Thor’s Well – photo by Eric Muhr on Unsplash.com

There is an emptiness in the human heart that drives us to try all kinds of things to fill it. This leads to all manner of addictions–drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, money, fame, and yes, even religion as we try and get back what Adam and Eve lost in the Garden of Eden. I believe that the void in the human heart started with their caving to the temptation of Satan in the garden. He tempted them to be “wise” and “like God” under his twisted knowledge instead of the law of love and unity with their Creator. Just knowing God as their loving Father was not enough.

The first manifestation of this void came immediately after they ate of the forbidden fruit when their eyes were opened, seeing for the first time that they were naked. This illicit and condemning knowledge of the devil (deciding what is good and what is evil apart from God) came into them as the serpent promised it would (see Genesis 3:5). As a result they hid from God, but He found them. Adam said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen 3:10, ESV2011). God then asked, “Who told you that you were naked?” God created them naked and unashamed and pronounced it was good. Satan seduced them under his twisted authority and they became ashamed, believed his lie that nakendness was bad, feared their Father and became subject to the father of Lies. Jesus said Satan was a liar and a murder from the beginning (see John 8:44).

The second recorded manifestation of the devil in man came in Adam and Eve’s offspring. Cain killed his brother, Abel, out of pure jealousy because God favored Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. Lying, rebellion and murder has continued in the hearts of men since that day. Man had “become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” That “one” was the devil himself.

There is a terrible void in fallen man that cries out for a return of what was lost, perfect communion with our Creator, and He longs for that with us as well. God sent His only begotten Son to earth that He would not only live a perfect sinless life and then die as a spotless sacrifice for the sins of mankind, but that He would also be the first born of many brethren, sons and daughters of God in perfect sinless unity with His Father. Jesus addressed this in His final prayer, His “last will and testament.”

“That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.  O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.  I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:21-26, ESV2011 – emphasis added)

God showed me the above passage about seven years ago and has been opening its meaning to me little by little as I have grown by experiencing more and more of unity with Him in the Spirit. Do you see the perfect unity that Jesus has made available to us who are His? Christ is IN us and the Father is in Him! The very God of the universe abides IN those of us who believe in the Son of God and have opened our hearts that He might dwell in them. The perfect unity with our Father that was once lost in the garden  has now been restored.  Jesus prayed, “Father, I desire that they also… may be with me where I am.” Where is Jesus? He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (see verse 21).

Jesus has and is making known to us the “name” of the Father. He was sent to earth to model just who His Father in heaven is and that is His name; “Himself, his nature, his perfections, especially of grace and mercy, his mind and will, his Gospel” – (John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible). Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father and Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?  Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Just as Adam and Eve saw the Father God walking in the garden, so are we restored through the Son to what they once had and even more.

In the Book of Hebrews we read:

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For every one that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But solid food belongs 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 5:13-14, KJ2000)

God’s idea of what is “good” and what is “evil” is not found in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was Satan’s delusion. No, to our Father what is good is when we humbly walk in unity with Him. This is the very definition of righteousness. Unity is obedience that is motivated by love for Him, not the fear of punishment for breaking some law.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic 6:8, KJ2000)

“Evil” in the mind of God is when there is discord and disunity in our relationship with Him. Adam and Eve knew evil in their hearts once they ate of the forbidden fruit. They were separated from God in that moment and hid themselves because they no longer had that intimate relationship with Him. They ceased to know Him as their Father. Mere religion will not save us, but Him giving us a NEW heart filled with love for our Father and Christ will. Jesus warned,

“In ‘that day’ many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we preach in your name, didn’t we cast out devils in your name, and do many great things in your name?’ Then I shall tell them plainly, ‘I have never known [Grk. gnosis – intimate knowing] you. Go away from me, you have worked on the side of evil!'”  (Matt 7:22-23, Phillips NT)

What a surprise the Day of Judgment will be for many. Religion is a vast deception when it takes the place of an intimate relationship with our Father and His Son. In the eyes of God all its works are evil!

Jesus came to show us what a life in unity with the Father looks like and then offered Himself up as a perfect sacrifice for sin (man’s disunity with our Father) and fill us with His Spirit so we could once again come into alignment with God in all things. How about going to a “Bible church,” will that save you? So many Christians have fallen short of what God desires for them by never getting beyond the milk of the scriptures. Jesus spoke of this very sin to the Bible scholars of 2000 years ago.

Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life. (John 5:39-40, KJ2000)

The writer of Hebrews wrote this warning in chapter five because he wanted to go on and teach them the deeper things that are ours IN Christ, but they were mere spiritual infants desiring milk. He continues in the next chapter.

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto maturity; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Heb 6:1-2, KJ2000 – emphasis added)

The sad thing is that most Bible teaching in the churches never goes beyond these first principles, thus adding to the perpetual babyhood of their members (see Hebrews 5:11-13).

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Life in the Son is all about our relationship with the Father as it was with Him. As we grow into “full age” by experiencing His joy in our hearts when we are in unity with His will for us and His displeasure when we are not, this is “discerning both good and evil.” The “strong meat” of the knowledge and wisdom that is in Christ becomes ours as well because of our unity with Him. We need to look far beyond our religious preconceived mental list of do’s and don’ts into the very heart of our Father and seek total unity with Him. He leads us by His Spirit to walk just as Jesus walked, doing only the works HE shows us to do and speaking only the words that our Father gives us to speak. Let us go on to maturity, dear saints, seeking our Father’s pleasure in all things.