Elijah Part four - The Natural Law of Good and Evil

The natural law of Good and Evil

In the last issue we saw how Satan’s perversion of justice is embodied in the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This “knowledge” is more than just a knowledge: it is a supposed “wisdom.” This is the “wisdom” of the world, the “wisdom” we inherited in Adam whereby we reward the good and punish the evil.

First of all this is contrary to God’s wisdom because it is based on the false premise that some of us are better than others. Jesus declared that, No one is good but One, that is, God, (Matthew 19:17). We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) To think that some of us are better than others is a complete fallacy. We are all sinners because none of us live by God’s agape love. We break God’s law of love daily, even if by a single thought or action that is not in harmony with agape love. To think and act by anything other than God’s agape love is sin. Living by agape love is only possible by a supernatural act of God; of ourselves it is impossible to do it. Therefore to divide each other into groups that are more or less deserving, is Biblically illogical and false. It is Pharisaism.

And yet the wisdom of the world does exactly that: it separates us into more or less deserving groups and once that is done it pits us against each other. According to the Bible this system of works is Baal’s system:

“I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work, Romans 11:4-6.

Those that have bowed the knee to Baal are living under the system of works. The true remnant are those who live according to the election of grace.

Satan manages to keep us in bondage to his moral law through at least two very clever ways:

1. by turning us inwardly to rely on self, thus making us believe that we have the inner wisdom necessary to reach enlightenment, and

2. by making us believe that God Himself has a dual character of Good and Evil. In this issue we will discuss the first way Satan keeps us in bondage to his fatal moral law.

There is much talk these days in the New Age circles about our “inner light,” or “the divine” within each of us. One such claim states: “Discover your own personal spiritual path and walk in the delightful adventures of Divine Connection within yourself! You are part of The Divine!”

Satanists on their part claim that we should do as we wish. Alistair Crowley, the famous esoteric occultist, is known for saying “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Crowley places the human will as the highest ruling power of our lives. Along with that maxim he adds: “Love is the law, love under will.”

What do these two positions have in common, along with the myriad of similar teachings bouncing around the world today? They both elevate the natural human heart as the solution, not the problem.

What is our “inner light?” It is our fallen human nature which is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is the human will? It is “the flesh,” as dictated by the Knowledge of Good and evil.

But what is wrong with Crowley’s statement “Love is the law, love under will?” After all, isn’t love the law indeed? Yes, love is the law; but not human love, not love under human “will.” Why? Because human love is but one facet of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is the “Good” side of the fatal duality Satan created. Human “will,” even human “good will,” is a perverted fallen “will” powered by either fear of punishment or selfish greed for rewards. God’s image, His unconditional and impartial law of agape love is no longer our default; our norm is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Human “will” is entirely under subjection to Satan’s moral law of Good and Evil which is the reason for death in our planet.

All philosophies that direct us to self as the the way to attain enlightenment are fallacious and only send us round and round the same circle of death which is represented by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

When Adam and Eve “ate” of the serpent’s moral system they became dualistic, capable of being both “Good” and “Evil” but they were no longer agape love. Every human being born on this earth knows and understands the inner duality of Good and Evil. This is what the Bible refers to as the fallen sinful nature, “the flesh.” This is also what it refers to as impurity, unrighteousness, blemish, unholiness, uncleanliness, corruption. These words refer directly to the mixture of supposed light and darkness present in the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Bible states that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all,” 1 John 1:5. We are a mixture of so-called “light” and "darkness;" through the sin of Adam the entire human race lost the purity, the singleness of agape with which God had made us when He made Adam in His image.

Notice how Satan deceived Eve in the words of the apostle Paul:

“But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ,” 2 Corinthians 11:3.

How did the Serpent deceive Eve? He corrupted her from the simplicity that is in Christ. What is the simplicity that is in Christ? The Greek word is haplotes and it means singleness, simplicity, sincerity, mental honesty. Satan convinced Eve that God was duplicitous, a liar, a dual character, that He was Good and Evil.

Satan’s dualistic moral law is also the “collective unconscious” coined by Carl Jung, who said:

“My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”

What are Jungian archetypes? They are instinctual behavior patterns. The question then is: are these instinctual behavior patterns based on our fallen nature? Yes, they must be. Our natural instincts are based on the natural law which is our fallen nature of Good and Evil, and that is our collective unconscious, our universal undercurrent of Good and Evil.

Even though our moral make up is now “Good” and “Evil” our fallen moral nature renders us completely evil. How do we know? Because Jesus said as much when He said that there is “No one is good but One, that is, God” (Matt. 19:17). Assembling quotes from the Psalms and Isaiah, Paul synthesizes the same assessment of humanity’s condition in Romans 3:10:

As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

11 There is none who understands;

There is none who seeks after God.

12 They have all turned aside;

They have together become unprofitable;

There is none who does good, no, not one.”

13 “Their throat is an open tomb;

With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;

“The poison of asps is under their lips”;

14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;

17 And the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 3:10-18

Isaiah poured further insight into this universal human condition by saying “The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace,” Isaiah 59:8.

By saying that “there is no justice in their ways” Isaiah declared in effect that all human morality is a lie. Why? Because human justice is based on Good and Evil’s counterfeit standard of justice. Human justice stems from the selfish, arbitrary, tyrannical, avenging and cruel morality of Satan’s system of Good and Evil.

Since mankind’s inner moral law is in harmony with Satan, then our natural moral default is the moral law of Good and Evil. This law is characterized by a disposition to make moral judgments to reward those we consider good and punish those we consider evil. We treat well those who are good to us and we punish our enemies.

What’s more, this moral law has been attributed to God and that is not only tragic but fatal. To think that God operates by the reward and punishment system removes His grace and mercy from our reach entirely. And when His grace and mercy are removed from our minds we are doomed to destruction. Judas is the greatest example. Did not Jesus forgive him as He forgave Peter? Did not Jesus do everything in His power to teach him "grace?" And yet Judas could not deal with the guilt and condemnation of his inward moral law of Good and Evil, and unbelieving in Christ’s love and grace, he took his own life.

Ancient Philosophers called Satan’s law of Good and Evil Lex Naturae, or Natural Law. Throughout history pagan mysticism often represented this law as a female goddess. In Egypt she was called Wisdom and was represented by the goddesses Isis and Maat. In Babylon her name was Ashtoreth (Astarte, Ishtar, Asherah), in Greece it was Artemis and in Rome, Diana. During the Age of the Enlightenment Satan’s law was called Nature or Reason because it was based on everyday experience, or “natural reason.” During the French Revolution the French worshipped Nature as the Goddess of Reason, a gesture meant specifically as a rejection of the principles of grace and mercy found in Christianity. Merit and demerit became the law which led to mass murder.

Satan cleverly adapts his moral law to every age and we now have a version of his lex natura: it is called Social Justice which is highly concerned with fairness. Social Justice is not a new phenomenon; it surfaced under Justinian, the Byzantine emperor who codified Roman law in 529. He defined Natural Law as an animal instinct, a universal standard of fairness. The Digest of Justinian Volume 3 states the following:

“When a man means to give his attention to law (jus), he ought first to know whence the jus is derived. Now jus is so called from justitia; in fact, according to the given definition of Celsus, jus is the art of what is good and fair. 1. Of this art we may deservedly be called the priests; we cherish justice and profess the knowledge of what is good and fair, we separate what is fair from what is unfair, we discriminate between what is allowed an what is forbidden, we desire to make men good, not only by putting them in fear of penalties, but also by appealing to them through rewards, proceeding, if I am not mistaken, on a real and not a pretended philosophy,” (The Digest of Justinian Volume 3, p. 3).

In Social Justice in the Ancient World K.D. Irani and Morris Silver state:

“The notion of justice is an abstraction emerging from an intuition embedded in human nature, that in any interaction among humans a person should get what he or she deserves. Put in another way, no one should receive undeserved benefits or be made to bear undeserved burdens. This is sometimes called the principle of intrinsic justice. There is another, but related, aspect of justice, often called the principle of comparative justice, requiring that persons be treated equally. This requirement in the Aristotelian formulation states that equals be treated as equals, and unequals be treated as unequals,” (Social Justice in the Ancient World, p.3).

The universal standard of fairness central to Natural Law is the idea that the punishment should fit the crime. This is in direct opposition to Jesus’ message of mercy and grace. Jesus showed what God does with those who commit sin: “Neither do I condemn you.” After which He immediately declared: ““I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life,” John 8:12. God’s impartial grace causes Him to make “His sun rise on the evil and on the good” and send “rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:45.

When we realize our true condition as moral agents of Good and Evil we see that following Baal’s laws is much more natural for us than following God’s law of agape love because we are right at home with Satan’s morality. Good and Evil is our natural moral make up, it is our moral default. This is the only “inner light” we possess, our sole natural compass outside of Jesus Christ. Jesus said:

If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:23

In other words, if what you consider "light" is actually "darkness," then how in the darkness are you!

What hope is there for humanity then, since our first parents exchanged light for darkness and darkness for light? What hope was there when there was not one among humanity who could lead us back to the right ways, the straight paths? And what hope is there for us when even the un-fallen angels were themselves confused about these things until the cross? Consider the following quote from the Desire of Ages:

Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds. The archapostate had so clothed himself with deception that even holy beings had not understood his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion. {DA 758.3} (emphasis added)

The serpent that deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9) had deceived even the un-fallen beings; they “had not understood his principles.” That is a profound statement. “They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion.” If they hadn’t seen clearly the nature of Satan’s rebellion until the cross, have we? Have we seen it yet?

It is sobering to realize that if the un-fallen angels and worlds had not understood the nature of Satan’s rebellion then they also needed a Savior to show them what the issues of the controversy were. If Satan could be that deceptive then there was only one hope for the entire universe: the Son of God Himself. Only He could make the crooked straight.

“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15. This enmity is not natural. When man transgressed the divine law, his nature became evil, in harmony with Satan. Fallen angels and wicked men united in desperate companionship. Had not God interposed, Satan and man would have entered into an alliance against Heaven, and the whole human family would have been united in opposition to God. {HF 312.1}

We are so out of harmony with God that becoming like Him is the most unnatural experience anyone can go through. It is a complete re-birth, a painful being born again, an unnatural dying to self and a constant daily battle against the old nature of Good and Evil. Paul knew too well this inner battle with his old nature:

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

This deliverance can be accomplished only through a thorough bathing in God’s grace and love (justification) then followed by a difficult daily self-surrender (sanctification) to Him who alone can transform our Good and Evil characters back into His image of agape love (glorification).

This is John the Baptist’s message: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” John 1:29. Just as Paul exclaims: “I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Trust in God’s grace alone is able to transform us. Consider the following words of EGW:

In our own strength it is impossible for us to deny the clamors of our fallen nature. Through this channel Satan will bring temptation upon us. Christ knew that the enemy would come to every human being, to take advantage of hereditary weakness, and by his false insinuations to ensnare all whose trust is not in God. And by passing over the ground which man must travel, our Lord has prepared the way for us to overcome. It is not His will that we should be placed at a disadvantage in the conflict with Satan. He would not have us intimidated and discouraged by the assaults of the serpent. “Be of good cheer,” He says; “I have overcome the world.”{CD 152.1}

Our condition through sin has become preternatural, and the power that restores us must be supernatural, else it has no value. There is but one power that can break the hold of evil from the hearts of men, and that is the power of God in Jesus Christ. Only through the blood of the Crucified One is there cleansing from sin. His grace alone can enable us to resist and subdue the tendencies of our fallen nature. This power the spiritualistic theories concerning God make of no effect. If God is an essence pervading all nature, then He dwells in all men; and in order to attain holiness, man has only to develop the power that is within him. {CCh 322.8}