STATION 21: BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL TO LIFEWas the death of Jesus a good thing or a bad thing? The Bible is not at all clear about this. In fact, the Bible gives you a very astounding vision. If you read carefully in the book of Acts, you will see some of the earliest sermons of Christianity. Therein it is clear that the people must repent, because they did an evil thing. With their Godless hands, they put Jesus to death. This was a horrible evil and a sin for which they must repent. It was not good. It was done because of hatred, because of fear, because of ego, because of selfish stupid pride, because of government intervention, because of all of the evils on this earth. The Bible is quite clear to paint the picture that this crucifixion was a horrible ugly sinful thing. At the same time, if you read in the book of Acts, it is quite clear that God preordained everything that went on, and that everything that happened in Jesus' death and resurrection was the working of God the Father. It was perfectly in accordance with His will; therefore, it was very, very good. How was that possible? Is God evil? No, and the Bible here is not painting the picture of God taking an evil thing and transforming it into good. No, we have seen that, and that is certainly true. There is always resurrection. No, matter how evil or dark things can be, God can transform it into good. No, the Bible is painting a sharper picture here--a sharper picture that the death and resurrection of Jesus was simultaneously an unspeakable evil and the most blessed perfect event ever. It was entirely good and entirely evil. It was beyond the pairs of opposites. This is a very high very powerful teaching. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had life. That is all they had. And, everything in that life was good. Their existence was shattered when they stopped seeing everything as being good and started thinking about it in terms of good and evil. This is the faculty of judgment. They no longer accepted things for the way they were and started looking at them also in terms of the way they weren't. Once again, I go into great detail about this in the writing "In The Garden." The point is that we, as human beings, are always living according to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We're saying "yes" to this and "no" to that. We see someone walking down the street, and we immediately make a host of judgments about him. How much money does he have? Is he a good person, is he a bad person? Do we like the shoes? Do we dislike the shirt? Is there too much make up, not enough make up? We instantaneously make hundreds of judgments. Currently as of this writing in 1995, the entire nation is obsessed with a murder trial going on in Los Angeles, the O. J. Simpson murder case. It is not possible for us to simply see this as it is. A man is on trial for murder. They have now started the trial, period. That is all anyone actually knows. But no, everyone has to form their opinion, good or evil. Is he innocent, is he guilty? Has he been framed? Is he a psychopathic murderer? Is this a racist issue? Is this a man vs. woman sexist issue? Everyone has to form their opinions and their judgments. They are always saying good or evil, yes or no? Happiness or sadness? These are the pairs of opposites, and we are constantly judging. This constant judging prevents us from living. We are unable to accept the truth. The death and resurrection of Jesus shows us that there are realms beyond this band of judgment. God, when He came to the Earth and wanted to tell something so powerful, wanted us to be able to see that this goes beyond our judgment. If you want to call it good, you can call it good. If you want to call it evil, you can call it evil. God is saying it doesn't matter. It is both good and evil. There is what is and is not. None of that matters. What matters is life, which is unity. Jesus died, and if you want to see that as good or evil you can. It is up to you. They are both equally true. It is equally true that the man's shirt you see is both good and bad. That person you know is both good and bad. That is not the point. We must transcend the knowledge of good and evil. That is the entire point of salvation. We must overcome the poison of that tree, and no longer constantly dwell in the realm of judgment between I like this, I don't like that, that is good, that is bad, I want more of this in my life and less of that in my life. We must accept life, the totality. God met man in the Garden of Gethsemane, on Mt. Calvary, and He took all of our hatred and all or our sin and all of our murderous evil ways, combined it with all of His love, all of His glory, all of His power, and said, we are beyond good and evil. The only thing that matters is resurrection. The only thing that matters is life. We can follow the pathway of Christ. God placed the universe here, and it was only good. Adam and Eve became fractured and saw the universe in terms of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil poisons us to this day. And, what God tried to do, through Mt. Calvary, was to re-zip the zipper, to take this knowledge of good and evil and recombine it so that He might return us to this pure state of life, absolute total goodness. That is the purpose of the Cross, that we might transcend our judgments, go beyond our small petty ways, and be able to dwell, once again, in the perfect unitive goodness of God and the universe. Think deeply on these things. |
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