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The Magnification of Evil
Disobedience to God is the fountain from which all evil springs. Keep in mind that it was Adam’s disobedience to God’s command which clearly demonstrated the evil within his heart. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander."[1] Adam's heart did not become evil through his disobedience to God. Adam's disobedience of God’s command was evidence of his corrupted and incurable heart, which set in motion his choice to partake of the forbidden.[2]
Evil reared its ugly head in response to the temptation of the serpent, “In the day you eat, your eyes will open and you shall be like God knowing good and evil.”[3]
The promise of the serpent cries out the question: “In the day”[4] Adam ate the forbidden fruit; did it really make him like God, with the knowledge of good and evil? Can we really say that Adam, as he stood there in his nakedness, wiping the dripping fruit off his chin, with his eyes wide open, was like God Who is altogether holy, just, and righteous?
How exactly would the fruit make Adam like God? Wasn’t Adam, according to God’s desire and decree, already made in the image and likeness of Him? What was missing in Adam that the forbidden fruit could add? Have we simply come to believe that it is in our (man’s) ability to reason and rationalize, our ability to discover and create—these qualities that separate us from all the other creatures with which we share the earth—that make us like God?
In the end, what the knowledge of good and evil ultimately revealed within Adam was his nakedness and his desire to be like God, the God who is holy, just and righteous. From this, we can reason that God originally created Adam with the need “to be further clothed.”[5]
This need to be further clothed was explained by the Apostle Paul, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”[6] Adam did not become something different or lose anything because of his disobedience to God when he partook of the fruit. Adam discovered, with his eyes now open, that there had been something missing all along: The need to be further clothed. Adam’s discovery was not innocence lost, but evil revealed within his corrupt and deceitful heart[7] which manifested in shame and his need to conceal that shame by sewing figs leaves together.
The animal skins God used to cover the nakedness of the man and the woman were symbolic, pointing the way to the fact it would take a blood sacrifice (the death of an innocent) to reveal the transformative power of God that changes a man from one degree of glory to another. Ultimately it is in the revelation of that glory that man stands in the presence of God,[8] with God and man communing and dwelling together.[9]
To believe that man is already found in the image God, as it is taught, magnifies the lie of the serpent. If man is, indeed, in the likeness and image of God[10]—the accepted philosophical position influenced through Judeo-Christian philosophy—then how does one explain the evil that comes from the hearts of men?
This question hits hard: Does the evil within man correlate, as Christian philosophy embraces, to the belief that man is (all men are) found in the image of God? In simple terms, how do we reconcile the understanding that man is made in the image of God while evil exists—not merely around us, but within us?
The truth of any society is reflected in the rule of law its members agree upon. The Commandments Moses gave to the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai point to the moral responsibility God places upon His people, a further revelation of the evil in man's heart. The first four commandments, “you shall not,” deal directly with the debt to God. The last five commandments, “you shall not,” are people’s moral responsibilities to each other, and are embedded in the social fabric of mankind.
The one commandment which does not have a “do or do not” stipulation attached is found in the center of the list, “Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy.” [11] To remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy, for the people of God, is the constant reflection in the act of doing so of that promise of God in the age to come where God and His people are to dwell together. It is not by coincidence that between the do’s and the do not’s is the glorious rest foreshadowed in the promise and the hope of the new relationship between God and His people described in the Revelation that God gave to Jesus.[12]
The nature of law defines what a person can do, or not do, regardless of any moral boundaries of right or wrong. Whether they are African Bushmen or Rhodes Scholars, all societies are defined by a code of law, whether they include all or some of God's Commandments.[13] If God had not said “do and do not,” there would be no rule of law by which to judge right or wrong. The morality of what is right or wrong is up for grabs when man asks "did God really say…?"[14] This is precisely the question that took shape within Adam’s heart.
Whether it is the individual man or society at large who disregard the God who has spoken, there can be only one path for those who take what Jesus called the easy way, the broad way.[15] Solomon, perhaps better than any other man, understood that path, having traveled it himself.[16] "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death."[17]
It is made clear in the scriptures that the death man fears is proof the heart of man is intrinsically evil, and is thus magnified when man questions God's authority and is carried away by his own reasoning and desire. The apostle James reminded his readers, "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death."[18] The lesson of Adam is the lesson of us all.
To live with the belief man is made in the image and likeness of God while also in possession of an evil heart[19] produces a conundrum and raises questions, beginning with, just how are we like God, and in what way does man bear God's image?
In other words, how, exactly, are we like God? Does it mean we are all to think of ourselves as little or perhaps lesser gods running around the planet? Does it mean the Universalists are correct and all of mankind is counted as God's children? If we all are God’s children, then surely He loves all.[20] And if this is true, then who are the wicked, and the children of the wicked one, of whom the scriptures speak?[21]
Even more significant, what are we to believe about the damned who are to perish in the lake of fire?[22] Are they also considered to be in the image of God? And if so, are we then to understand that the damned, while suffering forever in the fire of God’s judgment, remain in the image and likeness of God?
The questions keep coming, mostly ignored and unanswered in light of the philosophical position that man is made in the likeness and image of God. Granted, these are hard questions, demanding our attention and consideration of just who is this God of the scriptures, Who desired and decreed to create man in His likeness and image.
It is through contemplation of the Sovereign God who desires a people for His name’s sake that the seeker will discover the questioning heart that drives a man in all his imperfections to his knees. Such is the God who “draws His people with the cords of a man, with the bands of love.”[23] Jesus of Nazareth possessed such a heart,[24] and we see in him a man who spent a great deal of time on his knees, seeking the face[25] of the one whom he called “my God.”[26]
The lie[27] that Adam could be like God, knowing both the good and the evil, has had profound implications for mankind. Adam did not experience the result the lie promised, that he would be like God with the knowledge of good and evil. What Adam gained through his disobedience to God was a knowledge that has filled the history of mankind with tears and sorrows, brother against brother, nation against nation, empty of anything resembling likeness to the God of the scriptures, who is altogether holy and righteous. The true nature of man is revealed in the atrocities and horrors committed throughout history, horrors and atrocities limited only by the darkness of man's imagination springing from a corrupt and deceitful heart.[28] It is through this state of being that God reminds His people that mankind grovels in darkness[29] and in the deceitfulness of the heart fulfilling every sort of iniquity.[30]
Having such a picture of evil before us brings up the question: Was the first Adam the man God had in mind when He said, “let us make man in our image and likeness?” In other words, can we say definitively, in the context of God having pronounced the creation very good,[31] that the man and woman we see standing naked in God's garden were the fulfillment of His desire and decree to create man[32] in His image and likeness? Or is it possible, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman believers, that “the first Adam was a type, a figure of the man to come”[33] the very man who in the process of redemptive history would be declared “the express image of God.”[34]
The Apostle Paul reminds us, for it is, "God who said, Out of darkness light is to shine, who did shine in our hearts, for the enlightening of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."[35] The glory of God shines in God's Christ. There, in the face of Jesus, the focus and achievement of God's desire and design for the ages is revealed. According to the Apostle Paul he is the second or last Adam, the heavenly man,[36] the man for whom God determined His name is Jesus,[37] "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."[38]
God certainly knew the heart of Adam before giving him the command not to eat from the forbidden tree. And like Adam, from whom we all have descended,[39] we come into this world in need of the new heart. The saving of a people for God is ultimately accomplished by the deliverance from the evil heart. In the end, we are what we are, just as we have come into this world, a people in need of the pure heart and the righteousness of God.[40] For only with the pure heart will a man see God,[41] as he or she stands clothed in the righteousness of God.[42]
Jesus is the firstfruits of the order[43] of those who will see God.[44] He is the Lamb of God who has been found worthy[45] through his demonstration of the pure heart obedient to God.[46] In the most profound way, Jesus is the revelation of God's desire; he is the head of the body[47] of the new man[48] which will ultimately be fulfilled in the called[49] of God upon the resurrection at the last day.[50]
Today, the resurrected Jesus stands in the presence of God.[51] We know him as the Son of man who has been declared the Son of God,[52] with all authority and power granted him.[53] In all that God has accomplished through His obedient servant, Jesus has been made the Way to the Father. For it is the Father’s image we must bear, if we are to stand in God's presence as His children.
Jesus of Nazareth has shown us the way, and was made a life-giving spirit when God raised him from the dead.[54] Jesus is the fullest revelation of the Glory of God revealed, man standing in the presence of God Almighty.[55]
The apostles, empowered by the Spirit of God, taught and defended the doctrine of the Christ.[56] It was this doctrine they believed and died for, the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was declared the Son of God, and He sits at the Right Hand of Power as “the express image of the invisible God.”[57]
The apostles also taught that in the new creation[58] of God is the new man “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”[59] The first Adam has no part in the new creation of God, for he was “of the earth, made of dust.”[60] The second or last Adam[61] is “the beginning of the creation of God.”[62] Jesus is the last Adam, who is head of the body[63] of the new man,[64] the heavenly man.[65]
God’s chosen people, through faith, have been made members of the body of Christ. [66] They are the redeemed of God, His anointed people,[67] the new man whom God is creating and who is coming together, in the process of what we understand as redemptive history, to form “the perfect man.”[68] Those who are of faith and are members of His body can be found in Jesus,[69] the man who has been declared the express image of God. This reality is the fulfillment of the desire and decree of God to make man in His image and likeness!
In conclusion, the necessity to understand and address the evil we see around us and in us has been laid at our doorstep. Evil makes possible a comparison to the grace of God, in the revealing of His glory in the redemption of a people for His name's sake.
The plan to reveal the glory of God through the means of evil was conceived before the foundation of the world was laid.[70] It began before Adam was created, before Adam was tempted, and before he reached out to grasp the forbidden. The redemption of a people for the sake of God's name[71] had already begun, when, in His wisdom, God ordained that the Lamb be slain.[72]
Because of God's desire to redeem a people, a people with the promise to partake of the divine nature,[73] everything, beginning in the garden, and through all that which followed, was necessary to bring those people to Him. Through the determination of the Sovereign God, it was in service to this necessity. All has been done and is being accomplished through man's knowledge of “the good and the evil.” Simply stated, it is through the means of man's knowledge of good and evil that redemptive history flows toward the achieved goal, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”[74]
The goal has been set, and can be understood through the one who has overcome the evil he endured.[75] How did Jesus of Nazareth overcome the evil? It was through his suffering of obedience,[76] "Because he holds fast to me in love,”[77] the man who has revealed the pure heart for God.[78]
We must—as difficult it may be in the age we now live—find comfort in the truth that evil is a necessary step in the manifestation of the glory of God.[79] God’s Glory shines brightest in the face of Jesus,[80] where evil has been overcome[81] through the man who revealed to us his love[82] and His obedience to God.[83]
And finally, as God commanded Adam not to eat from the forbidden tree; "He (God) now commands all people everywhere to repent,"[84] and believe the gospel.[85]
"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." John 3:17-19
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[1] Matthew 15:19
[2] Ecclesiastes 9:3 Jeremiah 17:9 Isaiah 1:5,6 Mark 7:21-22
[3] Genesis 3:5
[4] Genesis 2:17
[5] This is the Apostle Paul’s theology,"...but that we would be further clothed" -in retrospect to being naked. 2Corinthians 5:4 -see also Luke 24:49 Revelations 7:13-14
[6] 2Corinthians 3:18 EVS
[7] Jeremiah 17:9,10 Ecclesiastes 9:3
[8] Acts 7:55-56
[9] Revelation 21:3-5
[10] God is Spirit – John 4:24 2Corinthians 3:17 "The LORD is the Spirit"
[11] Exodus 20:8
[12] Revelation chapters 21 and 22
[13] Nearly all societies are in agreement that stealing from another is morally wrong, and it is morally right to honor and respect your parents.
[14] Genesis 3:1b This is what Adam contemplated in the temptation.
[15] Matthew 7:13 Luke 13:24
[16] The book of Ecclesiastes, written by Solomon, is a testament to a man who indulged [makes the necessary parallel construction] in the vanities of this life and then lived long enough to tell his story. Ecclesiastes 1:1,2
[17] Proverbs 14:12, 16:25
[18] James 1:15
[19] Matthew 7:11, 12:34
[20] Psalm 11:5
[21] Matthew 13:38 1John 3:11
[22] Revelation 21:8, 22:15 Ephesians 5:5
[23] Hosea 11:4
[24] The words, my heart appear more than fifty times in the Psalms, and nearly all apply directly or indirectly to God's anointed one.
[25] Psalm 27:7-8 The Gospels record Jesus as a man of prayer. Matthew 14:23 Mark 14:32 Luke 6:12
[26] Psalms 22:1, cited in Matthew 27:46 Mark 15:34 Psalm 69:3 *John 20:17 Revelation 3:12
[27] "you shall be like God knowing good and evil" Genesis 3:5
[28] Jeremiah 17:9 Ecclesiastes 9:3 Mark 7:21-23
[29] Psalm 82:5-8 Isaiah 59:9-14 John 12:35 Colossians 1:13
[30] Psalm 5:5, 94:14-23
[31] Genesis 1:31
[32] "Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam (man), in the day…" when they were created. Genesis 5:2
[33] Romans 5:14
[34] Colossians 1:15 2Corinthians 4:4 Hebrews 1:3
[35] 2Corinthians 4:6 YLT
[36] 1Corinthians 15:45-49 Jesus is the last man, in Paul's theology. There are only two men in redemptive history – see Romans 5:17-19
[37] Jesus, the Greek word, Ἰησοῦ, with the meaning, Yahweh is Salvation.
[38] Acts 4:12 See also Luke 1:31 Acts 2:38, 3:6,16 9:27 Ephesians 5:20 Philippians 2:10 Colossian 3:17
[39] 1Corinthians 15:49 Genesis 5:3
[40] Romans 3:21-25, 4:3-6 1Corinthians 1:30 *2Corinthians 5:21 James 2:23 1John 3:10
[41] Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" Also Psalms 24:3,4 Ezekiel 36:26
[42] Job 29:14 Psalm 132:9 Isaiah 59:17, 61:10 *Ephesians 6:14
[43] 1Corinthians 15:20, 23
[44] Matthew 5:8 Revelation 22:4 "They will see His face..."
[45] “You are worthy” is the call from heaven. Revelation 5:2, 9, 12 see also Hebrews 3:3
[46] Psalm 9:1 Psalm 40 The entire Psalm is a reflection of the One who delights in the will of God, *verses 7-8,10 12
[47] Colossians 1:18, 2:19 Ephesians 5:23
[48] The new man- the new creation Galatians 6:15 Ephesians 2:14 Colossians 3:15
[49] Romans 1:6, 8:29 Revelation 17:14
[50] John 6:39-40, 44 John 5:28 1Corinthians 15:51-54 1Thessalonians 4:13-17
[51] Acts 7:56 Stephen saw Jesus in a vision, just prior to his stoning.
[52] Romans 1:4
[53] Daniel 7:13 Psalm 110:1,2 Matthew 26:64, 28:18 1Corinthians 15:27 Ephesians 1:20-22
[54] 1Corinthians 15:45
[55] Acts 7:55-56
[56] 1Timothy 4:6, 6:3 Hebrews 6:1 2John 1:9
[57] 2Corinthians 4:4 Colossians 1:15 Hebrews 1:3
[58] "The New Creation" 2Corinthians 5:17 *Galatians 6:15 "You must be born again" John 3:3, 5, 7 See also Romans 6:4
[59] Ephesians 4:24
[60] Genesis 2:7, 3:31 1Corinthians 15:47
[61] 1Corinthians 15:45, 47
[62] Revelation 3:14 Colossians 1:15, 18
[63] Ephesians 1:23, 4:12, 5:23 Colossians 1:24 1Corinthians 12:27 Romans 12:5
[64] Romans 6:4, 7:6, 12:2 Ephesians 4:13 "a (the) perfect man"
[65] 1Corinthians 15:48, 49
[66] Ephesians 5:30 "...because we are members of his body" See also 1Corinthians 12:27 Ephesians 3:6
[67] 1Corinthians 1:21 1John 2:20, 27
[68] "The new man" Ephesians4:13, 24 Colossians 3:10
[69] Philippians 3:9 *Colossians 2:9-10 1John 4:13, 5:20
[70] Romans 9:20-23 "But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?"
[71] Psalm 79:9 Ezekiel 36:22
[72] Revelation 13:8 1Peter 1:19-20 Acts 2:23
[73] 2Peter 1:4 2Corinthians 3:18
[74] Ephesians 4:13
[75] Hebrews 12:3 "Consider him, who endured…" Revelation 3:21 "as I also overcame…"
[76] Hebrews 5:8 Philippians 2:8
[77] Psalms 91:14, 145:20, 9:10 *Psalm 40:8
[78] Psalm 24:3-4 The question is posed, "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place?" The answer comes back…"He who has clean hands and a pure Heart." There is only one man for whom the reply is answered; Jesus of Nazareth is that man. See also Matthew 5:8
[79] Proverbs 25:2 John 11:40 Romans 5:2
[80] 2Corinthians 4:6
[81] Jesus was tempted, during the wilderness experience, in every way a man could be tempted, and overcame, Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:15 Revelation 2:7, 5:5, 3:21
[82] *Psalm 91:14 "Because he (Jesus) has set his love upon me"
[83] Hebrews 5:8 Philippians 2:8
[84] Acts 17:30
[85] “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." Mark 1:14-15
