Mediated Truth
If the account in Genesis two is chronological, Adam’s wife had not been created when God forbade the man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “[T]he LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Ge. 2:17-18). Only then does the text tell us, “And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’” (Ge. 2:19). Despite her late arrival, chapter three clearly indicates that the woman knew of the LORD’s command (Ge. 3:2-3). Though it is possible that God repeated His warning about the tree after the creation of the woman, there is no compelling reason to assume that He did so. Very likely, the woman learned of God’s prohibition in the same way that we learn His truth today, through the mediation of a spokesman.
The LORD expected the patriarchs to command their families to keep the divine law. God said of Abraham, “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him” (Ge. 18:19). The fathers during this period acted as both priest and prophet, leading in spiritual worship and proclaiming the law of the LORD (Ge. 8:20; 22:8; Job 1:5). So it is no surprise that Adam would bear the responsibility for transferring God’s command regarding the forbidden tree to his newly created bride.
The woman may not have heard the command directly from God, but she heard it nevertheless, and God held her responsible for understanding and obeying that injunction. When the LORD confronted her after she violated His command, He said, “What is this you have done?” (Ge. 3:13) The woman did not reply, “You never told me not to eat it.” She rightly understood that the law was the law, whether delivered to her by God or from God by her husband. The fact that God’s command was conveyed through a mediator in no way absolved the woman of responsibility for her crime. Her guilt was just as great as if God had spoken to her Himself.
Like the woman in Genesis three, we receive the law of God through mediation: first from the words of scripture delivered by the Holy Spirit to human authors (2Pe 1:21), and second from the evangelists, pastors, and teachers who have been charged with speaking God’s truth from scripture (Eph. 4:11-12). We do not hear the voice of God directly; we hear its reverberation in the pages and the preaching of scripture. Nevertheless, our responsibility does not diminish for lack of personal interaction with the voice of God; we are accountable to His voice as preserved in the Bible.
How seriously do we take the word of God delivered by preaching, teaching, and the printed page? Do we recognize that our eternal fate hangs in the balance, that those words are an aroma of life or death based upon our response to them? It is an awesome privilege and a solemn responsibility to hear the voice of God as we read our Bibles each day. Let us not treat those words lightly, but realize that they “are spirit and they are life” (Jn. 6:63). “Therefore take heed how you hear,” Jesus said. “For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him” (Lk. 8:18). -JME
Editorial: Negative or Positive?
Some Christians are accused of being “too negative” in their life and teaching. It is an accusation which should be taken seriously. If we are “too” anything, we need to know, and correct it. If one is ONLY negative, always condemning and never encouraging, it would not only be wrong, it would cause us to miss considering all the good things about the gospel.
FIRST, let us consider what it means to be “negative” (Sometimes, lessons which exhort, or admonish, are wrongly classified as “negative”–maybe because our personal failure to live up to the life suggested creates a guilt which reacts badly to criticism we ourselves feel. Even if such lessons make us feel guilty, they are not truly NEGATIVE – they simply remind us of what we all admit to be our duty, and deserve to be considered constructively. Such lessons may not be entirely “feel good” lessons, they are not truly negative.
“Negative” involves “negate”, or “deny”–it is an approach which OPPOSES that with which it deals. By nature, such lessons “CONDEMN” things. Biblically, it is as proper, and even as important, to identify and warn against evil, as it is to describe and reflect joyfully upon the good. Proportionally, it seems obvious that there is more EVIL in the world, and in human thought, than there is GOOD (at least, “Bible good”). To the “anti-negative” folks, one should not spend time in identifying and warning against such evils. As a PERSONAL philosophy, they believe that focusing on the “positive” (talking about what to DO that is good, rather than UNDOING what is bad that is already being done) is sufficient, and that “negative” preaching itself has a “negative” effect upon those exposed to it.
Three things:
1– If “negative” teaching is bad, then Christ and the apostles were doing bad teaching, because they both practiced and urged “negative” preaching to a high degree.
2– If false ideas and actions are not identified and proven false, they will not be rejected. The case of Apollos in Acts 18 demonstrates this. He was “mighty in the scriptures”, and worked much “good”, but his preaching and practice contained a false idea. We have every reason to believe that had not Aquila and Priscilla pointed out his error, he would have continued down that path. He needed for them to “condemn” his belief concerning the “baptism of John”, and thankfully they were not “anti-negative”, they kindly and respectfully did so.
3– Are not the “anti-negative” advocates violating their own principle? Even if opposing “opposing” is the sum total of their approach, they at least prove on this one point they do not believe it is sufficient to merely demonstrate “positive” teaching, without opposing that which they believe is wrong!
As a final thought on this point, Bible teaching is not designed primarily to make us “feel” good! When plainly applied, it ‘pricks’ the heart (Acts 2:37), and “cuts to the heart” (Acts 7:51) In the first case, those thus disturbed had a “positive” reaction– they renounced their sin, and obeyed. In the second, those disturbed had a “negative” reaction, and stoned the teacher. Both instances fit well into the Biblical approach to teaching!
Hitting the Bull’s Eye
Years ago I saw a Nancy comic strip in which she walked past a series of targets with an arrow lodged in the center of each one; she was amazed at the skill of the archer, until in the last panel of the strip she discovered her boyfriend Sluggo, shooting his arrow first and then drawing his bull’s eye around it. Hitting the target is easy that way!
That rather reminds me of our present society: find out what people are doing, and then call it right, or at least legalize it. Find out where people are shooting their arrows and draw bull’s eyes around them. People are going to drink alcohol anyway, so why not legalize it? The same goes now for pornography and prostitution. Abortion has been given legal sanction, mainly because the people have demanded it. Now they’re working on legalizing marijuana, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are successful. Gambling has long been legal in many states and is rapidly becoming so in others. Homosexuality cannot be far behind, if present trends continue.
Our government may have the constitutional right to create and abolish whatever law it wishes, but it does not have the scriptural right. God is the author of moral law, and man cannot “loose” it. After men have made all their divorce laws, Jesus still says, “.....whosoever divorces his wife, except it be for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.” (Matt 19:9)
The Hebrew word for “sin” means literally, “a missing of the mark”. The “mark” is drawn by God, and men are required to hit it. When they do not, they sin. God did not leave man the prerogative of drawing his own target.
Brethren, we must avoid the snare of equating legality with morality. Men may declare sinful acts legal; they cannot declare them moral. We must do the moral thing. --James W. Ward