Bjcorbin's Blog

One of the major themes, which has reverberated throughout human history, is the concept of an epic struggle between the forces of “good” and “evil”. And while there is, no doubt, some amount of credence to this idea, I believe that the parameters of that conflict have become increasingly distorted and exaggerated. Unfortunately, a failure to understand the bounds of that battle could ultimately cost us a much greater defeat.

Based on westernized Christianity one might assume that the Garden of Eden’s “forbidden fruit” came from the tree of “evil”, as opposed to the tree “of the knowledge of good and evil”. By applying that flawed understanding, the problem becomes that we ate of the evil fruit, which introduced sin and whereby Jesus becomes the antidote for our poisonous blight. While there is certainly a strand of truth in that picture, it fails to adequately represent the full scope of mankind’s eternal struggle.

In reality, the options in the garden came down to the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By partaking of the latter, mankind not only gave evil a place in creation, he also birthed the presumption that men have the ability to discern what is “good” for themselves. Choosing between “life” (which can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ) and our own understanding of what is “good”, has been a problem ever since. By characterizing this life as a struggle between good and evil, mankind continues to walk by the tree of life, as he strives to achieve what he imagines to be “good”.

Jesus chided those who referred to Him as “good” teacher; telling them that there was “only one who is good”; while the book of Proverbs says that there is a way that seems right (or good) to a man, but that in the end it leads to death. Those who reject God often do so on the basis of things like, “why would God send a good (by their own definition) person to hell” or “why would a good (also by their own definition) God allow ______ (i.e. bad things) to happen to good (again, by their own definition) people”. Even amongst those who count themselves as followers of Jesus, it is often the pursuit of things we perceive to be good that keeps us from pursuing the things that God has actually called us to. I believe that this is the trap that the Apostle Paul was trying to warn us about when he exhorted us to walk in the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit and to test everything by the Spirit. He was telling us that quite literally, apart from God you can do “nothing”.

Another problem with magnifying the emphasis of good versus evil is that it lends too much credibility to the power of evil. The truth of scripture is that evil has already been defeated. While it makes for great human drama to portray the forces of good hanging on by a thread, the reality is that darkness is defenseless against the power of light. There is no real comparison between these two forces; the actual battle is for the hearts of men, who have an unfortunate penchant for choosing the darkness (John 3:19) over the light.

I would submit that few people will knowingly embrace what they recognize to be evil, which is why the scripture tells us that our enemy often comes disguised as an angel of light.(2 Cor. 11:14). But if that is true, then it is the things which we’ve characterized as being “good” that have the greatest potential to lead us astray. While that doesn’t necessarily make us evil, it may well qualify us as deceived; which from an eternal perspective can be just as perilous.