Is this struggle of the identity of man and woman, confusion, disappointment, and strife a new thing? Sure, our grandparents never imagined they would have the choice to change the gender of their children by surgery and hormone replacement. So, yes, there are a few new aspects. But then again, this is nothing new. Misunderstanding and misalignment have plagued God’s creation since Adam and Eve.
Today we are cursed with sadness. We live in a world of discontent people who are trying their best to find a pathway to the good life, to feel at home in their own bodies, to overcome the conflicts inside and outside. It is heartbreaking! And we want to just scream comfort in the Word of our God at our confused society! However, we must consider the underlaying problem to properly address our modern gender struggle.
First of all, this problem has been part of our world from the beginning. After God proclaimed everything He made in the Garden of Eden was “good”, discontent emerged from the first people. God’s human creations were quickly convinced that they were better off creating for themselves, taking control of their own destiny. They didn’t believe God had provided the right path for them. So from the very beginning, they took matters into their own hands.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3: 4-6)
Imagine a world that God’s people only ate from the trees that He intended. They would have freely eaten from every tree without struggle, including the Tree of Life. They would have lived forever, just as God created. This was “good”. But instead, the first man and woman ate the fruit of knowledge: knowledge of good and evil. This was not the fruit that God wanted to feed His people. They chose the burden of knowledge: right and wrong, good and evil, the pressure to be their own god until they ended up dead.
In hurtful disappointment, God explained what their choice of knowledge did to the creation. In other words, God proclaimed curses upon the serpent, man, woman, and upon the earth. To the serpent God declared his body would be forever changed, and he will be defeated by a child of the woman “because you have done this”. To the woman He declared that she would have pain and struggle with both children and men. To the man He proclaimed that his hard work will be fruitless, and he will eventually die. God looked at His creation now that man and woman had the fruit of knowledge. It was “not good”.
And what world do we experience today? The cursed version. God’s original intentions for the relationships, the bodies, the functions, the growth and sustenance of His creation has been stunted by the knowledge of good and evil. This is NOT good. But it is our reality.
Yet, this is foundational knowledge for living in a less than perfect world. But the question we must consider is not simply Why is it not good? God tells us this answer clearly in Genesis — our world is not good because the creations changed the creation. However, just yelling this fact of destroyed and confused situation louder and louder does not really answer the question that we should be asking.
If we ask, What can you do about it? This is where the true battle lies. There are two very simple answers about what you can do about a cursed creation that has been distorted by sin.
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