I came across an account of a person who was shown Hell, and there they saw an eight-year-old boy burning in the flames.
This, of course, raised some concerns.
Primarily, how could God create a being who was prone to commit sin well before he or she had the mental and emotional faculties necessary to make a decision with such grave eternal consequences?
After all, we won’t trust them with driving, owning a gun, voting, business contracts, dating, or even what movies they can watch, how late they can stay up, or what food they can eat at that age.
So, why would God force them to decide on Hell at that age -forever burning, thirsting, starving, and being eaten alive by worms, over and over, for eternity, with never any release, never any comfort, and never any escape?
So I asked Him.
Answer: He didn’t.
It was one of those bursts of insight that takes one by surprise. It’s what the word of wisdom does: reveal mysteries.
When God created Adam and Eve, they were INCAPABLE of committing sin, even as adults.
That’s right. They did not sin by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They sinned by being publicly naked.
Curiously, they had no commandment telling them not to be naked. Yet, their nakedness was the sin that caused them to die.
Say what!?!
Everyone knows that sin is breaking the commandment.
Ah, but it isn’t, per se. Sin is knowingly choosing evil from your heart.
That is why John said in 1 John 3:4, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” This sounds a little like double-speak, but it isn’t. When you sin, you ALSO transgress the law. So you actually sin twice: once because you sinned, and twice, because you also broke the law saying not to do it. (So, now you REALLY have no excuse!)
Paul explains this relationship a little more. In Galatians 3:19, he says that the Law was added because of transgressions that were already in existence. In Romans 7:7-9, he explains that the law brought knowledge of sin, and once sin was known for being sin, sin drove him to spiritual death.
Why?
Because you cannot commit sin if you don’t know it is evil. Sin, in it’s raw form, is the choosing of evil from the heart.
But isn’t all sin, sin, regardless of whether you know it is or not? If you commit murder, but don’t know it is wrong, isn’t it still murder? Ignorance of the law is no excuse, after all.
In the High Court of Heaven, ignorance of the law IS an excuse. Sin is a violation of your conscience. (A sin “not unto death” is a sin you are ignorant of: 1 John 5:16-17.)
However, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:7-13 that you can be destroyed by “sin” that is not even a sin, because your ignorant conscience THINKS it’s a sin! (See also Romans 14:14-15).
And that is why Adam and Eve could not sin. Before they ate of the fruit, they had no knowledge of good and evil.
But, did they do evil before eating of the tree? Did they have lust and covet? Did they lie?
Absolutely.
Eve coveted the fruit because it would make her wise like gods. And, she clearly believed God lied.
Either she put words into God’s mouth concerning the tree, or Adam lied to her: whichever. (I vote for Adam exaggerating to her to make super sure she never ate of it. But then, he stood right there and watched her do it. Hmm.) However it came about, Eve told the snake God had said, “Neither shall you touch it.” God had not said that, and Eve was not around when God said it. Someone goofed!
Adam ate the fruit because he coveted Eve - or, because he’d waited to see if she fell over dead first, and she hadn’t, so God must have lied.
No matter how you look at it, all of that behavior is what we know to be sin.
THEN they ate of the fruit of the tree.
AFTER they ate the fruit, they knew they were naked. They tried to correct this, but, too late! Their conscience was defiled. Yes, nakedness was the first sin! They feared God, and hid from him. As surely as God had said, the day they ate of the fruit, they died spiritually. But it wasn’t the fruit that killed them, nor even the eating of it, it was their new found ability to KNOW EVIL, AND CHOOSE IT.
And that is why little boys and girls can now go to Hell.
God did not make them that way. He created man WITHOUT the ability to sin. Hell was never his plan for man. And it still isn’t.
But we all inherited from Adam the ability to recognize and choose evil. And we all have. And we all do.
At about the same time I heard of the little boy in Hell, I also heard of a study that had proved certain plant proteins activate genes within our cells, and alter their function. They have even found that certain things from our environment that activate and deactivate certain genes can be passed to our offspring. So it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that the fruit of a certain tree permanently altered the genome of the human race.
We didn’t inherit some spiritual taint of “original sin” that we are born with. But we did inherit the ability to spiritually discern evil. I remember the exact time and place and activity where I first discerned evil, acknowledged it, and chose to follow it anyway. I was nine at the time. And I chose to sin. And all I was doing was picking apples off of the tree, and throwing them at my brother!
Funny, yes, but evil (as my Dad made sure to point out when he got home).
It’s a little late to learn the lesson, “Don’t believe anything a snake tells you.”
But we can all learn the lesson of Calvary.
And we can all make sure little boys and girls - and even grown up boys and girls - know how to escape the fires of Hell.
Copyright © 2012 Burley Ward. All rights reserved
