| ¶ | Gen. 3:5 For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad." (Genesis 3:22) 22 And Jehovah God went on to say: "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—"
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I awoke this morning and had an epiphiny. It is kind of long, but hang in there, I think you will find it interesting. I sure like Bibles that use the word "forever" rather than "to time indefinate." Who talks like that? I have NEVER heard that phrase except from the NWT. Anyway that is not my epiphiny. Using the insight book, I found very little info on the Tree of Life in Genesis. If it really is an issue, Satan seems to be winning the argument over Gods Sovreignty. If we go by numbers of those faithful to God vs. those not, Satan wins. I do wonder why Adam and Eve did not go eat from the Tree of lLife once they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. So did Satan tell the truth to Eve the truth about becoming like God in knowing good and bad or not? Aparently Jehovah tell Jesus and maybe the angels that Eve had indeed become like them in knowin good and bad. And if we had not studied any religion, and were in prison with only the Bible to read, would we come up with the idea of a Supreme Issue of Universal Sovreignty? We make a very big deal out of this Issue and how it has taken thousands of years of human misery to settle it. I can not find any scriptures that clearly define this issue. The epiphany is at the end. Here is some of what the insight book says about this: ** it-2p.1009Sovereignty ***
Jehovah’s SovereigntyChallenged. Wickedness has been in existence for nearly all the years that Bible chronology indicates man has been on the earth. All mankind have been dying, and sins and transgressions against God have multiplied. (Ro 5:12, 15, 16) Since the Bible indicates that God gave man a perfect start, the questions have arisen: How did sin, imperfection, and wickedness get their start? And why has the Almighty God allowed these things to remain for centuries? The answers lie in a challenge against God’s sovereignty that brought forth a paramount issue involving mankind.
What
God wants in those who serve him. Jehovah God, by his words and acts, has, over the centuries, proved that he is a God of love and undeserved kindness, exercising perfect justice and judgment, and extending mercy to those seeking to serve him. (Ex 34:6, 7; Ps 89:14; see MERCY; RIGHTEOUSNESS.) Even to the ungrateful and wicked he has expressed kindness. (Mt 5:45; Lu 6:35; Ro 5:8) He delights in the fact that his sovereignty is administered in love.—Jer 9:24.Accordingly, the kind of persons he desires in his universe are persons who serve him because of love for him and for his fine qualities. They must love God first and their neighbor second. (Mt 22:37-39) They must love Jehovah’s sovereignty; they must desire it and prefer it over any other. (Ps 84:10) They must be persons that, even if it were possible for them to become independent, would choose His sovereigntybecause they know that his rulership is far wiser, more righteous, and better than any other.
When the human pair Adam and Eve were put on earth, this one saw an opportunity to set out on an attack on God’s sovereignty. First, he would make an attempt (which proved successful) to turn Eve, then Adam, away from subjection to God’s sovereignty. He hoped to establish a rival sovereignty.
As for Eve, the person approached first, she certainly had not appreciated her Creator and God, and she had not taken advantage of her opportunity to know him. She listened to the voice of an inferior, ostensibly the serpent, actually the rebellious angel. The Bible does not allude to any surprise on her part at hearing the serpent talk. It does say that the serpent was "the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made." (Ge 3:1) Whether it ate of the forbidden fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good and bad" and then appeared to be made wise, able to speak, is not stated. The rebellious angel, using the serpent to speak to her, presented (as she supposed) the opportunity to become independent, "to be like God, knowing good and bad," and succeeded in convincing her that she would not die.—Ge 2:17; 3:4, 5; 2Co 11:3.
The
point at issue. What was here challenged? Who was reproached and defamed by this challenge of the angel who was later called Satan the Devil, which challenge Adam supported by his rebellious act? Was it the fact of Jehovah’s supremacy, the existence of his sovereignty? Was God’s sovereignty in danger? No, for Jehovah has supreme authority and power, and no one in heaven or earth can take this out of his hand. (Ro 9:19) The challenge therefore must have been of the rightfulness,deservedness,andrighteousness of God’s sovereignty—whether his sovereignty was exercised in a worthy way, righteously, and for the best interests of his subjects or not. An indication of this is the approach to Eve: "Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?" Here the Serpent intimated that such a thing was unbelievable—that God was unduly restrictive, withholding something that was the rightful due of the human pair.—Satan thereby slandered God as to his sovereignty, and God’s servants as to integrity to that sovereignty.He said, in effect, that no man could be put on earth who would maintain integrity to Jehovah’s sovereignty if he, Satan, was allowed to put him to the test.
Jehovah permitted the issue to be joined. Not, however, because he was unsure of the righteousness of his own sovereignty. He needed nothing proved to himself. It was out of love for his intelligent creatures that he allowed time for the testing out of the matter. He permitted men to undergo a test by Satan, before all the universe.
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Notice that Satan did not state in any way, shape or form that " that no man could be put on earth who would maintain integrity to Jehovah’s sovereignty if he, Satan, was allowed to put him to the test. The thought I woke up with today, that is an epiphany, is that if this really is a Universal Issue, then God has tampered with it badly. The Insight text above states:
"They must love Jehovah’s sovereignty; they must desire it and prefer it over any other. (Ps 84:10) They must be persons that, even if it were possible for them to become independent, would choose His sovereignty because they know that his rulership is far wiser, more righteous, and better than any other."
But look at what was happening on earth. Unity, harmony, getting big things accomplished. No mention of hatred or violence. In fact, man was so united that God said they were "one people" and that because of their harmony, "now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them." Does that not sound like mans use of free will was working pretty darn well? So right when man is building cities, living in harmony, God confuses their languages, splits them up and scatters them, and then all kinds of wars followed because all the groups were not in harmony, they were divided now by race or language, or country. Your take please.......OOMPA.....and more BS to come
(Genesis 11:1-9) 11
Now all the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words. 2 And it came about that in their journeying eastward they eventually discovered a valley plain in the land of Shi´nar, and they took up dwelling there. 3 And they began to say, each one to the other: "Come on! Let us make bricks and bake them with a burning process." So brick served as stone for them, but bitumen served as mortar for them. 4 They now said: "Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth."5 And Jehovah proceeded to go down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men had built. 6 After that Jehovah said: "Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they start to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. 7 Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another’s language." 8 Accordingly Jehovah scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth, and they gradually left off building the city. 9 That is why its name was called Ba´bel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth