14 April 2023
The fundamental nature of the Fall is the choice to trust human capabilities over God's revelation. Specifically, a fallen nature will seek to determine good and evil on the basis of reason and emotions. The "Tree of Knowledge" is not a very good translation; it carries connotations that don't match the biblical concept. The context points to the idea of "knowledge" as if one were a deity, the one who "knows" what is because he made it so. It refers to human arrogance in judging internally what is right and wrong. Satan's offer was that humans could be their own gods: "You will be like God, deciding for yourself what is good and evil."
Thus, human nature throws off what it sees as the bondage of submission to God. The problem is that Creation itself is inherently feudal; you will serve one master or another. If you aren't serving the Creator, you are serving His Jailer and Slave Master.
I've often shared how the Hebrew conception of reality starts with God's self-declaration as the ultimate Sheikh of Creation. Every sheikh with any significant domain would have his heir at his right hand and his punisher at his left. The left-hand man was typically a disfavored prince, someone who had crossed his master at some point, but retained his noble status. As punishment, his power ranking was actually elevated higher, but his domain was shifted to a nasty job no one wanted. As a senior vassal of the sovereign, his income was restricted to what he could gain from enslaving those who were, like him, outside the Master's favor.
He was allowed to grow his domain by tempting the servants and family of his master to step outside the boundaries of the master's will for his people. Thus, it's depicted as a camp with boundaries, and the Jailer sends his servants to stand outside the camp and offer inducements to get people to leave the safety of their master's will. He tried to portray the high privilege of the master's favor as some kind of burden, a crimp on having fun, a hindrance to finding some great destiny.
Once the people were caught out of their boundaries, the punisher would then present them to the master and accuse them of their faults. In accordance with the declared will of the master, the sinners were handed over to the punisher to enslave in serving his interests. This is all common to the image of a powerful nomad sheikh in the Ancient Near East.
Knowing the Master's will is not merely a matter published edicts, but it means coming to Him frequently and renewing the bond of familial love. In the process, you gain greater insight into His character and what kinds of things please Him. He's your Father, so why would you not thrive on this relationship? How could you abandon the high privilege of the Master's own children? To serve Satan means choosing anything except trusting God.
We need to insure that, in our minds, we associate the term "Satanic" with the mission and role of the Punisher and Accuser. He is not God's enemy, as if he were attacking from the outside. He is a member of God's High Court. He's not in rebellion now, though he got into his position by having previously rebelled. Rather, he is our Enemy. That's his job; that's how he gains whatever it is that feeds him. His whole mission is to keep us away from the privileges of serving the Lord.
He has no power to condemn anyone to Hell -- a word denoting his prison/slave-camp. The problem is that we are all born there, and it's our job to discover the terms for leaving it. His domain is everything outside the will of God, so don't get the image backwards. His domain is large. On the fallen plane of existence, God's will is a small place, an invasive element in Satan's domain -- "in the world, not of it".
Satan doesn't have to do anything to keep the folks he already has. The whole world of fallen mortal humans is his by default. They don't have to do anything special to fall into his hands. It requires something special to set them free.
Our testimony to the world is the power and privilege of having escaped from the prison to the Covenant camp of God. We do things differently, and have a different way of looking at life. Our position is half-way between Hell and the Garden. We are on the way, increasingly free from the drag of sin's defilement as we move farther and farther from Satan's grasp.
The only power that can move our feet out of Satan's domain is faith. And that in itself is a grant from God our Father. He alone can empower faith to be born in our hearts. What's flesh is flesh, and what is of the Spirit is spiritual in nature. You cannot get it unless the Lord breathes life into your soul. That part is not your choice. Your choice is to exercise the gift once you know you have it.
We didn't lose our eternal natures in the Fall, but we were imprisoned in a mortal nature. The Cross did not buy our entrance into Eternity. I realize that sounds blasphemous, but we've been misled for centuries. The western notion of fairness and equality has blinded us. This is why Romans 8 and 9 are so hard to grasp. God owes us nothing. He plays favorites and no one has standing to complain; there is no power to hold God accountable to our false notions. It's all about His glory, not our needs. The Cross opened the way for us to join the Covenant, to taste Eternity here. Our purpose in living this life is to enter the Covenant and boost His prestige.
Don't fuss at God because some person you know might never have been elected, never given a chance. Rather, rejoice that He has chosen you out of the whole human race that is rushing off to Hell. Election can be very lonely, and the human herd instinct is one of our greatest temptations. The ambition to elevate humanity to some visionary greatness is a fatal flaw; it's the essence of the Fall. We must embrace our insignificance and relative impotence in the eternal scheme of things.
We cannot help anyone who hasn't been touched already. There is nothing we can do to induce a fear of Hell in those who belong there. Only Eternal people can fear Hell. Whatever it is we can do for others, it's bound up in poking into their awareness whatever God has placed in them. We call out from our hearts of faith to the hearts of others. Human minds are damned, but we are designed to walk by faith, which is another way of saying we learn to live in our hearts, not our heads. The mechanism is calling people up out of their dying flesh and into their eternal natures, but only if they have one.
You are seeking lost brothers and sisters. You never know who will turn out to be one of them, but the recognition is not some verbal claim. It's a matter of seeing in someone else a sensitivity to the will of the Father, and a love for His children. The Father's will is the Covenant, and the Bible is a manifestation of that Covenant, so His people love His Book. His people also love Him as they find Him in His people.
Love is defined as what's available, not at all based on what people might want or need. The love of God -- often referred to in English as "charity" -- was never a matter of human need. It's not based on whatever might be the outcry of the flesh, because humans have no idea what they really ought to have. Rather, the charity of the Father seeks to give what He says is ours from His hand. He decides.
So, the only question is: How do we get the attention of His people? Examine the context, including what God has placed in your hands. You cannot offer what He has not given you. You cannot possibly save the world, nor even all the lost Children of the Father, only those you are equipped to reach.
By all you say and do, by the very breath of your existence, call them up to faith.
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