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The End of the World is Just Beginning: Part 1
Christ Church on December 4, 2022
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The Knowledge of Good & Evil

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INTRODUCTION

The Lord Jesus was born in this world in order to reestablish mankind. The first mankind in Adam had failed at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so Jesus was born into this world in order to rebuild the ruin we had created here. Our celebrations at this time of year are dedicated to a remembrance of what He came in order to do. And as we remember, and understand it more fully, that work which He has accomplished is actually advanced in our midst. Most of you have not taken the Christmas tree in your living room down, so remember that in Scripture a tree can be a place of great folly or of great wisdom. Adam disobeyed at a tree, and Jesus obeyed on one.

THE TEXTS

“But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

“But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:14).

BACKGROUND TO THE TEXTS

We all know that there was one prohibited tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Note that the tree of life was not prohibited (Gen. 2:16), but once sin had entered the world it then went off limits—lest we should eat from it in a rebellious condition and live forever that way, unredeemable (Gen. 3:22, 24). So God in His mercy barred the way to the tree of life, until it was opened up again in and through the gospel (Rev. 2:7). But what about that tree of the knowledge of good and evil? What was it?

So we need to take a moment to consider what that phrase means, and what it does not mean. The two basic alternatives are that it was bad for us to have knowledge of the difference between good and evil, period, or that the prohibition was temporary, and the sin was in grasping for something prematurely.

We should be able to see that it was the latter by how God responds to the situation when our first parents disobeyed. We see that it cannot mean experience of sin. The Lord said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). The serpent earlier had promised that this knowledge would make them “as God” (or gods), “knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Millennia later, the author of Hebrews does not identify this ability to distinguish sin from righteousness as sinful in itself, but rather with maturity, with the capacity to handle “strong meat.”

Too many Christians assume that a pre-fall lack of the knowledge of good and evil was a total blank innocence, with no ethical categories at all. But if this were the case then how would Adam have been able to fall into sin? How would he have known it was evil to eat from the prohibited tree? No, the knowledge of good and evil here has to mean something more than a simple knowledge of the difference between right and wrong.

PREPARATION FOR RULE

God had created mankind to rule over creation and all the creatures (Gen. 1:27-30). In learning how to judge and rule the created order, man really would be like God (Ecc. 12:14). Entering into that rule would have been a transition from immaturity to maturity, and not a transition from moral cluelessness into an ability to tell right from wrong. Kings make judgments. They have to be able to discern right and wrong in the case before them.

Now it is quite true that the Bible often speaks of “good” and “evil” in simple moral categories of individuals learning to love good and hate evil. But when we talk about discernment, we are talking about the ability to tell good from almost good, to discern the difference between white and off-white. Because God created us for rule, He created us for this. And when our first parents ate this forbidden fruit, they were grabbing for that rule prematurely, before God gave it to them as a gift.

WHAT CHILDREN DON’T DO, WHAT KINGS DO

Consider the language of Scripture.

“Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither . . .” (Dt. 1:39; cf. Jer. 4:22).

This was true of a type of the Messiah, the child born in fulfillment of the promise to Isaiah.

“Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel . . . for before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings” (Is. 7:14-16).

Extreme old age prevents a man from being able to serve as a judge between good and evil, as Barzillai observed:

“I am this day fourscore years old: and can I discern between good and evil . . .?” (2 Sam. 19:35).

And how did Solomon please the Lord when a vision was given to him at Gibeon? Even though he sacrificed in the high places, he did love the Lord (1 Kings 3:3). When the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him to ask for whatever he would have, Solomon’s answer pleased the Lord (1 Kings 3:10). So what did Solomon ask for? He said first that he was “but a little child” (1 Kings 3:7), and so what deficiency did he think needed to be corrected?

“Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people” (1 Kings 3:10)?

GROWING UP IN JESUS

We are called to understand the world so that we might grow up into a maturity that is capable of ruling the world. The verb to speak a proverb is a word that also means to rule. The wisdom of Scripture is wisdom that is geared to dominion. The author of Hebrews knows and understands the creation mandate. He quotes Ps. 8, and says that we do not yet see everything subject to mankind—but we do see Jesus (Heb, 2:9). The world to come is not subject to angels, but to mankind (Heb. 2:5ff). Mankind in Christ is therefore being fitted for godly rule (Heb. 5:14). Because we grabbed the forbidden fruit out of order, we have needed to be retro-fitted for it, but this is what is happening.

So in the child Jesus, given to us at Christmas, our response should be the same as that of the wise men. We look at a little child and we see a king. And all around you, you should see princes.

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Christmas for the Blind: A State of the Church Message

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INTRODUCTION

This is something of a Christmas message and end of the year State of the Church sermon all wrapped into one. But the point is that I want to meditate on the covenant curses that are raining down on us in the form of Covid-statist tyranny, the sexual promiscuity and perversion jihad, on top of abortion insanity, fiscal madness, and political imbecility. Christians find themselves caught in the middle of family and culture turmoil. What are we to do? The central thing we must do is recognize all of it as judicial blindness from the Lord. He had done this.

THE TEXT

“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1:4-9).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

By His power, God has given to His people everything that they need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ, at all times and in all places (1:3). Having escaped the corruption of the world, Christians are to grow in holiness and godliness through God’s great and precious promises (1:4). The broad outline of that growth is listed in seven additional steps added to faith in those promises (1:5-7). With those eight virtues abounding in Christians, they cannot be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus (1:8). But a Christian who lacks these things is blind, near-sighted, and has forgotten that he has been forgiven (1:9).

TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF JUDICIAL BLINDNESS

We know from elsewhere in the Bible, that unbelievers have a certain kind of spiritual blindness: 2 Cor. 4:3-4: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Likewise in Ephesians 4:18, speaking of the Gentiles, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” That is one kind of judicial blindness. But here in 2 Peter 1, we have a different kind of blindness described, what we might call a covenantal judicial blindness. Peter is describing believers who have not progressed as far as they should have as blind and forgetful (2 Pet. 1:9). Jesus calls the church of Laodicea to repent of a similar blindness: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked… anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke, and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:17-19).

COVENANT BLINDNESS & CALAMITY

This same covenantal blindness is described in the Old Testament: “If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God… all these curses shall come upon thee… The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness…” (Dt. 28:15, 28). Likewise, in Isaiah’s commission: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed… But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return…” (Is. 6:10, 13). So when God’s covenant people disobey and break covenant, God sends covenant curses and spiritual blindness on them for the purpose of dividing the faithful from the unfaithful: some are proven to be complete unbelievers who die in their blindness, but there are some who struck with some blindness in order to chastise them, and call them to repentance (e.g. Rev. 3:17-19, Jn. 12:37-43).

CONCLUSIONS & APPLICATIONS

While America is fast joining the post-Christian nations of the West, there is another sense in which covenanted nations do not have the luxury of forgetting their Christian past. They may forget their Christian past, but their Christian past cannot forget them. Or to be more precise, God does not forget covenants made and broken. And we have manifestly fallen under covenantal curses. We have murdered our own children, and while we have not yet stooped to eating them, we most certainly have experimented on them and used their bodies for sorcery (what we call “medical research”) (Dt. 28:53-58). We have been chased by tiny minorities of sexual madmen (Dt. 28:25, 32:30), and we have been struck with terror and diseases (Dt. 32:25, 28:59-61).

But it is perilously easy to make light of our sins in the church because they do not seem as bad as the pagans, but that is not at all the same thing as holiness, as godliness and virtue (2 Pet. 1:5-7). It’s said that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, but listen to what it says: “he that lacketh these things is blind” (2 Pet. 1:9). Do you lack any virtue, any temperance, any patience, any brotherly kindness or charity? Those “little sins” of anger, lust, envy, selfishness – they are blindness and near-sightedness. And like the church of Laodicea, we are tempted to make light of them because of how fabulously well-off we are: “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind…?” We think we know what joy is because we have high speed internet, Instagram, and food on demand. But that isn’t joy. Joy is serving the Lord with gladness of heart for all the abundance of things (Dt. 28:47). Joy is holiness.

The only way out of this mess is if Jesus gives us eyes to see. “And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (Jn. 9:39-41).

Are you blind? Is our land full of the blind? Christ was born so that the blind might see.

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How Not to Ruin Christmas

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THE TEXT

“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:

‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,’

8 and

‘A stone of stumbling,
    and a rock of offense.’

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet. 2:4–10).

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Part 4: A Theology of Christmas Presents

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Introduction

In the light of all the foregoing, we should therefore not be surprised when we find we must affirm the goodness of the material world. This should be obvious, but tragically many Christians find it easy to slip off the point. When the Creator God created and fashioned everything, it was His good pleasure to declare it all good or very good (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31). In the second place, the Incarnation of Christ was a permanent reality. The second person of the Trinity took on flesh (Jn. 1:14) and dwelt among us. He will be Immanuel always. He is our priest forever, making intercession for us always (Heb. 7:25). And third, we were not promised immortal souls, but rather a resurrection from the dead. We will be embodied creatures forever (1 Cor. 15:12).

The Text

“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:11–13).

Summary of the Text

The apostle Paul is thanking the Philippians for the financial support they had sent to him, but he hastens to add that he would have been alright regardless (v. 10). He was content before their gift arrived, and he was grateful and content after it had done so (v. 11). This is something that the apostle had to learn, and we may be assured that we must learn it also. But then when he starts to explain the lesson, we see how much we have to learn. He had to learn in both directions, and we tend to assume that we only have to learn in one direction. Paul had learned to be abased and he had learned how to abound (v. 12). He was instructed on how to be full and how to be hungry (v. 12). He had learned to abound and to suffer want (v. 12). He can do all things through Christ, the one who gives him strength (v. 13).

We think we need lessons for our afflictions, of course, but we assume that we have abundance nailed. We have that down. But I am afraid we do not. We must still learn contentment when we have never had it so good, and simply going without won’t teach us that.

Two Basic Errors

On the one hand is the error of the “health and wealth” preachers, those who say that godliness should be an automatic path to wealth (1 Tim. 6:5-6). On the other hand are an abundance of suspicious gnostic teachers, who despise the material world. If you let a devil teach you, what will he teach? “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:3–4).

“Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17).

Learning Gladness and Gratitude Is No Trifle

“Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee” (Deut. 28:47–48).

When Israel went down in defeat before her enemies, why was this? When Israel was hauled off into exile, what was their sin? Their sin was an inability to rejoice in their stuff in the presence of God. The carnal heart cannot bring those two things together. The carnal heart wants to come to church and give the good Lord His due, and then sneak off to enjoy whatever idolatrous tidbits it can off on the side. But God will have none of it. He wants us to come before Him and rejoice in what He has given us there.

Faith is the Eye

But we are not to look at our faith through our goods. Rather we look at all our goods through faith. Faith is what sees. Faith is the eye. What we have, or do not have, is what we are supposed to see in faith.

Faith does handle adversity well. But faith also handles affluence well. We mark the great heroes of the faith for their accomplishments, some of which the world would call success and some of which the world would call humiliating defeat. What do we call it and why? We call it whatever faith teaches us to call it.

Sometimes faith subdues kingdoms, works righteousness, obtains promises, stops the mouths of lions, quenches fire, escapes the sword, grows strong when weak, became valiant in war, repulsed invaders, and received the dead back to life (Heb. 11:33-35a). And other times faith is tortured, mocked, scourged, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, tempted, slaughtered with the sword, wandered in the wilderness, impoverished, afflicted, tormented, and living in caves (Heb. 11:35b-38).

O So Merry and Bright

And so this is something we all of us must learn. The material world is good. The material world is very good. The stupidity of our sinfulness tried to wreck it, but despite our best efforts, has not succeeded. The world is broken, but still with plenty of goodness to go around. And the main thing that is wrong with it—look in the mirror—has been put to rights in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. He did that so that we might be recreated in His image.

“Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

So as you bake, and as you shop, and as you wrap, and as you smuggle contraband into the house, and as you decorate the tree, and as you set the table, and as you invite people over, and as you deliver cookies to friends, and as you tighten your belts this year, and as you give a lavish gift that is ten percent beyond wise, and as laugh over dinner, and as you come here to sing carols, remember that Christ is in all of it. All of Christ for all of life. As the poem by Hopkins has it, Christ plays in ten thousand places.

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