Lesson: Evolution of the Moral System, Part 1

Let's try not to guess the moral system of God for one second… but we'll come back to it later.

In the garden -- a time of innocence

Adam & Eve were intelligent, but didn't show indications of ever sinning
No law -- why? Maybe they don't know what being bad is, or that evil didn't exist at that time (besides the fact that there's no one around to sin against)
Only one rule that doesn't seem like a crime -- don't eat the fruit of knowledge.
Adam & Eve broke the only rule because of their desire to be more like God. This is not technically a crime, except that they did it by breaking the only rule. The rule was made perhaps as a test. Without that rule, they have no chance to "sin." If they don't have a way to sin, then they really don't have a chance to choose to follow or disobey God.
What did they choose by disobeying God? They allowed Satan and sin to dominate their lives. They welcomed a new master by yielding to it. They adopted a different moral system, one the world still follows today. That moral system looks and feels proper, because even the devil wants people to think they're doing the right thing even though it's not completely following God's standards.

Before Moses -- age of conscience

After they were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve and their descendents didn't have any laws to follow. The only law about not eating the fruit is no longer applicable.
People have conscience. Their conscience were the laws that guide them. Perhaps it's a time that God uses to show people what they can do if they just follow their conscience. The results were not good. Few were called righteous (Enoch, Abraham, etc.). Things were so bad that God destroyed humanity once (i.e. Noah's flood) and destroyed some groups all together (e.g., Sodom & Gomorrah).

So, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments

First 4 -- a contract between men and God
Last 6 -- laws for human behavior (all but one were "Thou Shalt Not's", the other is to honor one's parents)
The Ten Commandments tells people, explicitly, what the minimum standards are.
As time goes on, people created more rules to "supplement" rules given by God. Today, we have rules covering almost every situation, and we invent new ones when a new situation appears. There's no end to this game of "make new rules."

But when Jesus came, he challenged the world to a new moral system… See the lesson on the New Value System and/or Evolution of the Moral System, Part 2.

This lesson was developed by George Huang. Got a question or want to publish this lesson? E-mail me.

Last updated: 3/29/2002