In this episode, we dive deep into the theological implications of suppressing truth as described in Romans 1:18. Our host takes a journey back to the Garden of Eden, dissecting the narrative of Adam and Eve’s temptation to understand the nature of human questioning and why mankind often pushes God away. Through a thoughtful examination of the text, we explore the inversion of good and evil and how these ancient stories are still relevant today.
So we are talking about this passage in Romans 1, verse 18, where men, mankind, men and women suppress the truth. That’s 1, verse 18. And we should ask ourselves, why do we suppress the truth? Why would human nature want to push God away? According to Psalm 16, in God’s presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. If God is full of joy, and if in his presence we experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, why would we want to push him away? Why would we want to suppress him? Well, of course, we talked a bit about this yesterday, but we need to go into some more detail. So let’s go right back to the book of Genesis, chapter 3. Now, I know some of you may not accept the story of Adam and Eve’s temptation as literal, and some of you will accept it as figurative. Really, it doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned, because what you need to get is the message behind the either literal or figurative message here in the book of Genesis. So, we look at this… and it says now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the lord god had made and he said to the woman has god indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden Well, you know that’s false right away, because God did not say, you shall not eat of any of the trees of the garden, but on the contrary, he said, all of this I give you, you may eat of all the fruit of the trees of the garden, except this one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So what is Satan doing right at the beginning? He’s making us question what God said. Now, you know, you have to go into this with great depth of thought and think to yourself, okay, I have inherited this tendency to question God. Not simply to question him in what did he mean, but question him in what his motive was behind what he means. And, of course, Satan is making Adam and Eve question the generosity of God. the wideness and the bigness of God’s grace to them. You may eat all of this. All I have created is for you, everything, all that you see, except this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so Eve was wise enough, at the beginning anyway, to correct Satan. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. So she corrected Satan. So at the beginning of our ability, of our human nature, before it fell, we were able to correct misunderstandings or errors in the issue of truth. We were able to do that. But the questions kept coming. Is God generous or not? Is he wide in his mercy? Is he loving? Has he given everything to us, or is he mean? Is he holding back life from us? Is he holding back secrets that would be very profitable to us if we found out what they were? So, Eve, as I said, corrects him, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, you shall not eat, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. And then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. So, not only then do we begin to question what God said, rather question the motive behind what God said, But now we come to actually contradict what God said. You will not surely die. Now, behind this idea of contradiction is another thought, that you will not experience the consequences of doing wrong. If you do this, you will not—that is, if you do this wrong, you will not surely die— So we then begin to deny cause and effect. We begin to believe that there will be no consequences for evil. That is the position that Satan is posing before mankind, and that we need to understand. As I say, whether you see this as literal or not is not consequential to what the message is behind it. We have come to believe that that there are no consequences to evil. That’s our human nature. We first of all question God, and the questioning is not to get more information, but to question his motive. Is he generous or not? Is he wide in his mercy? Is he gracious and abundant in all his blessing to us? No, he’s not. He is hiding something from us. He is mean. That’s behind the questioning, has God said you shall not eat of the trees of the garden? So you will not surely die, denying consequences. Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Boy, what a message is there. Satan is now saying that what God said to you would be an evil is actually a good. And here we have the inversion of good and evil. Human nature from Adam has adopted in an unspoken way resolution in the heart and mind, an inversion of good and evil. In other words, evil is really quite good. And good, well, God, that’s God, he’s really quite mean and depriving. And so this inversion of good and evil makes God out to be evil and we out to be good. when we ask questions like, why does God let this happen? Why does God do this and that? We are questioning from a position that we know the right, and we are good, and we are calling God out for being so unfair, and God is therefore evil. That arrogance of human nature stems all the way from Adam. And that’s why we need to look at these verses and see how we have been duped over all our lives. You will not surely die, he says, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. And that implies that knowing evil is a great step of wisdom. It is, you know, we sort of despise these people who have been protected and kept away from the world and don’t know much about the goings-on of good and evil. They’re naive, they’re silly, they’re a little bit simplistic, and we kind of smirk at them or laugh at them. But God knows, says Satan, that your eyes will be opened. The very opposite is true, isn’t it? That the moment we take of that forbidden fruit, whatever it may be, whatever addiction it may be, our eyes will be closed. Yes, you may take a drug, and it seems to give you psychedelic experiences. And I remember someone saying to me one day, who had had psychedelic experiences from drugs, he said, you should try this. It widens your perspective. It opens your eyes. That was the actual thing this person said to me. What he failed to know was that that eye-opening experience would ultimately be the death of his mind and the loss of his perspective on good and evil and the ability to know what is the best path to take. So your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And so comes this enormous temptation and delusion that by entering into evil, and especially the psychedelic and spiritual experiences of addictions, whatever kind they may be, We will have God-like stature. We will know things that our normal minds are incapable of. We will transcend human nature and enter into states of mind that are unknown to the ordinary human being. That is what evil has done to us and is doing in our human nature, and this is why we push God away. This is why we suppress him, because we think he’s holding something from us. We think that what he calls evil is actually good, and what is forbidden could actually make us godlike in stature. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And so you see the temptation that she had fallen for and Adam had way before taking the fruit itself. This thing that was evil was now seen as pleasant. This tree that was to be avoided at all costs was now seen to be desirable. This tree that would create utter foolhardiness she saw now as creating wisdom. The inversion of good and evil. What do we mean by inversion? Well, look in the mirror and you see that everything that is left is now right, and everything that is right is now left. That’s what we mean by inversion. It’s a reflection of good, but it is the opposite of what the good is really revealing. So we have fallen for the sin of Adam, and that is why we suppress God, because we have come to believe, unconsciously, without even mentioning it, that he’s a killjoy, that he doesn’t like us to have fun, that he’s not into joy but rules and regulations, that he’s warning us of evil when the thing that he’s warning us of is actually good and could be quite beneficial. And so we think of him as the one who is spoiling life. You know, when God said, you shall surely die, Satan made Adam and Eve think, I will surely kill you. That is, in the day that you eat of the fruit, not you will surely die, but in the day that you eat of the fruit, I will surely kill you. And so they saw God unconsciously as the killer, the one who deprives of life. Now, once you realize and understand the full implications of the book of Genesis, chapter 3, then you begin to see that your human nature will never believe anything good about God. And that is why we have run away from him, why we avoid him, why we fake our righteousness by the fig leaves we wear, and we simply don’t like God. He doesn’t seem to be a very nice being. Now, faith, I said yesterday, is the opposite of suppression. You might say faith is the opposite of unbelief. Yes, but what is unbelief? Unbelief is a willful suppression of God. So when you and I believe, we are living in the Spirit. We are saying, Dear God, my human nature will never believe in you. My human nature is a liar, and it makes you out to be a liar. And I, by faith in Jesus, reject my human nature any more as mine. I believe, dear God, that Jesus has revealed the true humanity in himself, and that’s who I am in him. Praise you, dear God. Well, there’s lots more to explore in this, isn’t there? I hope this helps, though. So Colin Cook here. Thank you for joining me. You’ve been listening to my broadcast, How It Happens. You can hear it any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com, and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. Would you consider at the end of the month a donation, please? It would help so very much. The funds are always on the line. It is quite a challenge at times. So please send your donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160, or make your donation online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks so much. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
