Why the Tree of Knowledge?

Introduction

Why God put the Tree of Knowledge in the garden is a commonly asked question. Another form of the question is, “Why would God create beings who He knew would sin?” The answer lies in God’s sovereign purpose for humanity.

God’s Creation Was Good

Everything God made, including man and woman, was good (Gen. 1:31). It all functioned the way it was supposed to according to His sovereign purpose and design. Mankind was without sin and, as God’s agents, were capable of fulfilling our given purpose. 

The totality of the revelations found throughout Scripture indicates that God chose to create moral beings. That is, we were created with the capacity to make moral decisions which includes the ability to love. We were given the authority and capacity to exercise dominion over this world as God’s image bearers in a way that corresponded to and displayed God’s good attributes, thereby glorifying Him. 

Our Choice

However, God, in His sovereignty, decided to give us a choice. That choice was not which fruit we would like to eat. The nature and effect of the tree of knowledge of good and evil seems to indicate that God was giving us the freedom to choose His definition of good or to reject it to try to seek our own definition. He gave us the choice to accept His created order or to reject it so we could try to forge our own path. He gave us the opportunity to choose Him or to reject Him in favor of our own autonomy so that we could become gods unto ourselves. 

Love

The totality of scripture seems to indicate that God decided to give us the capacity for love because He wanted us to love Him. However, love, by definition, cannot be forced. It must be freely given, or it is not truly love. God loved us so much that He didn’t imprison us in the garden against our will. He imbued us with His image, gave us paradise, and then offered us the choice to stay with Him or to go. Due to our own selfish ambition, we rejected God, His love, and His creation order. This was our “original sin”, to rebel against the sovereign God in His kingdom. It’s this sin that we still continually struggle with today.

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What is Sin?

God is the source of all that is good. When we call something good, we are comparing it to Him as the standard of good. Similarly, something is evil because it does not align with the standard that is God’s character and attributes. C.S. Lewis said, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 62) We know what’s good because it more closely approaches the standard of perfection, which is God.

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We frequently define sin as, “Anything that separates us from God”. This is a very weak and inadequate definition of sin. We favor it because, while a partial truth, it implies that the definition of sin is fluid and can vary from person to person or through time. “What is sin for you is not necessarily sin for me”. 

Real Objective Sin

However, there are many things that are sins for all people of all times because they don’t align with God, His character, and His creation order. Note that God’s commands aren’t arbitrary. They’re based on His perfect attributes. The definition of sin, based on what we know about God and His creation order, is: a lack of conformity to the divine standard and creation order of God. 

Sin is when we do not behave in accordance with God’s divine attributes. It’s when we do not conform to God’s purpose for us and His creation order. We sin when we don’t obey the commands of God. Sin is when we reject God, our glorious and loving creator, and attempt to elevate ourselves above Him as gods of our own lives. Sin is when my goal is “My will be done” instead of “God’s will be done”. 

How to Evaluate our Condition

We tend to compare ourselves horizontally to other people or the culture to gauge how moral we are. However, Scripture indicates that we should compare ourselves vertically to the standards and laws of God (Ez. 11:12). Unfortunately, when we do this we find that we fall woefully short.

Original Sin

Our original sin was not eating the wrong piece of fruit. It was the selfish pride of rejecting God and His good creation order to attempt to usurp His authority so we could be lord of our own lives. This is the terrible choice that we made in the garden. We still make the same choice today. 

However, the loving God of all, in His grace and mercy, has continually pursued us in order to get us to turn back to Him (Rom. 2:4). He gave the promises to Abraham to show us His plan to fix things. He gave us the Law of Moses to show us our sin and our need for a savior. 

Salvation is Not Through the Law

The problem is that laws and commands cannot bring salvation. The sacrifices of animals could not take away human sin (Heb. 10:1-4). It only demonstrated what the cost of sin is. Likewise, laws and commands can give boundaries and teach right and wrong, but they can’t be unbroken. Once you break them you are a law breaker and subject to judgment because of God’s perfect justice.

James 2:10-11, CSB
“For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a law breaker.”

Romans 3:23, CSB
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;”
 
Romans 6:23a, CSB
“For the wages of sin is death,”

Hebrews 10:4, CSB
“For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

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Conclusion

God created man to exercise dominion over this world according to His holy and righteous attributes and to display His image in this world to glorify Him. However, we rejected God and His kingdom rule in an attempt to pursue our own selfish ambition. In doing so, we broke the world and our relationship with God. 

We couldn’t “unbreak” the law nor undo the change that was brought on by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, we were helpless in righting the wrong that had been done. Adam and Eve carried the consequence of their actions. Their offspring inherit their sin nature as it is not logically nor biologically possible to reproduce something that is of a different nature than the parents. Therefore, we are all in this same conundrum. 

However, we see the beginnings of the revelation of God’s plan to make it right. He continued to offer us grace and mercy until the time that His Son, Jesus Christ, would come to conquer sin and death so that we could be reconciled back to Him for all eternity.

Blessings