The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Revealed

By Michael Dale

'The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Revealed' is a journey into the true meaning, function, and purpose of the Tree of Knowledge. The author provides new scripture based insights into the matter helping the reader gain a clear understanding of the Tree of Knowledge's full significance. Included in the discussion is how the Tree of Knowledge affects man as whole mentally, spiritually, and physically; the role that it plays in the battle between good and evil; how it permeates every area of people activities; and its role in God's overall redemptive plan for creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365140778

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Copyright

EshaMyakiShemua Enterprises

Contact Info: [e-mail]

Second Edition

Copyright © 2016 by Michael B. Dale. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-365-10056-7

Foreword

No other Old Testament bible story has been the subject of so many artists’ depictions and so much debate and speculation than the tale of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is only rightly so giving its importance in Christian doctrine. No other single event is as significant in bringing about man’s current state.

Despite the importance of the Tree of Knowledge incident there is little inspired truth concerning the matter. When searching the topic on the internet I was sore amazed to see the amount of erroneous information on the subject. Few have attributed any inherent function to the Tree of Knowledge itself, apart from its ability to provide fiber and vitamin C, and have credited the fall of mankind solely to the disobedience of its primordial parents Adam and Eve. According to this viewpoint the Tree of Knowledge was just the object of focus that brought forth that already present spirit of disobedience. It is in disagreement with this view that I have found the need to write about the matter personally.

Before embarking on this journey, I would like to prepare you for what you are about to read. Many topics introduced will be alien to many of you and may even seem speculative causing you to resist even considering them. In an effort to urge you to remain openminded, I will provide some background into how I came to write about God’s mysteries. Hopefully this will give you a better understanding of my view points, despite how unheard of many of them may appear.

I had one of my first intense and memorable experiences with God when I was eight teen years old. God spoke to my heart while I was staring out of the window with a heightened awareness of the void deep down in my soul. His Spirit was so heavily upon me that every word was crystal clear. Although it was a Spirit to spirit communication, His voice was so loud in my mind that it felt as if it was audibly in my ear. He began by revealing some of my core issues at that time and by causing me to remember some things that were long forgotten. He comforted me with a covering of Love as I stared out of the window crying. I heard His Spirit speak, I’m your Father now as He dried my tears with His loving presence.

Immediately after the patch up period God began to prophesy over my life and reveal the purpose that He put in me. He prophesied about my desire for knowledge and interest in the field of psychology, none of which was apparent to me before. Although I did not understand it at the time, the prophecy that was most relevant to our present discussion was, I will give you understanding… And you will write books. I grappled to grasp its meaning and asked Him questions like, Oh I’ll write books to help children avoid my pitfalls in life? No He answered. Like a child I continuingly questioned, Oh, I’ll write books based on what I learn when I go to school for Psychology. No, He again answered patiently. Despite leaving me puzzled about the meaning, He then said, You will fall away from me and gave me insight into how. I said, I will never do that, how could I? Ignoring my child like comprehension, He then said, It will be hard to find your way back to me, but you will.

Four years later, after falling back into old my ways, I found myself in a place of forced stillness. I began rediscovering myself again and discovering other parts of myself for the very first time. I began thirsting for truth or what I call true truth, a personal truth, and not just a truth that is given to you by somebody else. This personal journey led me in search for the mysteries of God. True to His form and faithfulness, God eventually revealed His true truths to me.

The very first piece of guiding wisdom that God gave me in this journey was to forget about all that I was taught and told, and to let Him teach me anew. He told me to forget about what people have believed certain Bible scriptures to mean for so many centuries and to allow Him to teach me His truths mouth to ear. I know this may sound fantastic and maybe even unbelievable to some of you, but this was my experience into the entry of this journey into the mysteries of God. The most intimate aspect of this part of the journey was in how God would reveal His truths to me.

God did not solely use scripture to reveal His marvelous truths to me. While I constantly studied scripture during this period, the Spirit led me to all types of reading, both fictional and non-fictional. It also made me aware of my personal interactions with other people. It was as if every interaction, every book I read, and everything that I learned through others, was a part of God guiding me. He expanded my imagination and used it to relay to me concepts and precepts that I would otherwise never, ever consider. Then He would constantly guide me back to certain scriptures just to ensure and prove to me that it was the God of the Bible and the Spirit that worked through the Bible that was interacting with me. He would oftentimes reveal to me a thing and then show me it in the Bible, and not the other way around. He taught me tools of wisdom and how to apply them and then gave me evidential scriptural support to back up whatever I learnt from applying these tools of wisdom.

I was acutely aware that I was learning these things from outside of myself during this period. I knew for sure that these things were not from me and were from a higher source; therefore, I felt that this knowledge did not belong to me. For that reason, I asked God, is it alright to write some of this down? In a very at eased way, I heard the Spirit say Yes, as if saying ‘yes of course’. I began to write down what I thought would be a page, or two at most, of my thoughts. As the number of pages increased, and with me realizing that not even a tidbit of what I had to say was yet expressed, it suddenly dawned on me. I got a book inside of me! It was then that the meaning of the prophecy that God spoke over my life more than four years prior came to mind; I will give you understanding. And you will write books. I would have never imagined that this was what God meant; but it was now so very clear.

Today I am so far from where I was those many years ago. The knowledge that this gift of understanding has given me, a knowledge that was previously so alienated from my natural way of thinking, is now so much a part of me that I can no longer discern between it and I. It is I. Now, while I know and believe without a shadow of a doubt that this gift was infallibly given to me by God, I also know with the same surety that I am fallible and that part of the purpose is to manifest this gift through my imperfect experience. With that said, I pray that this gift in me is found be to edifying to the body as much as it can be through a mere man, while at the same time fulfilling the will and purpose of God that was placed in me.

Like with all my other books in my Revealed Series I will be relying heavily on the tools of wisdom to interpret the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’s meaning. This entails the usage of the understanding of numbers, words and letters, symbols, and other aspects of wisdom that I have elaborated on in my book Mysteries and Prophecies Revealed 1 - The Book of Wisdom and the Book of Revelation Revealed.

In applying wisdom’s tools of letters, I will be utilizing insight that I have gained over the years from understanding my gift tongue of Shaka. It forms the foundation and initial precepts for my understanding of letters. Shaka, interpreted ‘voice of my spirit’, is the language and interpretation of language, that I have learned through the Spirit while praying in tongues. I have come to find that great mysteries lie within this spiritual language. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. (1Cor.14:2)

I built my interpretation of my gift tongue from praying in the Spirit, or speaking in tongues, and praying with the mind at the same time. I quickly became aware that I was simultaneously interpreting what I was saying without even knowing it. While I instinctively done this on my own, I later found out that this is exactly how Paul said that it was to be done.

Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?  For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. (1Cor.14:13-17)

Like many times in my journey of the mysteries of God, I was first revealed a thing and then later shown proof of its correctness through biblical scripture. In this same manner, God revealed to me the knowledge of the symbolic meaning of numbers and then later allowed me to find biblical scriptures to support it. It was through this way that God proved to me that it was Him, the God behind the spirit of the Bible, that was communicating with me. By applying these revealed tools of wisdom, while also employing years of reflective study on the subject, personal revelations, and the application of some pertinent rules, I believe that we will move one step closer to a fuller understanding of this matter.

Some of the things that I talk about in this book will be totally new to most. You may feel that you cannot accept some of these concepts in full at that time or even at some future time either. If that is the case then I urge you to skip that particular matter and pray for God to guide you on how to receive or not to receive it. But, do not let any temporary stumbling cause you to put this book down for good or reject all that is in it altogether. While you may not agree with everything that you are about to read, I can assure you that there are truly some precepts in this book that will drastically add to your understanding

I believe that it is the true believer’s legacy to have in-depth insight concerning all of God’s word. It is not only our inheritance, but the will of God, that His secret wisdom be revealed to His children. In accordance with this belief I have set out to prove scripture as the foundation of my explanation for the purpose and function of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. With great excitement and pleasure I present to you, ‘The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Revealed’, with the hope that it adds to your growing understanding of your divine inheritance. May God the Father bless you in this reading and increase you in revelation knowledge and wisdom of His will.

Chapter One: The Tree of Wisdom, Tree of Desire

Inquiry into the true nature and purpose of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has raised many questions. Countless Bible scholars, pastors, and laymen have attempted to address this issue over the centuries. According to most scholars, the reason for the Tree of Knowledge being placed in the Garden of Eden was to give Adam and Eve a choice. It is postulated that without a choice Adam and Eve are simply robots, automatons destined to follow the will of another. The notion here is that free will can only exist when a choice dually exists. In line with this traditional view is the idea that the Tree of Knowledge had no inherent function nor contained any power within itself. The only reason that Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened after eating from it was because of disobedience. Due to God’s command not to eat from the tree, eating of it resulted in their eyes being opened to their error according to the preceding line of logic. This sin and the act of disobedience alone are believed to have led to original sin and man’s current fallen state.

The above view of the nature and purpose of the Tree of Knowledge is correct to some degree, but it is not the complete truth. Yes, disobedience is a key factor in the matter. In God’s eyes disobedience is like rebellion and is equal to witchcraft. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. (Samuel 15:23) It is the sin of Satan that makes all who commit it in league with the Father of Lies.

I do not believe that our God Yahweh is the simplistic god who would place an object of temptation enticingly in your face just for the sake of providing a means to go astray and an opportunity to sin. It is more complex than that for He is a wise God full of intent, purpose, and design. By this line of logic alone we can be assured that the Tree of Knowledge had a unique purpose besides simply being an object of temptation.

The traditional view that the tree was nothing but a way of giving man a free will choice is an erroneous teaching that causes us to miss the full value of this incident. Additionally, scripture clearly tells us that God tempts no man. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:13-15 (KJV). It was Adam and Eve’s lust and desire for what the Tree of Knowledge offered that tempted them to sin and disobey God. They wanted what the tree had to offer on their own terms and not on God’s terms.

What many people fail to realize is that, besides acting as a symbol of the wrong path and of the choice of rebellion, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil also had a functional value. As its name states, it is a vessel of good and evil knowledge. Eve rightly stated that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat (Gen.3:6). Eve clearly tells us that the Tree of Knowledge was a very beautiful tree that was pleasing to the eyes, that made one wise, and that it was good for food.

The serpent also revealed that the Tree of Knowledge possessed the ability to make one wise. It expressed this when it said that the tree had the power to open one’s eyes and to make Adam and Eve as gods, knowing both good and evil. (Gen.3:5) Although this was part of the serpent’s trick, we also know that this statement contained a bit of truth because God said the same thing. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (Genesis 3:22 KJV) The ability to open Adam and Eve’s eyes and give them knowledge of good and evil is just part of the Tree of Knowledge’s inherent qualities. Other aspects of its function are revealed in the punishments that God dispensed to the three participants in this matter.

A punishment is a way of hindering an unlawful attempt and frustrating any future attempts. It is usually an apt sign of the crime that was committed. For instance, in ancient times and in some countries even today, a thief is punished by having their finger or hand cut off. It was with these same hands that they carried out their criminal attempt. Their crime of thievery can easily be determined by this punishment. What they tried to make their reward became their punishment, and their ‘would be’ blessing became their curse. A curse is simply the reversal of the blessing. In like manner, the punishments that God dispensed to the serpent, Adam, and to Eve reveal what they were expecting to attain from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The serpent’s punishment was as follows. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:14-15 KJV)

This distinct punishment reveals to us that the serpent intended to gain victory over God and dominion over man by making Adam and Eve join forces with him and Satan against God. For this reason he was made to eat dust instead of gaining victory. We use the same saying today to imply defeat, eat my dust. Enmity and division were received instead of an alliance with man’s descendants. A bruised head was received instead of dominion and leadership over mankind. The serpent’s ultimate defeat and alienation from the seed of man was fulfilled by Jesus Christ’s mission of salvation.

Adam’s punishment began with God saying, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;  In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:17-19 (KJV)

Eve rightly said that the Tree of Knowledge was good for food. It was as a source of food that she gave it to Adam and it was simply as a food source that he received and ate of it. For the reason of wishing to attain a source of food from the forbidden tree, Adam was punished to no longer have the creation sustain him freely. He would now have to endure hard labor for food and be prohibited from eating the greatest food ever, the fruit of the Tree of Life, thus eventually dying and returning to dust.

I find Eve’s punishment the most revealing of them all. "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16 (KJV)

This punishment is directly linked to what Eve sought to gain from the Tree of Knowledge. She said that it was a desirable tree pleasing to the eyes that could make one wise. Wisdom is a trait that enables one to gain dominion and rule over others. In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom speaks saying, "I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions…By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By