I am right, you are wrong!
Such a statement stirs people up one way or the other. It comes from the mind of the flesh which dwells inside of the lie that God knows good and evil.
I am bad!! I am good!!
Such self definitions also come out from the same lie spoken in the Garden by Lucifer. The reality is no one is of themselves good or bad.
Do you see why Lucifer spoke the lie about God knowing good and evil? God says I AM…He does not say I am good….we say that about Him when He does good. God never defines Himself by what He does. I AM.
‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” Exo 3:13b,14
“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”…asked Jesus of his disciples….Then…“But who do you say that I am?”(Mtt 16) Men define who you are by what they see and hear about you with their natural eyes and ears. They make a decision about you based upon the reasoning of the senses and the mind of the flesh, which as I said, is a mind dwelling inside the paradigm of the knowledge of good and evil.
The Mind of the flesh lives inside of do right, don’t do wrong. Thus the mind of the flesh imagines that it has the ability to do good and to not do evil. In other words the mind of the flesh thinks that it is its own Source…has its own Life….and is its own God.
The mind of the flesh knows NOTHING of Life for it rejects God being it’s source, preferring to be it’s own source instead. “I can do this….I can do that.”
Joh 5:38 But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.
Joh 5:39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
Joh 5:40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
The mind of the flesh is effectively giving God the middle finger saying within itself, “Who needs You God?! I can be like You knowing good and evil….I can do good…like You God…see???? I can do evil too…just like You God!
Thus that mind hates God for making him or her the way they find themselves to be. For they imagine that God is good and evil…and so they are too…or so they think. They have struggled to be like God….Doing good…but find that they continually fall short and end up doing the opposite, or less than they had hoped to do. Or they go the other extreme and give themselves over to do evil…it makes no difference! The one who lives by the internal lie of ‘God knows good and evil and I am like him‘ not only hates God, but hates himself.
When the Serpent lied about God knowing good and evil he spoke out of his own resources. He knew God is always and ONLY, LIFE…not knowledge of good and evil. On the other hand the Serpent and all angels operate out of the knowledge of good and evil within themselves….they are not intrinsically Life as God is. They are not created with the capacity to be Life…We are!!
Thus Satan knew exactly what he was doing when he inserted that hideous lie about God….and man.
Gen 3:4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
Gen 3:5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
What Satan was really saying is that ‘when you eat from the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be blinded to Life and you will be like me(Lucifer)knowing good and evil!!‘
This knowing good and evil is not simply a matter of being able to tell the difference between good and evil….NO..much more and much deeper than that. What Satan meant went straight to the heart of our identity and God’s inner knowledge of Himself. Lucifer was saying that ‘God inwardly defines Himself by the knowledge of good and evil. That inwardly God is a split apart being…sometimes good and sometimes evil….He cannot trust Himself’. Satan was saying that ‘God is deliberately deceiving you so that you will not become like Him. And the way to become like God is to judge yourself and all things by the knowledge of good and evil‘.
Of course there was more…
******Adam and Eve were ALREADY like God just the way they were.*****
Here was this incredible contrast standing before them. Satan –the Dragon, the Serpent of old…Lucifer the son of the morning, the anointed Cherub perfect in beauty and covered in precious gemstones, with pipes and timbrels embedded within himself. This amazingly beautiful created being appears and talks with Adam and Eve and suggests that they are not like God unless they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This part of the lie is easy for them to receive. Look at me compared to the beautiful radiant Serpent so anointed with the knowledge of God(false knowledge). There was Eve…a human…naked, weak, skin that did not glow, was not covered in precious things, was easily pierced, etc….What a contrast!! “This anointed Cherub speaks like he really knows God and what it’s all about!!” Eve believed the Lie. She took the fruit and ate it.
Eve wanted to be like God. Nothing wrong with that is there? The Preacher, so anointed by God, had told Eve that if she really wanted to be like God she must do something. She sees the anointed Cherub in the Garden and is unthankful in her mind towards God for making her sooo weak in comparison to this mighty being.
Never mind the fact that God had said ….
Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Gen 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Perhaps Adam did not tell Eve that she was ALREADY the living breathing image and manifestation of God?
Nonetheless, she was unthankful for being so weak and limited….and was willing to do anything to become strong and perfect and outwardly godlike like the being she was being seduced by.
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
Rom 1:19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
The truth is we are the image and visible image of God just as we are!! What may be known of God is manifest INSIDE US!! We are His very image and Likeness!
Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
Rom 1:21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
The verses above are about people who KNEW GOD! Not about unbelievers as most attribute this passage to. These people –including us–have no excuse for we are the image of God, He is revealed in us. But we do not like the way God made us, so we are UNTHANKFUL…and thus choose to follow the Serpent and to fall in line with him. We choose to REJECT GOD and follow Satan!! We choose to REJECT being God’s image JUST AS WE ARE…and instead try to become like God by doing good and not doing evil.
Instead of becoming like God(we already are like Him)we become more and more like Satan, opposing ourselves and hating ourselves…beating our self up, pushing our self to do more, try harder, be better, do this, don’t do that…..”Be like God sinner!!!”
We live by accusations and unthankfulness. We goad ourselves along every day trying harder to be like(what we imagine to be) God. All the while the Devil laughs at us. He knows that if we have Jesus we are the very image and likeness of God just as we are—weak and lowly humans. He has nullified God’s salvation in us because we do not believe the truth.
As for me..Dennis Rhodes…I am just like God. With all my weaknesses and inabilities and proneness to failing,,,,I am just as He is, in this world, in this life, right now.
