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Genesis 3 – Trust versus Knowledge
In the garden Eve chooses not to trust God and desires a knowledge that is either not destined for mankind, or else not destined so quickly. The forbidden fruit does exactly what Satan promises, and what God forbade. It grants knowledge (Gen.3.22), a knowledge at that time forbidden. But in eating it, Eve trads trust for knowledge. In this sense, faith is another word for trust.
I am wondering if trust is inherently more pleasing to God than knowledge. And even when knowledge is commended, it is knowledge that leads to trust and godliness. Trust will lead to knowledge if God desires it to. But sometimes knowledge can misplace trust because we start to rely more on what we know in order to save us, than trusting in God despite what we do not know.
There is a paradox associated with this. Oftentimes when people gain “new knowledge,” this heightened intellectualism leads to the disdaining of the less enlightened. No longer are the pseudo intellectuals saved by their old knowledge, and no longer are they bound by old traditions, beliefs and works. Instead they are liberated. And what has liberated them? Knowledge. They run the danger of being enslaved all over again.
Both the traditionalists and the liberated make the same mistake – salvation by knowledge. In the first century this was called Gnosticism. Today its new form exists ironically on warring sides, each denying being guilty of salvation by knowledge which is salvation by doctrine and works. Spirituality is the new “thing.” Notice the two equally wrong sides of the following coin. Religion without spirituality is worshipping ritual. Spirituality without religion is worshipping self.
I want to go back to the Garden of Eden. I want stop relying on my knowledge to save me and start trusting again in the God who saves. I want to gain what new knowledge God has for me, in His time, without allowing my knowledge to separate me from both Him and His. I want to live by faith in God’s Garden of Trust.
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