Genesis and Matthew VII

 . . . but from the Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil - you are not to eat of it, for on the day that you eat from it, you must die, yes, die.


  . . . It is written, "Humanity shall not just live on bread, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

The opening chapters of the Old and New Testaments parallel one another. In the Old, the order is established. God is in charge, but God's enemy, called "the serpent", challenges Him. In the New, God's enemy, called "the examiner" seems to have wrested control of the earth from God. He challenges the Son of God, so as to complete his dominance. But the Son of God resists. God is challenging the satanic order. The New Testament is God's counter-punch.

Nourishment, the eating of food, plays an extensive role. We need food to eat. When it is time to eat, we hunger, we crave it. If it looks good, we try it. God gave us all that we need to survive (he still does, if people would pay attention). But in the Old Testament, humanity corrupted the concept of eating for survival, to eating for pleasure. We began to see our need, or drive, for pleasure, as being equal to our need to survive. We began to put ourselves first. Rejection of God and acceptance of ourselves as the ones in charge, became the paradigm. This rejection of God and pleasure-first lifestyle is manifest in sexual immorality.

God's supremacy is encapsulated in the command, "You are not to eat of it". This the line in the sand. Everything that we needed, he provided. But this one thing, this alluring thing that looks good, was prohibited from us, at least for the time being.

Millennia later, the Son of God further defines it. God feeds us, yes. But that is not all He does. His word itself keeps us alive. But the word of God was from the very beginning. The command "You are not to eat of it" is God's Word! When we rejected God by eating the forbidden fruit, we were rejecting His life-giving word itself, that which is more than food; that which later became flesh in the form of the Son of God!

The Tree of the Knowing of Good and Evil was food that killed. It represented that which is good for us, but not yet. We need food to live. This food made us mortal. But it wasn't the food itself that killed us. It was the rejection of God's word.

The hunger problem of the earth is easily solved. Feed on the word of God.