Manariwa

WEEK 47 (25^th of Nisan, the First Month, to the 1^st of Iyar, the Second Month, in the Hebrew Religious Calendar)

The Forbidden Fruit and the Law of Moses

We become what we eat – literally. For every part of our body comes from the ground. Adam was a lifeless body formed out of dust. Light sustained the Life he received through the fruits he ate in the Garden. Adam was the Garden. Like us, he was of the Garden. 

So it is with knowledge. We become what we learn and know. Adam and Havah became children of the Creator because they were formed by His might, first of all. But they had to learn that fact through knowledge or acknowledgment. Without that awareness or recognition, there is no faith. When there is no faith, there is no desire to do good according to the will of the Creator. Without good, only evil can exist.

Hence, good and evil in Eden (and in this world) were permanently tied to food, like it or not. It was so in the Garden (the Primal Source of Food and Good). It was so during the escape of the Hebrews from Egypt when they ate the Passover. It was so in the wilderness when they ate the manna. And at each step of the way, they had to know and to observe certain rules to do good – not to do so was to do evil. Hence, that fundamental Knowledge of Good and Evil was intentionally incorporated in the Law of Moses. Offering and eating of food and sacrifices were observed according to the righteous demands of Yah. And each violation had a punishment or payment. Essentially then, the Law was the Forbidden Tree in written-form that simply reminded the Israelites of the Fall, of sin, and of the result of disobedience, which is death.

Notice that Adam and Havah only had one command which was about food; while Israel had over 600 laws and ordinances. Even the Ten Commandments would not have been applicable in Eden. How could Adam “covet his neighbor’s wife”? Or “steal”? Or even contemplate to “kill” anyone, least of all, his wife? He would have committed the first suicide, homicide, genocide and divorce, all at the same time! Havah was part of his own body and being, the mother of all humanity still to be born, his wife and his fellow-human.

As long as they loved Yah and one another, Adam and Havah were fine. Love, under such circumstances, negated or removed the efficacy or power of the command. The command was there only to set a limit to freedom; and it was not a grievous or burdensome requirement at all. Under the Law of Liberty inaugurated by Yahusha death and resurrection, Love is the only Law. (James 1:22-25) And John will bring this principle home, as we shall see.

Only “lust of the eyes and of the flesh” would have led anyone to eat of the fruit or to sin even today, which it did and it still does. For lust seeks to satisfy itself; it is practically a self-sustaining entity or spirit that enters into a person, causing him or her to confuse lust with Love or Worship. It is, therefore, important to equip children and even grown-ups with the basic knowledge about Divine Law through the written revelation. As we said: Eating is Knowing, Being and Living. Ironically, Eating can also be Dying.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of Yah abides forever.

– – 1 John 2:15-17

We can conclude then that the command given to humans in the Garden was the same command taught by Yahusha: Love others as you love Yah and yourself. Recognizing we are all children of Yah leads us to love our brothers and sisters born by virtue of Adam and Havah. Hence, when Havah ate the Forbidden Fruit, she turned her back both on Yah and Adam. Adam shared the responsibility of keeping the command. Havah eating in dereliction of that shared duty and obligation caused Adam to eat and do evil as well. True, she was deceived by the serpent; but she knew clearly the command and the consequences. In short, she knew all the Good she had received in the Garden, as well as the Evil that would arise from sinning.

But while Havah showed lack of love by eating the fruit, Adam, ironically enticed by her, also ate because he loved her (although he failed to love Yah more). His love, this time, was motivated not by pure spiritual knowledge he had beforehand but by a practical consideration of certain consequences we must explain. If Adam did not eat of the fruit, only Havah would have been driven out of the Garden and eventually die. Perhaps, Elohim would have made another wife for Adam. There were initially many possibilities, such as Adam eating and Havah not eating. Or no one eating the fruit. We have no way of knowing or seeing where each path would have eventually led. All me know is Adam and Havah both ate – and here we are. Indeed, perhaps, Adam had acted as a savior who — willingly or not — ate and died with Havah in order to be with her in life and in death.

Did the Serpent Eat the Forbidden Fruit?

What if the serpent had eaten the fruit first before Eve did? But was it forbidden to animals as well? Perhaps. For it appears even animals also have awareness of Life and, it follows, of Good and Evil in a fundamental sense. For why would the serpent have the temerity to claim one could have wisdom like that of Elohim by eating of the fruit, whether true or not? What caused the serpent to be that “more subtle” than most of the animals which, most likely, had such kind of knowledge but not the cunning or subtlety to tempt humans? (Gen. 3:1) ( More to the point, how did it learn to lie and to decide to deceive humans? Was it possibly from eating the fruit? And could it be that all the Knowledge of Good and Evil that exists is all that we as creatures of Yah, whether humans and animals, have brought about into the world, with the aid of the fallen angels? For Creation was already Good at the start; all the Evil came later on.

What would have stopped the serpent, a creature of pure intentions at the start, from tasting of the fruit and, thereby, obtaining the Knowledge of Good and Evil? We have said that Adam and Havah spoke to animals, including the serpent. Perhaps, the animals still speak their original language to this day; however, we cannot understand them, nor they us. How many foreign languages does the ordinary person not understand? They could just as well be as incomprehensible as the chirping of birds or the chattering of apes! Yet, we do communicate with animals in ways we cannot start to explain.

Surely, like Adam and Havah, the serpent must have died as well. However, we have reason to believe the serpent raised its children afterward, as Elohim had foretold. Its own Knowledge of Good and Evil – remember, it was more subtle than all the animals in the Garden — made it a perfect partner for the fallen angels who bred with women. Could this union of the serpent and the hybrid children of fallen angels and women have produced a third kind of hybrid humans which many refer to as the Reptilian Race that would rule the world until now? For if angels, who had innocence and purity as humans had before the Fall, acquired the same Knowledge of Good and Evil or “corrupted wisdom” when they rebelled, why not animals which had the intelligence, even subtlety, to know Good and Evil?

After the Law

Much more knowledge lies hidden from the eyes of humans that we cannot even begin to count the areas where we find so many conflicting ideas, views and opinions. The simple question of what is Good and what is Evil remains unsettled in the minds of millions of people. Or, more precisely, it is a settled matter in every person’s mind, except for the agreement and unity that should accompany such mutual understanding on any subject matter. The search for a reliable and inerrant Arbiter of Truth on Whom we should all establish our beliefs and practices should have been an easy task. But we lost that opportunity a long time ago. While the Arbiter remains, many do not see the need to avail of the opportunity still. In that sense, we are back in the Garden, eating of the Forbidden Fruit. That is, so many continue to effectively live under the dispensation of the Law, still under the bondage of “do’s” and “don’ts”.

Yet, we know the Law has been fulfilled by Yahusha on the cross at Calvary. The Promised Seed has been given and anyone who eats of its Precious Fruit of Eternal Good will be set free from the effects of the Law and its fruits of sin, unrighteousness and death. The Law of Moses — all 600 or so ordinances — has been perfectly satisfied by the sacrifice of Yahusha. This is the Good News, both for the Israelite and the Gentile. Note that Adam and Havah, our first parents, were neither Israelites nor Gentiles. They were children of Elohim, as we all are. Israel and the Law of Moses merely served as a vehicle within which the Seed would be granted to humankind,

The seeds of the fruits in the Garden all produced their own kinds from the very beginning. And that includes the Forbidden Fruit. No, that fruit and its seeds were not meant to be eaten and sown in a perfect Creation, where all was Pure and Good. But in connivance with the serpent, humans rebelled and brought about the corruption of this world. Angels, in like manner, would conspire to corrupt Creation by mating with women. These two significant events have been perpetrated by humans, angels and animals that has brought about a world-system that is totally inconsistent with the design of the Creator from the beginning. We have chronicled all the main events and discussed the reasons for all the ongoing chaos and conflicts that characterize this world’s present condition. All these led to the continuing growth of the Knowledge of Evil, to the detriment of the Knowledge of Good.

Loss of innocence occurs early in the lifetime of a person. Much more so today with the proliferation of social media and the accessibility to information that is meant to further dilute the conscience of humans. The Knowledge of Good and Evil is essentially the human conscience at work: the awareness of Right and Wrong, Proper and Improper, Beautiful and Ugly. Nakedness was not shameful in the beginning. But sin and guilt did something to the human mind and spirit that made nakedness improper, indecent and even abominable. For the serpent, crawling on the ground was the sign or mark of shame given for its evil deed. A flying dragon with legs and feet is Satan’s way of reclaiming his lost glory and pride. Be not deceived.

The Father of All Lies is on the brink of eliminating all vestiges of Truth on Earth. As knowledge increases through the free-flowing stream of information everywhere we turn, he has more opportunities to deceive humans and complete his goal of gaining total dominion over all nations and all peoples. In fact, he has already chained a major part of this world through the existing political, economic, social and religious systems at work today. The dark period from 2020 to 2023 was but a dry-run and a launching of a more insidious program to impose a more stringent global rule that will eliminate any opposition to the age-old plan began by the fallen angels. Yes, the Seed came because the curse upon humans brought about by our connivance with the serpent and then by the connivance of angels to corrupt the human seed (to destroy the Promised Seed) had to be eradicated. And He did so, once for all.

Having failed to destroy the Seed through killing Him by crucifixion, Satan now seeks to capture as many of the Seed’s fruits (all fruits of Noah and his family) as he could by tempting and testing each one individually or by groups through the faith-systems that Satan has established to deceive many from the Pure Truth. The search for the Knowledge of Good and of Evil remains a primordial responsibility we must seriously address. It is no longer a simple search of what religion or what tradition suits your liking or your cultural upbringing. It is not a matter of choosing the best or most convenient version of the Bible narrative, from the tiniest teaching to the most-compelling prophetic doctrine. It is simply removing all traces of sin and evil within our hearts and minds as we live each day. It is in loving one another as children of Yah.

This is the essential message of John in his final main letter to the disciples. He must have read the letter to the Hebrews which summarized the meaning and the status of the Law of Moses. He knew, as all the other apostles knew, that the Law had already been fulfilled and replaced by a better Covenant or Commandment. His short letter presents a concise statement of what Yahusha and Ruach had accomplished through the preaching of the message of Truth. We can rad the whole letter; but here are some of his finest words that should suffice to arm us well in our Spiritual Warfare we wage till the end:

If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the Truth. But if we walk in the Light as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Yahusha Masshiak His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the Truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

– – 1 John 1:6-10

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the Truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of Yah is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a New Commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

– – 1 John 2:3-8

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the Truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the Truth.

These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the Anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same Anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

– 1 John 2:20, 21, 26, 27

 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Yahusha Masshiak and Love one another, as He gave us commandment.

– – 1 John 3:23

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in Love; but Perfect Love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made Perfect in Love. We Love Him because He first Loved us.

– – 1 John 4:17-19

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