What Exactly Was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? — The Reality That Brought Death to All Humanity
In the Garden of Eden, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is said to have brought labor, the pain of childbirth, and death upon all humanity — a familiar story. But ask the most basic question, what exactly the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, and even the Bible itself gives no clear answer. So how have we actually understood this event, and was that understanding ever really sound?
Until now, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has mostly been read as a story of free will — humans broke 하나님‘s command not to eat, and chose sin. It was framed as a test of obedience versus disobedience, and a story of humanity failing that test. Many theological traditions have emphasized human free will and responsibility within this frame.
But push this explanation a little further and an obvious question appears. If 하나님 is all-knowing and all-powerful, 하나님 could not have failed to know that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. And yet 하나님 placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, and after it was eaten, punished not only Adam and Eve themselves but all their descendants, not yet even born, with labor, the pain of childbirth, and death. Remarkably, 참성경 raises almost exactly this question itself.
If it is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a word explaining what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is must come out; only then does it become the word of 참성경. If only the word “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is recorded, and, 이제 그대로, by eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was forbidden, 하나님 cursed, expelled them from the Garden of Eden, and caused them to die for generations, then today, is the responsibility for human death with 하나님, or with 마귀? Therefore, is that the word of 마귀, or the word of 하나님?
This confusion has two main causes. First, the Bible records the event of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil only very briefly, and later generations have filled in that skeleton with as much flesh as they themselves understood — in the process, a plausible-sounding narrative came to matter more than what was originally meant. Second, people who never learned how to actually read the Bible have interpreted that spare account however suited them, teaching and expanding it in wildly different directions. As a result, false information has spread widely enough to pass for a standard, and untangling this confusion now depends on each reader developing the ability to tell truth from falsehood.
참성경 approaches this question from an entirely different direction: the very word “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is a biblical word, and biblical words are, at root, spiritual words.
Therefore, it is written in the Bible that people died by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the word “선악과,” 이제 그대로, is a biblical word, and since biblical words are spiritual words, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is a spiritual fruit, isn’t it? Since it’s a spiritual fruit, it’s spirit, isn’t it? It’s spirit, but is it a spirit that kills, or a spirit that gives life? It’s a spirit that kills. The spirit that kills is the spirit of 마귀, isn’t it? So, the fact that the spirit of 마귀 became ‘나’라는 주체 의식, is that eating the mind of 마귀, or not eating it? It’s eating the mind of 마귀, isn’t it? So, since the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the mind of 마귀, is the saying “eating the mind of 마귀” the same as the saying “eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” or not the same?
If eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in death, then that spirit is a killing spirit — 마귀. So what, then, is the reality behind the event itself? 참성경 explains that reality directly.
이제 그대로, 삼위일체 하나님 fought and overcame 마귀 from eternity past to eternity without end, but 6,000 years ago from now, by suffering defeat to 마귀, they became prisoners of 마귀. As they became prisoners of 마귀, 마귀 occupied the Spirit of 하나님, which is the 주체영 of 삼위일체 하나님, captured the Spirit of 하나님 as a prisoner in 마귀’s spiritual prison, and as 마귀 became the 주체영 and king, the body of 삼위일체 하나님 transformed into the human bodies of men and women – I have been discussing this fact with you time and again, haven’t I?
In other words, the reality of the event was that 마귀 entered into 하나님, who had been living in the Garden of Eden, the heavenly kingdom. It was not the act of picking the fruit itself, but 마귀’s entry into that place, that was the true substance of the event.
Seen this way, where responsibility lies also changes. The flaw in the event of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lies not in 하나님’s design, but in the 마귀 that entered into it. And since the true identity of the sin that leads people to death is also 마귀, the saying “you must not sin to be saved” amounts to saying “you must remove 마귀 to reach salvation.” Remove 마귀, and one is finally reborn as 하나님.
