, Adam and Eve are already like God,* made in God’s image, with the spirit within (breath of life) to provide light and wisdom to the soul.

*Lv. 19.2, “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.”; Mt. 5.48, “…be perfect [complete], just as your Father in heaven is perfect [complete in all ways].”  The return to holiness, being whole or at one with God, is a recurring theme from the beginnings of Judaism.  Told through the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, these trials structure the return to God. 

Adam and Eve might be likened to spirit beings, innocent and pure, childlike and without guile, a shining innocence, perhaps not yet fully situated in their physical body or habitat.  They are presented as explorers moving from tree to bush, picking and eating as they will.  They seem to have no concerns.  Concerns or consequences may not be in their lexicon, and they may not know of such things.  Not at all like the Serpent’s whispering voice that now beckons.*

*Companion text: The Way, Back to the Garden.

♥

 

 

PART TWO

A F T E R M A T H

 

Self, Thine Own

 

The Satan-Serpent proposes “…like God” to insinuate power and status unto Eve.  But the Temptation does not infer that godly character will accompany that power.  Many attributes might be mentioned, but one character quality is discernment in how you live your life.  Life is best served through a consistent pathway.  Eve abandons her pathway, and this character trait will plague mankind throughout their journey back to God.

Satan, instead, not only reveals knowledge out of season but also through the conduit of unrighteous desire, not through sanctity or wholeness, and thus splinters the direct instructions of God.  This knowing (“knowing good and evil”) and wisdom (“to make one wise”) will be assumed through the pathway of lust and aggrandizement, which will later become Cain’s world and the world most live in today.  As man develops, the godly attributes of obedience, faith, and spiritual insightfulness are curtailed, for these represent ‘Garden consciousness,’ and are now harder to come by.  

The base attributes for handling power have not first been put in place.  To have provided the foreknowledge for such matters while in the Garden would align more with God’s plan, which within the Garden is currently developing but not yet fully revealed.  Intuitively, Eve may have sensed the importance of knowledge and wisdom.  Regardless, for Adam and Eve, this timing is out of season.

A fuller embrace of the flesh awaits Adam and Eve.

The seduction becomes a contrast to loyalty or trust in God’s admonition.  Eve replaces that trust with her still-developing personal perception—Eve sets aside spiritual standards, and desire is followed by grasping.  The new religion of Self or self-centeredness arises, and it will now determine good from bad.  

 

The picture in the Garden portrays lust or desire clouding perception and overriding wisdom.  Eve does not rely on God, His teaching, or trust in the pathway as God has revealed it.  The Path of the Way unto God is superseded by Eve, and Adam confirms it by also eating (agreeing).  Suddenly, these newly seeded events become the focus, and part of that focus becomes Eve herself.  The seductive incense of power rises to exhilarate the mind—Power out of season, perhaps?  Even so, the new Self is created and acquired without merit or effort—it now becomes easy to sin or disobey.  Before, it was not easy; Adam and Eve had to be convinced. 

Developing spiritual character, outlook, and perception, it seems none of these standards are solidly in place.  Engendering desire, then acquisition, and the satisfaction of desire, the Nachash proposes the act and the power of grasping that comes with it, intended to push the soul-mind into kingship, exalted, overriding the spirit ‘blown into man,’ the very act Satan has committed himself.  The soul becomes skewed and less connected to spirit wisdom.  A new agreement has been entered into.  A new authority is manifesting.  What is described today as the soul-Self replaces the spirit-Self, and in the process becomes the earthbound Self.  Commitment, entailing obedience, leads to new creation; lust unravels the developing soul.

The false trail of illumination without God defines the very notion of the personal view, “ye shall be like God.”   Wisdom and enlightenment are never achieved through how a person configures things or values rearranged by the intellect to suit oneself.  The intellect may take you to a place, and you may comprehend some things, but true knowledge or knowing comes by preparation, much like a field is prepared and then sown, with the better experience (harvest) to follow.  That harvest comes by realization, not figuring out.  As for illumination, knowledge on one level does not necessarily mean realization on another.  Knowledge or wisdom arrives from the spirit as revelation, usually received as a manifestation of the spirit of God expressed from within.  Most people have recognized this experience by receiving intuition or a conviction, and in contrasting the Garden, it seldom arrives as fruit offered by strangers.

Getting to know the spirit is far more critical than studying intellectual treatments, which will later become a grand complication concerning the law in Judaism, as Jesus will reveal.  In short, Eve misperceives everything, as most of us do every day.  Eve’s mind shifts into a different valence.  Once this false and blinded (disobedient) Self is created, the spiritual connections to the Garden habitat cease.  Innocence has now entered into consequences.  The place of God, the Garden of Eden, has been profaned, and both Adam and Eve offer excuses (legalisms) instead of accepting responsibility.  These basic spiritual connections will also continue to be broken outside the Garden.  

Even if one views the Garden story symbolically—if the Garden is rendered as some form of purity with God or wholeness, then the Garden is not compatible with this newly created Self.  As the Garden story further exposes, Adam completes the task of expulsion through other wayward paths.  For one, Adam’s relinquished guardianship (responsibility) is an oft-repeated story we see within Life, and with that loss, man’s power and authority and moral expression ebbs from him as well.  The conduit to God is shredded, and there is no longer a place for either of them in the Garden.  

Nor is whatever wisdom to be assumed necessarily at God’s timing, nor may it be wisdom at all, but will reveal itself through man as guile and dishonesty.  Reaching and grasping out of season instead of receiving* from God, Adam and Eve’s beingness is acted out through Satan’s vision—power, unrestricted and curbed by only Satan’s reasonings—“ye shall be like gods [like him, a satan].”

*The Way emphasizes receiving, harvesting, and bounty, but not necessarily for wealth.  The biblical standard is bounty, unlike the Sadducees, who coveted wealth.

 

 

 

 

The story of the Garden of Eden will conclude with the seeds that have been sown, as illustrated by the experiences (harvest) that follow.  The Garden story’s intrinsic message centers on the human soul.  Now, a new standard has been introduced into the soul.  From eating the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, the Will becomes colored, not by wisdom but by unrighteous desire.  The effort to establish Adam in godly rulership or leadership throughout the earth is now tainted.  The bibilical story tells of these two different standards, initiating a confusion that man struggles with to this day.

The Mind becomes tainted, for the proposal is a deceit that the mind has accepted and acted upon.  The emotions of the soul’s nature, too, will run through a rugged course.  The standards and requirements of the earthly journey have now been altered.  As we shall see, Mankind’s knowledge and power will mimic Satan’s character, as we later witness Cain.

 

What do you attribute?

What do you give power to?

 

 

*

 

Whither Thou Goest?

 

     The Tree of Life represents the Spirit as authority, wholeness, or healing, and eternality.

 The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Bad) represents the world of

Circumstance or consequences, a corruption within the Garden.  

                                                                                                                                            

The Jewish people and all of mankind will contest and then suffer over the standards of good and evil.  This contention is unavoidable since the Fruit of Good and Evil is mixed.  It is not that one piece of fruit may be good but another bad, but that the same fruit contains both qualities.  Thus, Satan’s temptation introduces confusion into the mind, for merely tasting the fruit draws you into the worldly condition, to taste the world as it were, but not well prepared nor armored by God.

 

For Adam and Eve, soul growth and the lessons of obedience or restraint seem straightforward.  Nothing had been denied to Adam and Eve.  Many good fruits were available, just as they are available to us today.  There was plenty, even abundance.  The Garden story points toward not struggling ‘to get’ since the abundance is available, but must then focus on receiving instead—you need not lust ‘to get’ but rather embrace ‘to garner’ the harvest.  The quality of abundance is included in the Garden story to point out God’s abundant nature toward His children.

Another issue in soul development highlights the importance of timing, specifically God’s timing, which is measured in His ‘Order of Events’ for your benefit.  Sowing the seed of good timing, or God’s timing, has altered more than one life for the better.  You may ask, knock, and seek, sow and then reap; regardless, there is timing to preparation, and there is timing to experiences.  This sense of timing and order is a wisdom Adam and Eve did not possess; perhaps they were slowly learning these fundamental lessons, but the disruption of the fallen Satan has now intervened.

The foundation principles of the Way* that Jesus later teaches aim, in part, at smoothing periods of change or growth and being instructed while going through them.  Much of the instruction is intended to emerge from the kingdom within, or sometimes with the counsel of others, and is designed to be posed within wisdom, not desire or emotion.  In contrast, the seduction is opportunistic, not necessarily measured or prepared for, but a sudden intrusion forcing a consequential decision.  Many have faced such conundrums in their life experiences.

*Belief-faith, love-forgiveness, knowledge-wisdom.

For example, this first effort in the Garden is later mimicked when Satan tempts Jesus.  Jesus’ response was to get the Good rather than seek fulfillment of only Desire (Lk. 4.1-13).  Desire, instead of direction and purpose, thence possessed by lust and out of the will of the spirit and grasping, all lead to greed and ill-gotten acquisition, with no necessary counterbalance toward love or spiritual beauty, or soul progression of any kind.  Like Adam and Eve, a person may not always consider such things while entranced by glitter.  However, the Garden of enlightened understanding is left behind by Adam and Eve, and with it, the intimate communion with God.  Satan’s nature begins to show in the body of man.

 

In Jesus’ time, a clear example of a lack of balance between legal and spiritual emerges.  Since the time of the prophets (spokesmen) had passed, the Pharisees had been extending law upon law, with over two thousand purity laws from what began as the Ten Commandments, or Sayings.  They not only had purity laws but also had prayers to go with them.*  These efforts were intellectual-legalistic and never had a spiritual core, and resort to the commandments of men.  Revival never occurred, awakening never happened, and the revelatory voice, for the most part, remained silent within Judaism.

*See Pharisees. 

The wrongheadedness of thinking that the ‘acquisition’ of more laws would somehow make a person more holy became the Satanic deceit Judaism had fallen into.  The people became constrained within the law rather than being set free by it.  Adam and Eve face a similar problem.  Just as wrongheaded, they did not yet understand the consequences of stepping out of God’s order.  Like the Pharisees, they imposed their own order; they chose a divergent pathway.  

Essentially, Adam and Eve depend only upon  intellectualized inner law instead of a more robust revelation.  The enlightened vision immediately begins to fade for Adam and Eve.  Today, many tread the same pathway, making the same mistakes within their experiences and their character (repetition).  They continue to operate within the same character values but expect different results.  As an example, the Pharisees kept on in man’s ways, yet still expected the Messiah to arrive and confirm them.  In short, the Pharisees were in a whole different consciousness, wherein their error could not be revealed.  Only the piercing of the spirit could do so, hence the arrival of Messiah.  

For Adam and Eve, the revelation seeds become lost in desire, and for the Pharisees, lost in intellectual clutter.  ‘Figuring out’ replaces true insight.  In the Pharisee’s case, the clutter becomes refining the law as a substitute for personal wholeness.  In the times of Jesus, with the spiritual crop only residing in isolated patches, the people themselves had trouble garnering the true harvest. 

 

Although conscience has always been emphasized within the Hebrew Bible, the later resolution to the issue of parsing the good and the bad will become the introduction of the Holy Spirit, presented as the Comforter, the Ruach, the breath or wind of God, revealed when God blew life into Adam.  The Holy Spirit awakens conscience, from whence the godly man’s reflection and restoration begin.  By the decisions made within the Garden of Eden, the conscience of man has now become dulled and misguided.  

John 14.17 provides a clear description of the worldly as opposed to the awakened: “For even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”   This scripture directs us toward the kingdom within (conscience), with the Spirit of Truth (revelation) as to defining good and evil, essentially the original pathway intended for Adam and Eve, the Path of the Way unto God.  

As to Satan, he still possesses wisdom, but it now manifests within the intellectual climate of craftiness (arum).  He is angelic in his creation and still possesses light.  However, rebellion has darkened his character, and he loses his sanctity.  He no longer pursues God’s course but pursues his own.  No longer within God’s will, he naturally disdains God’s creation and will attempt to destroy it.

 

Sow seed for the Spirit of Truth to manifest and reveal your pathway.

 

 

*

 

Surely Die

 

The temptation is complex, so the conversation slyly begins with a question, but one which is technically misstated.  Gen. 3.1, “Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the Garden?”  But Gen. 2.16-17 quotes God as saying, “Of every tree in the Garden thou mayst freely eat. (17) But of the Tree of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”

 

Adam has already initiated the power God has given him.  He demonstrates power over his dominion by naming the Garden.  He names the animals.  He cultivates* the Garden.  He designates.  Through his actions, Adam now has the impetus for soul development and individuality.  

*Also, shomer=to guard.

As to Eve, she is understood as being once removed from the tenderest part, symbolized as being created from Adam’s rib.*  She is designated to be better protected and thus perceived as innocent.  Without a doubt, Satan also perceives Eve as more vulnerable (innocent) to his enticements and will engage in private discussions with her.  For her part, Eve may have been admiring the fruit and wondering.  We know she was near the tree, as was Adam.

*Correctly, tsela=side, inferring half.

 

The “surely die” God speaks of refers to spiritual death, even though Eve does not understand the real meaning.*  With spiritual corruption comes physical corruption.  Eve thinks God refers to physical death, but the satanic voice counters by telling her she will not die (3.3), in which Satan also infers physical death.  Satan has told a half-truth, or perhaps the truth turned backward.  Physical life continues, though eventually, you will die; it is the spirit that wanes in influence.  

*Most religious scholars think Adam would have told Eve about the Tree of Good and Evil.  Also, the orthodox teaching has previously inferred this scripture to mean physical death, but this viewpoint is changing.  It is difficult to believe that the original intent would be for Adam and Eve to live forever on Earth.

The idea of Original Sin, thus passed down to all men and women, has lost favor in recent decades. The viewpoint of Original Sin surfaced during the later Christian era.

“The truth dramatized there is this: Human nature, made to go God’s way, has an inveterate tendency to listen to the temptation to go its own way, and this rebellious way must have an evil end— …For there are laws as old as creation which we are meant to obey; and as sure as creation, if we disobey them, we shall be in trouble.”*  Foundational principles seem to be in place long before Adam and Eve appear.

*Interpreter’s Bible, 1952, commentary on Genesis 3.1-8, p. 503.

Satan indicates that God withholds bounty and that He is selfish, possessive, and unreasonable to deny Eve such fruit.  Satan may also believe he has been denied.  The reasoning is faulty, for God created the Garden and gave Adam and Eve their very being.  Possessiveness does not describe the spirit that creates and then shares.  Now we discover the nature of Satan’s fallen soul.  The shell that Satan has built around himself is full of explanations and connivance, and now the same is proffered to Eve.  We will discover the reflection of this fallen mind when Eve and Adam explain why they ate.  Much like Satan, each will tell a half-truth.  Neither takes responsibility, as Adam and Eve attempt to cover up their wrong thinking and wrong doing.  As the spirit wanes, the new Self becomes more powerful.

 

Proverbs, chapter three, offers insight into dealing with this Self, and where wisdom resides.  Notice how closely are connected the scriptures 5-13 to the allegory of Adam and Eve.  The rest of chapter three conveys a similar personal and cognitive (knowing) relationship with God.  These values reflect standards of character, actions, and understanding.  Verses 14-22 expound on wisdom and where each person should sit (23-26) and behave toward others (27-32), ending with, “But His secret is with the righteous.”  

5  Trust (=confide) in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding (=discernment).*

6  In all ways acknowledge (=recognize) Him, and he shall direct (=rightly divide) thy paths.

7  Be not wise in thine own eyes: Fear (=revere) the Lord, and depart (=shun, avoid) from evil.

8  It shall be health (=healing) to thy navel (=whole body), And marrow to thy bones.

9  Honour the Lord with thy substance, And with the first fruits of all thine increase:

10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, And thy presses (=wine vats) shall burst out with new wine.

11 My son, despise (=shrink not from) not the chastening of the Lord; Neither be weary of His correction:

12 For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; Even as the father the son in whom he delighteth.

13 Happy (=blessed) is the man that findeth wisdom, And (=yea, or even) the man that getteth understanding.

*Authority and Discernment

Proverbs 3.5 concerns drawing discernment (wisdom) from the Spirit, couched within the nature of confidence or sharing confidentiality with God, to commune and learn His ways; v. 6 refers to seeking Him first (recognizing Him) so that wisdom can be imparted, correctly dividing thy pathway.  The relationship with God and personal pathway are always connected.  Many religious writings and sermons incorporate these two scriptures (v. 5-6), whether they are mentioned directly or not.*  Principles of the Way are encapsulated in these scriptures.  Verse eight speaks to wholeness; verse seven speaks to hubris and lofty opinions of self, to extricate oneself from affronts (evil) to God.  Verse eleven relates to accepting revealed kowledge about life and your personal nature. 

*”God calls us to represent His authority, not to substitute His authority…There must be not only communication but also communion…Communion, therefore, is another principle requirement for one in authority” (From Watchman Nee, Spiritual Authority, chapter, From Whom God Apprehends as Delegated Authorities).

Capricious and wayward goes the mind without responsibility.  Taking responsibility for one’s life is another key principle of the Way.  Self-pity robs power; responsibility forms a pathway.  If a person does not accept responsibility for their spiritual progression, they remain powerless to exert themselves in any meaningful manner.  They have no power over their life.  When individuals absolve themselves of responsibility, consequences descend upon them, as Adam and Eve will soon learn.

Analyzing a situation is useful, but the real issue becomes the standards you use.  Satan has entered into rebellion. His misguided ‘intellect-creation’ has become the rebellion itself.  Satan has ‘thought himself’ there and persists in justifying himself.  There is no operating standard outside of himself.  His intellect appears as reasoning, appealing, and seductive, much as a crop ready for harvest.  However, his intellect has already ‘gone to seed,’ dried up, and corrupted.  He seems to no longer possess godly standards, only his personal standards.

The ‘true Self,’ the spiritual Self, is exchanged for the ‘false Self,’ the deluded Self, which will become what we call the ‘mortal sleep.’

*

 

In Genesis verse 3.3, Eve makes a peculiar statement.  She says, “…neither shall ye touch it, lest you die.”  

That you should not even touch the fruit issues a severe warning. Even so, something peculiar lurks within the fruit, seductive and most attractive to the eye (Gn. 3.6); why does Eve sit next to it?  To sit close to the fruit is to engage it.  An opportunity has fallen into Satan’s hands.

For Adam and Eve, this dividing of the pathway will entail the promise,  “ye shall be as gods.”  Eve perceives the fruit “to make one wise,” which presumes that she is not wise, nor can she obtain wisdom in any other manner, but then eat of this fruit.

In the case of Eve, the attempt to grasp at first seems appropriate.  When, in fact, what is needed is the preparation to receive, which is part of the wisdom pathway.  

 

 

Perhaps it is by ease that Eve wishes to acquire this wisdom, as if by magical transference, which suggests her innocence in such matters.  Perhaps the notion of grasping instead of receiving opens the door to many false teachings.  Regardless, Eve abandons trust in God, and God’s plan or pathway is abandoned.  The seduction of ease lulls many into self-deception, and for Adam and Eve, this altered Self at the moment is created.  

After eating the fruit, the new soul-spirit creation is mixed, a shining light (eyes opened) that will soon turn toward tragedy.  Not only is dominion over the Garden lost, but a new power will begin to exert itself across the planet.  Eve and Adam’s soul development will come forth not under God’s order of events but under Satan’s.  It will now contain the duplicity of Satan-mindedness, much like the mixed fruit itself.  Spiritual insight has become lost, and trial and error take its place.  A new Self has suddenly been created and moves along a different thread.  The spirit within must now labor to affect conditions or deliver solutions through this stumbling block, this newly created Self.

 

 

Gen. 3.5-6   “…ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”  Gen. 3.5-6 assaults Ex. 20.2, “Ye shall have no other gods before me.”  This subtle plot will incorporate Eve and her progeny into an unending uprising at the mercy of this new created ‘god-self’. 

She will possess…out of season though it may be.

 

Satan demonstrates his nature by telling the half-truth that God has denied her when, in fact, God’s plan had been developing quite nicely.  However, once entering into the aura of the deception, Eve accepts the false promise.  Eve enters this world of deceit, deceived by what has now become her thinking.  She believes this fruit promises godly wisdom itself, and with no consequences but good ones.  An accepted half-truth slays the Truth, and she no longer listens to the root of the instruction from God.  This leads us to the warning that great desire can replace the Word and the will of God.  Eve, even now, is beginning to lose her illumination.

Eve succumbs to a tantalizing temptation, driven by an overwhelming desire for power and status.  Spiritual power and what she believes will be a new identity or status await her.  Instead of maintaining faithfulness and following God’s plan, Eve takes her life into her own hands, without counsel, without wisdom.  This usurpation, this possession, may sound reasonable to some, but Eve is sorely equipped for such a responsibility.  Similarly, man is not equipped to walk alone but should walk with God.  In the newly recreated Eve, her soul nature moves by lust (desire), not obedience, and with limited discernment or wisdom.  Perhaps, much like the modern Humanist, Eve believes she will be like God by undertaking this task through her efforts, in her manner, and by her thinking.

 

Concerning individual pathways: stepping back from the Self is often more helpful than repeatedly trying to resolve issues.  Eve does not step back and consider what is before her.

Walking in the Way is not intended to be a constant struggle but is often better served by letting go of the Self and sowing new seeds in the silent places of the soul, which the spirit then activates and brings to harvest.

“That ye resist not evil…” (Mt. 5.39), ‘that you do not become entangled in evil, but turn away,’ not only refers to the Pharisees but the Pharisees within the Self.

 

                                                                           ‘You no longer need God; you need only eat of this fruit,’ Satan intimates.

 

Satan is sometimes referred to as the enlightened one, yet his fall from grace came by way of disobedience and false pride.  Seeking the reins of power, the Hebrew Bible recounts the multifaceted nature of this initial rebellious act.  For man, the enlightenment of the Garden is no longer the predominant force of consciousness.  Temptation, through the conduit of disobedience and fueled by lust for power (wealth) and status, Eve and then Adam find the fruit desirable and become overwhelmed.

 

 

Sow seed for spirit-thinking rather than self-thinking?

 

 

♥

 

PART THREE

R E B E L L I O N  and  A U T H O R I T Y

 

 

Rebellion undermines proper authority, corrupts discipline, and upon the rocks of mortal life wrecks the order of events.   

The lust for power before the issuance of proper authority has plagued Mankind throughout history.   

The ensuing chaos stuns the mind of man.

 

 

Satan’s rebellious nature emerges when he tempts Eve.  He already knows that misleading is often more effective than lying.  To engender doubt or suspicion leaves the door open to motive and thus allows for what appears to be an innocent inquiry.  The listener, once misled, begins to fill in the blanks as to what is right and wrong.  He begins to mislead himself, and finally, he fools himself.  In the Garden allegory, Eve and Adam unwittingly choose a kind of spiritual death.

God’s intended pathway of growth now becomes rewrought, and then redetermined goals begin to surface.  God’s original plan for humanity’s progression now ends.  Man has made himself the center of all things (self-centered) and seals his fate into the world.  He is now subjected to worldly standards.  He may not be completely cut off from God, but he has separated himself from godly wisdom and instead operates through his new mental creation.

From the act of rebellion, all other negative attributes begin to rise.  The folly of man, who forever pursues himself, yet cannot see, for him, the answer forever remains hidden just beyond the mist.  Satan has completed the insurrection.

*

 

 

Adam’s Lack of Responsibility

 

Interestingly, Adam does not correct Eve or disavow what she has done, but instead follows after.  Once closest to Adam, God is now distanced. Eve, once embracing the Serpent’s argument, separates from Adam.  Then, Adam turns on Eve when confronted by God and asks, “Hast thou eaten of the tree (3.11)?”  

“The woman whom though gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree.”  

 

The loss of spiritual light (the fall) makes them hide (Gn. 3.7).  Shame appears, for they know they have disobeyed and are guilty, their most private parts are covered, the spirit within has convicted them.  They can no longer stand before God.  The tainted fruit has led them into a new worldly awareness, thus afraid, thus ashamed.  The fall is swift, as Satan and Self-Deceit have accomplished the act.

  

 

In this matter, Adam now becomes a fellow traveler, and more might be insinuated relative to Adam.  Within the Garden, Adam has abrogated dominion and should have overseen conditions more carefully.  He not only tended the Garden but was also entrusted with guarding it.  To guard means to oversee the values and the sanctity of the Garden, much as parents oversee the values and sanctity of the home.  Adam had named many things by then, in a manner he ‘makes’ the Garden by naming it.  Adam’s position of honor is clear.  Adam had the God-given power to name, thus assert authority, discern, and accept or cast out.  With this oversight authority, just what was Adam doing?

The question alone draws the many comments that have been made concerning Adam’s behavior.  The power to make cogent soul decisions must remain spirit-driven.  This spiritual influence will tend to order authority issues.  Satan’s instruction to Eve, followed by Adam then listening to Eve, Adam essentially replaces his godly authority with a replica of Satan’s.  He leaves the spirit behind, much as did Eve.  The result is equal culpability, as both Adam and Eve disobey.

Authority affects many different attributes of character and is critical when making decisions.  Various character disciplines may be called upon when exercising authority, such as clear thinking, leadership, responsibility, and the settling of wisdom within the soul.  Understood from this viewpoint, Adam’s behavior is shattering.  He has abrogated his authority and power and was not responsible for his station.

The lessons for the Way are fundamental.  If God lives with you in your tent*, your tent is your Garden.  Keep corruption out of the Garden and, in a similar manner, yourself.  Be wary as to whom you become involved with, and remember instilled godly values that they may be a guide, and that anyone may become misguided but that others should guide them back.  Simple to say but not so easy to do.  The Bible is full of these basic admonitions.  Although these values may seem very orthodox, they are fundamental to any form of progress within any pathway one may choose.  All of these values involve authority issues.

*God in the Tent

 

All events now move in the opposite direction God intended.  The conveyance from Satan to Eve to Adam replaces God’s established order of events.  In the new order, the fruits of desire will come first, with wisdom only accumulated after trial and error and much pain.  That is another way of saying that clear perception is lost.  The corrupted intellect now forms the pathway, and the relationship to the kingdom within is no longer handy.   ‘The fall’ becomes a reduction into a tainted self-conscious state instead of remaining in a wisdom or enlightened God-conscious state.  Mankind has attempted to reclaim its enlightened relationship with God ever since.

Mankind no longer lives in the Garden of Blessing but has become removed into the backyard of consequences.  This principle of where you abide, where you sit, in the Garden or in the backyard, is most important to the Way.  The backyard harbors an unfriendly fortune, where various vagabonds tramp down the alley and through the soul—all are needy, all are weak.  The spirit is no longer foremost, and the circumstances of each individual’s backyard take precedence.  Thus, dealing with such circumstances has to become foremost.  To illustrate, this is why the Nazarenes tended to remain in semi-retreat communities, hence lessening the impact of worldly circumstances.  The backyard relative to the Garden—all godly standards have become torn and must now be rebuilt.  Desire may have opened the door, but the sin is walking through.

In the teaching of the Way, the lesson of the Garden of Eden shows us that the ‘Satan-Serpent,’ seduction and temptation itself, will always boil down to desiring some form of unrighteous power, sometimes described as covetousness.  The Spirit becomes minimized.  The allegorical story of the Garden relates that man does not have wisdom, which is his greatest need, and thus he should rely on godly values.  Adam and Eve lose spiritual light and insight, and faithfulness is diminished.  The story chronicles a very different outcome for Man than originally intended.  With the perfection of the Garden disassembled, the rebellion of Satan spreads to diminish the enlightenment and Oneness with God!

*

 

The fact that human beings deal with power on a daily basis is seldom mentioned, but it is true.  The lesson for Adam and Eve would be to watch who and what you desire and be aware of the power you may initiate.  Just as with Adam and Eve, for us, all excuses ring hollow when, instead of progress, repercussions arrive.

 

Within this context, unrighteous desires give rise to many conniving human attitudes and motives.   Once indulging in the fruit of the Tree of (Unrighteous) Desire, the fracture and consuming dissolution within the soul becomes complete, producing varied consequences, some known and those unknown to be revealed later.

The Tree of (Long) Life can no longer be a part of Adam and Eve’s world.  Hard experience and hard lessons now form the return to God.

The separation or the ‘fall from wholeness,’ Adam and Eve become diminished.  The soul light is diminished.  The power to name is diminished, clarity within discernment becomes shadowed, and both Adam and Eve stand revealed before God, naked.  Once their light shone bright, but by their own choices concerning disobedience and desire, they could no longer enjoy the Garden of Blessing.  They, instead, enter into a world of harsh consequences.

In terms of the pathway with Him, God has drawn the lines.  Choosing between the good and the good allows some form of benefit to follow.  Choosing good from evil with what is now clouded judgment leads to the world we live in today.  Careening effects from misdirected causes supplant the greater wisdom.

*

 

G N O S T I C / O R T H O D O X

Alternate views of the Garden of Eden can be found, the most notable of which is written in the Apochryphon of John, a second century writing.  This view proposes the Garden as a kind of honey trap in the physical, created by the Demiurge (a lower God), later designated as YHWH (Yaldabaoth).

Without the Invisible Spirit’s consent
Without the knowledge of her partner
She brought it into being.

Because she had unconquerable Power
Her thought was not unproductive.
Something imperfect came out of her
Different in appearance from her.

            Because she had created it without her masculine counterpart
She gave rise to a misshapen being unlike herself.

Sophia saw what her desire produced.
It changed into the form of a dragon with a lion’s head
And eyes flashing lightning bolts.
She cast him far from her,
Outside of the realm of the immortal beings
So that they could not see him.

[She had created him in ignorance.]

Sophia surrounded him with a brilliant cloud,
Put a throne in the center part of the cloud
So that no one would see it.
[Except for the Holy Spirit called the Mother of the Living]
She named him Yaldabaoth.

[From Gnosis.org., a highly reccomended site for this information]

In the Sethian Gnostic version of the Garden, Satan is sent by the true God, who wants to awaken Adam and Eve and set them free from the entrapment of the Garden.  The Serpent is understood as a wisdom figure.  The precocious Eve accepts.  She breaks from Yahweh, the Demiurge, and as she initiates the act, she also separates herself from Adam; then, rebonding with Adam, she shares under the ‘covenant of the fruit’, as both have now partaken.

In the Sethian Gnostic view, once trapped on the earth, a person (soul) must continue to reincarnate.  This reincarnational cycle is directed by the perverse Yahweh.  The reincarnation view is borrowed from Eastern traditions, very likely Buddhist.  However, the Buddhist tradition views this cycle positively, while the Sethian intiates a god of wrath, even torture.  In the Sethian view, the individual is not to blame, but it is this evil god who has done this to mankind.  Into ascending levels of soul development, culminating in a final life in which the world may be left with no regrets to draw them back into the reincarnation cycle—all lessons learned, in other words—within context of reincarnation, the Buddhist view seems the more rational.

The gnostic contends that the divine, which awakens the soul to transcend humanity’s nature, must manifest on the earth’s plane of physical endeavor.  Orthodoxy contends the same, but it is given over to ‘born again,’ which is intended to initiate a particular man into the spirit, or perhaps spirit-filled is more correct.  ‘Born again,’ proprerly understood, is a teaching of transmutation, in this case the transmutation of the soul,* initiating the spirit.  It does not depend on how much you know, even though knowledge as an attribute is emphasized throughout the Hebrew Bible.  Both gnostic and orthodox promote active participation.  For the orthodox practitioner, belief-faith is intended to show actions, as James suggests.  Paul talks about the ‘new man.’

*Transmutation: AI definition, Inner alchemy of changing one’s nature, elevating consciousness, turning emotional “heaviness” into light, rather than resisting it or suppressing it.

Both orthodox and gnostic agree that humans may be more earthbound than they suspect.  The Sethian Gnostic view of soul entrapment, as opposed to soul development, might be relevant here.  It is challenging to consider entrapment and development as occurring simultaneously.  Entrapment connotes a negative influence, to suborn the soul, whereas soul development is a prospering ideal.  This nomenclature of being entrapped on earth, as opposed to developing positive soul attributes, would be objectionable to almost all other godly or spiritual frameworks.  And, since souls have the free will to incarnate, why would they incarnate on Earth, if, in fact, it is a prison to escape?  In short, the whole dynamic of the Sethian view is fundamentally flawed.

The reincarnation view is, however, reflected in the scripture, Matt. 11.14, “And if you will receive it, this is Elias (Elijah), which was for to come.”  This scripture is interpreted by orthodox practitioners as ‘in the spirit of Elijah’, and not the actual soul of Elijah now reincarnated.  Gnostics interpret this scripture as it reads.  Interestingly, the disciples appear to accept Jesus’ explanation without comment.  The disciples neither comment on reincarnation nor the magnitude of such a soul as reincarnated Elijah, being directly involved in the ministry, nor the spirit power of Elijah moving through the ministry.  We must conclude that they seemed to have some familiarity with this reincarnation viewpoint; otherwise, why are they not completely shocked by this new revelation?  Wouldn’t one of them say something? 

Jesus finishes with v. 15, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” and then adds, “But where unto should I liken this generation?”   The reference to ‘this generation’ is repeated frequently and framed in a negative context.  Somehow the current generation remains asleep to the higher understanding.  Reincarnation may be a fact, as these scriptures indicate, but it is not in the context of souls being trapped; it would be more closely aligned with the life plan for Earth, which is directed toward soul development and progression.  

For those who walk in the Way and for those who sow good seeds and maintain a prayerful life, the focus remains in the moment, and views concerning reincarnation are less significant.  You are in this life now, and that is what is essential.  For those who are strictly orthodox, the answer for soul growth is similar, as God is working in your life now, and now is what God is most interested in.  It is you walking with God, as referenced, like Enoch and Noah; both gnostic and orthodox practitioners should share this optimistic view.

The gnosis of Jesus is well demonstrated.  Many scriptures reveal the knowledge and wisdom teachings supported by the Essenes, to which Jesus refers.  Knowledge and wisdom do not exist independently, but are inherent in the person.  This knowledge is now revealed as Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, who is the vessel of this enlightened understanding.  In this view, the orthodox would see the person of Christ as the emphasis.  The Gnostics may also embrace Jesus as their Savior, but the knowledge-wisdom base forms a deeper core for them.  Still, through knowledge gained by following his pathway to freedom, epitomized by Jesus’ statement that he has overcome the world (John 16:33), both share a pathway viewpoint centered on Jesus.

 

Regarding the convolutions involved in constructing the Demiurge cosmology of gods, it is intricate and, for some, may evoke a pagan methodology in thinking.  Yaldabaoth (Yahweh), created by Lady Wisdom (the Barbelo), is a short-sighted, malevolent under-god who actually generates or makes the world.  As souls, we are kept trapped within the body for the sake of his self-possessed power and pride.  The view held by many that he is a kind of malicious torturer is reflected in Sethian Gnostic beliefs.  Valentinian gnostics (Gospel of Philip, c. 3rd century) seemed more directed toward revealed knowledge, perhaps understood as inspired insight, and proscribed unification (oneness) before death, but still within pathways well-traveled and understood for their time, especially within the priesthood.

Yet another problem arises when the source of the Sethian demiurge concept is revealed; it is most popularly attributed to Plato, even though demiurge thinking had been circulating earlier.  In ancient times daily life could be hard; almost all work was physical.  Only a handful of people made a living by way of mental work.  Perhaps a few priests and some governmental positions secured such a privilege.  The burden upon the people was great, thus leading to the thought that some lesser god is overseeing this torture chamber.  There seems no escape.

Secondly, the notion of the lower god taking the raw material provided, then playing the role of a craftsman but not really God, and then creating the earth comes across as philosophical storytelling.  Plato’s notions seem more akin to a form of reasoning, but do not reach the standard of revealed knowledge; they provide an explanation of what appears to be the case, guided by the philosopher’s muse.

Also, Lady Wisdom, she may not be quite so wise, if she in fact created this demiurge entity.  Her position much resembles Eve, as both are cast as reaching out to the forbidden, or an act of rebellion, or perhaps a grave lack of wisdom.  This does not speak well for Lady Wisdom’s position, and so why would anyone reach out to her, considering her false notions, or presumptions.  She seems to need to be overseen, and thus represents a more primordial chaos relative to her identity.  Further, Gnostic does not necessarily mean Sethian, who may have been extremists—Sethian notions seem to be experiencing a comeback, but are not necessarily true.  That you are here on earth for soul development makes more sense, for your free will has brought you here.

Zoroaster is mentioned in the Apocryphon.  The spiritual picture presented within Zoroastrianism carries a strong Eastern religious flavor.  A complex hierarchy of gods is also apparent within Zoroaster’s religious structure.  Good and Evil are contrasted, much as we see in other traditions extending from Sumeria, Assyria, and Phoenicia.  Like earlier religions, the cosmology becomes somewhat mind-numbing, and many interactions between these essences (gods) weave the storyline.

*

 

In favor of the general Gnostic tradition, Jesus mentions Oneness and Unity as a primary understanding: “I and the Father are one,” John 10.30; also, John 17.21-23, “That they may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.”  These statements, and there are others, indicate a spiritual transition beyond the disciple’s works up to this point, which are outward manifestations (healing, baptizing).   These statements concern relationship within oneness and a kind of indivisibility.  Below is a gnostic writing from the Apocryphon. 

The Inexpressible One

The One rules all. Nothing has authority over it.
It is the God.
It is Father of everything,
Holy One
The invisible one over everything.
It is uncontaminated
Pure light no eye can bear to look within.

The One is the Invisible Spirit.
It is not right to think of it as a God or as like God.
It is more than just God.

Nothing is above it.
Nothing rules it.
Since everything exists within it
It does not exist within anything.
Since it is not dependent on anything
It is eternal.

It is absolutely complete and so needs nothing.
It is utterly perfect
Light.*

*Gnostic.org

 

Gnostic traditions often describe God as the Monad, or One, and Jesus frequently mentions Oneness.*  Key scriptures referring to oneness are: Mk. 12.32; Jn. 10.30, 17.21-23.  These scriptures provide a comprehensive teaching on the principle of oneness.  (21) “That they also may be [one] in us,” is as personal as you can get, both of which are the preferred sentiment for orthodoxy as well as the gnostic practitioner.  Relationship to the One True God is a foremost principle for both disciplines, and in that sense, Jesus would have to be aligned with this gnostic principle of oneness.  The orthodox practitioner might see this as a principle of oneness by referencing it to Jesus, emphasizing ‘in his person.’

*Love-Oneness     **To awaken to the spirit of God within is the center of gnostic pursuit, but is also sought after within orthodoxy.  The former views the awakening within the context of a discipline, such as that found in priesthood training.  The latter would understand awakening as an anointing by the Holy Spirit (chrism, anointing), as is referenced in Pentecost, and is available through the conduit of belief and not necessarily based on knowledge.  Belief is free; knowledge is earned.  Perhaps belief asserts beginnings, but knowledge and wisdom complete the journey. 

Also, Jesus never mentions Yahweh and instead refers to his ‘Father,’ or the more endearing term ‘Abba.’  This cannot be without purpose.*  In Jesus’ times, the current religious order seems more involved with the traditions of religion than the knowing of God Himself.  Jesus emphasizes relation and communion with God.  In many scriptures, Jesus designates religiosity as the murderer of the spirit in man or the Father of Evil, as Jesus points out the Pharisees.  This legalistic and heavy brand of religiosity essentially forms the Pharisaic sect, as we observe it in Jesus’ times.  The fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees were Yahwists should also be noted.

*Jn. 8.44, “You belong to your father, the devil…murderer,” and, “The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God (47), speaking to the Pharisees.  These scriptures are usually interpreted (orthodox tradition) as a reference to Pharisaic orientation, such as punishment by the letter, but forsaking mercy.  Thus, the Pharisees function within sinful nature and are the purveyors of lies (laws of men), and they will eventually murder as Satan does (Jesus’ crucifixion).  They use the ritualized law to cover their inner sinful thoughts.  Satan’s voice is accusatory, much like the law, and thus the Pharisees belong to that voice.  The Pharisees do not belong to God because they are legal literalists—they do not truthfully forgive their brother, but expect the sacrifice to deliver them into forgiveness.  Their spiritual heart is in lack, by miles.  The gnostic tradition interprets Yahweh as this devil, this murderer.  In my opinion, these scriptures are more correctly referenced to Satan (46) and that the Pharisees have separated themselves from God (47).  These two scriptures continue to draw attention as to their actual meaning. 

Though thin, the veil cannot be pierced by the commandments of men but only by the spirit of God.  Jesus points and teaches in this direction.*  Zoroaster cleaves spiritual light and darkness, and in their own petty way, the Pharisees attempt the same.  Jesus seems more intent on banishing the darkness—enemies are forgiven, you become set free from unforgiveness (grudge-holding), and the soul light abounds.  In contrast to this breakthrough in understanding and communion with God, rules and religiosity may not hold much significance, and cannot compare to true spiritual authority.  Like John the Baptist before him, Jesus does not see much to recommend the religious structure that had become Judaism.

*Lazarus: Rending the Veil

The basic rule of law appears safe and just in Jesus’ pathway.  Yet the law, standing alone, can also be administered harshly and lack compassion.  Thus, Jesus proposes a love teaching that is to oversee all, a teaching that comes from his Father but depends upon knowing the Father, ‘the kingdom within’—you cannot have this love until you know the Father, and that love should predominate among good fellows.  Both orthodox and gnostic would agree that once the foot is set upon the pathway to God, and tempered with love, each begins to understand God individually.

Perhaps the controversy between orthodox and gnostic resides in the word ‘knowing ‘ or ‘to know’.  A person may ‘know’ the spirit of God within, which implies intimacy and not just ‘knowing about’ it, and represents this complete shift in consciousness Jesus espouses.  From the technicality of law to the mercy of the spirit, a greater knowing than has been reached by only understanding the law is intended; the soul progresses.  The fundamentals of true spirituality, which include knowing, identity, and relationship, seem equally shared, even though the approach may differ.  Both gnostic and the later orthodox also embraced strong messianic views.

From how we see Jesus performing, it seems clear he is most familiar with ‘knowing’.  Perception, also a gnostic emphasis and mentioned in many contexts within the Hebrew Bible, was also high on the list, and it is noted that Jesus knew what was in a man’s heart (Jn. 2.25).  The connection from spirit (knowledge and wisdom) to the mind that sees, appears to be the nature of knowing Jesus operates within and is the view taken throughout this website.  Both gnostic and belief-conversion practitioners should aspire to an awakening from within; the former, perhaps, more knowledge-oriented, and the latter, more faith-oriented.  The further Christian attribution is toward Jesus as Christ (Messiah), and thus we should follow His example, both in principle and in His person.

The willingness of the spirit to deliver knowledge, understanding, and wisdom is a call that encompasses all men, a value shared by both Gnosticism and orthodoxy.  Although this transference is a mystic (unseen) process, spirit to mind, nonetheless, all people have this experience. The very idea of ‘born again’ would require such a transference of knowing and understanding.  Further, the baptism of John the Baptist signifies that you should emerse yourself into a more omnibus spiritual life.

Finally, the term ‘gnostic’ is often overused in the religious sense, typically referring more to Sethian beliefs.  As a word, ‘gnostic’ means simply ‘knowledge’.  “Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge,” Pv. 12.1, God wants you to know things.  It should be noted that Book I of Enoch and the Book of Thomas, the former being more mystical and the latter often described as gnostic, were held in high regard by Jews who converted.*

*Gnostic.org   Read, The Secret Book of John, Stephen Davies.  The Apocryphon of John was written in the 2nd century.  It is a Sethian Gnostic Christian text.  Pseudepigraphal and composed before 180 AD, this text is usually considered an attempt by the Sethians to gain influence within the Christian community.  Referencing the text itself, John the Disciple had no part.  From the orthodox view, the text is considered heretical, as no special knowledge is required for heavenly ascension, but rather a heartfelt attribution to Jesus Christ.  The gnostic attests that revealed knowledge, the spirit of God working in the mind, is the ascendancy and thus the salvation.  Since faith is the beginning of all reasonable endeavors, yet understanding is the endpoint of all affairs.  Both gnosticism, which means “to know,” and faith deserve a more companionable place.

It should be noted that the Messiah was understood by the Essenes as the one who would deliver the final interpretation of the law and the prophets.  The final consideration is that Jesus, in his person and teachings, resolves the duality of light and dark, with the consumption of darkness by light, as exemplified in Jesus’ works (healing).  This would leave the dualists (Zoroastrianism), as well as other similar cosmologies, one leg short of the final and true understanding, which was held back until the coming of this messiah.  “The Savior said, ‘There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do things that are in the nature of adultery (improper mixing), which is called sin.  That is why the Good came into your midst, coming to the good which belongs to every nature in order to restore it to its root,” Mary Magdalene 3.1-9; also, Jn. 1.9, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

 

A second view of the Garden story places Tiamat, the Snake Goddess, who encircled the earth and separated the land from the waters, who then mated with Abzu to produce younger gods.  Emerging from the primordial sea, she is associated with chaos and disorder.  Being a pagan goddess, she would represent the Serpent in the Garden and, as such, should not be listened to.  The Garden story then becomes more of a warning against any pagan beliefs.  Since man listened to error and partook, he is no longer fit for the Garden of Understanding and must now learn the hard way.  Tiamat is associated with greed, vanity, and arrogance.

 

In the shorter version, the Garden story presents wisdom, perception, obedience, good counsel, good choices, and the attribute of soul responsibility (making a final decision) as playing key roles in soul development.  All of these values relate to a broader knowledge and how to handle affairs (wisdom).  The roots of personal wisdom must emerge from following a consistent spiritual pathway, which Adam and Eve eventually reached out and brokered otherwise.  Above all other attributes of character that man lacks, perhaps wisdom is foremost.

I hope this discussion was helpful to all readers.

 

God Bless!