“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14)
If the Bible and Christians contend that Jesus Christ is the blemish-free, Passover Lamb of God sacrifice for mankind’s sins, that He was perfect and without sin during His life and ministry on earth, by what or by whose standard do we judge the existence of this alleged perfect moral character in any person?
How would we determine that the life of Jesus was at the outer edge of intellectual and moral perfection, at the peak and the pinnacle of absolute goodness and virtue?
How would we know that no additional room or space remained at the highest top-most point of the vertical, graduated spectrum-line of virtue and morality for further improvement?
What would explain the existence of the diverse categories of moral criteria defining virtue, of the numerous moral concepts broken down into individual words as abstract thoughts accessible to human contemplation, that would enable and support a valid determination of the moral credentials of Jesus Christ?
And finally, where would our highly-advanced capacity to comprehend, to divide, separate-out, and parse these varied conceptual virtues and vices, consisting of finely differentiated realities that are true-to-life…come from?
Where would this uniquely human capacity originate from, seeing that it does not exist anywhere else in the animal world and therefore cannot plausibly be attributed to the common descent, materialistic explanation for its origin extending seamlessly in small gradual steps from animal instinct to human intellect?
This current planet earth is the optimum environment to conduct individual research explorations into the knowledge of good and evil, using the lens of a fallen moral nature that is redeemed by Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.
The broad array of moral concepts functionally operative within human relationships is the major leagues counterpart to the biodiversity and ecological balance we find in the natural world, that enables animal instinct to operate.
The brilliant invention of redemptive salvation by grace through faith in Christ is the means by which believers can with impunity and without risk to our eternal salvation, now enter into journeys of faith.
This becomes a reality by picking-up our own cross to follow Jesus Christ into adventures of challenge beyond our imagination…designed to open the door into the subtleties of the knowledge of good and evil for our eternal benefit.
An entirely counterintuitive insight comes from the modern scientific method of doing first-hand field research, that adds a new and unexpected twist to understanding the biblical interpretation of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
It is that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not just a way to provide forgiveness for sin and to restore our relationship with God, but also to open-up a living way into exploring the knowledge of good and evil through the research vehicle of an imperfect yet redeemed, fallen moral nature (Rom. 7:15-8:4; 2 Cor. 4:7).
In the detailed, biblical narrative stories of faith from Abraham through Paul, we see personal relationships created between people and God, and mission-plans often having enormous benefits to other people at that time and for mankind extending into the future.
But we also see life-scripts that are guided research programs into the knowledge of good and evil, that are purpose-filled at the pinnacle of rational thought and reasoning.
There is infinitely more to God’s plan of salvation than just reconciliation and addressing the guilt of our mistakes, as important as that is.
Redemptive salvation by grace through faith points directly to Genesis 3:4-5:
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
This is a classic example of a half-truth.
What transpired in the Garden of Eden was not an equally argued dispute over a set of facts about what beneficial outcomes might accrue by eating a particular fruit.
This dispute was about who possesses a perfect, absolute understanding of the moral concepts of good and evil, and therefore is in the singular position of being the topmost authority.
This dispute was about whether newly thinking humans created in the image of God are capable of adjudicating this issue and formulating our own moral standards.
The temptation in the Garden of Eden never reached anything like a dispute over empirical, fact-based evidence.
God did not show-up to debate the serpent with words alone, because Adam and Eve would have no experiential back-story of lived events to be able to separate lies from truth.
God knew from eternity past that eating a piece of fruit could not possibly provide the entire panoply of understanding and implementing the range of moral concepts at their end-points of perfection, in the lives of human beings.
God knew from eternity past that the only and best way that I can acquire a genuine knowledge of good and evil, is through a guided research program while inhabiting the four-wheel-drive vehicle of my fallen yet redeemed earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7), my imperfect moral nature being the perfect lens through which to understand the subtleties of the broad array of moral concepts.
The Cross in the Christian Life 