The meaning of the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil"

[joco]

Hi all,

I have been reading many of the blogs concerning finding one's purpose. I've tried the exercises Steve suggested, but I'm not having any luck. I have a background in "Christianity", so I feel more comfortable starting my search from there.

Basically, through asking myself a lot of questions, I've come to believe that to understand the fable of the garden of Eden and, specifically what the fruit of the tree of knowlegde of good and evil would represent, would enrich my life.

I do believe in God (although maybe not as the church teaches God to be), and I am curious as to what our original purpose would have been, and how we "fell from grace".

My reasoning so far has been that we were created in God's image, and I take that to mean that we are creative beings. We can make things happen through thought and intention. I wonder if our original purpose wasn't to be as creative as possible. Then something happened (WHAT??). I am a little uncertain about the symbol of nakedness. Adam and Eve were said to be ashamed of their nakedness after eating the fruit. I think embarrasment about nudity is a learned response, therefore, nudity should symbolise something else. Also the talking serpent is far-fetched in my opinion.

I really need some input on this, as I have been trying for a while to figure this one out.

Thanks

[Pegasus]

Eckhart Tolle touches upon this in his book A New Earth. I haven't read all of the book but am watching the Oprah webinars. From what I remember, Eckhart explains that once we start naming things, we lose our direct experience with Source/God/Life. After naming, we form judgments which further distance us from Source.

Eckhart says that a translation of the word sin is "off the mark," so Original Sin led us away from our connection to God/Life/Source.

[Parthon]

Pegasus is spot on.

While the ideals behind Christianity, compassion, integrity, forgiveness, are good, they have over the year been warped by the teachings of the church. The idea of sin is anything that lowers your consciousness and takes to back to being an animal, actions taken due to fear or anger and blindly following what people tell you are two examples of "sin". The church however has dressed it up to be something that's bad, wrong and evil which everyone is guilty of. They try and portray people as fundamentally broken that the church will fix, and I find that view disgusting. People are perfect just the way they are, but they can do good things and bad things. All it takes to live well is to try your best to do good, and if you do bad, forgive yourself, learn from it and move on. This is what penance is meant to be. Once you stop putting so much emphasis on "sin" then you'll stop beating yourself up like all the other Christians out there.

As for the knowledge of good and evil, I think that comes down to judging and labelling. The instant you label something, the majesty disappears from it. I think the symbolism of the tree is that man and woman learned to judge everything around them, and they started naming things. Slowly they lowered in awareness as they called things evil, dangerous and scary, uncluding being nakid. Suddenly it wasn't okay to just live, people had to live in a particular way. It also wasn't about judging self, but about judging others. People would react to others because of how they saw/felt about the other person. When this happens all the compassion and closeness disappears and all you are left with is disfunction. It's no wonder the bible says we "fell from grace", grace being the ability to live freely and go with the flow.

As a byline if you want to have some fun with the bible: If you treat god as our true divine nature that's within us, and the devil as our own ego and mind, a lot of more of the bible makes sense, and is far more interesting.

[joco]

You guys make a lot of sense, I have been wondering along those lines too.

For instance, if God gave man no other command than "become fruitful, fill the earth and subdue it", then how could man know good and evil. I think that without rules man would go according to desire, and since desire is normally a response to a physiological need eg. hunger leads to desire to eat, I don't think one can label it as good or bad.

I've also wondered if the "opening of eyes" means self-awareness, maybe becoming self-centred. There is a psychological observation which I've read about, it goes by many names, but one is the spotlight phenomenon. This is where a person feels that other people are looking at them and judging them and basically focussing far more attention on them than they really are in reality. So it could be that Adam and Eve started to focus inwardly and notice inadequacy, physical differences etc. leading to embarrasment.

I also noticed that commandments about how to live were only given after they were banished from the garden.

What do you think?

[Buttercat Apocalypse]

I think that the legend of adam and eve is cognate to the greek legend of pandora's box.

For some reason, in both lengends a curiosity or temptation leads to the release of great suffering. Both were instigated by women, though I don't know if this means much.

I take this to signify the transition of humans from animals to more aware creatures, with the suffering that our awakening consciousness brings us.

[Nneka]

Hi, I'm in a Metaphysical Bible Study class now and this was my response to the story of the fall. Hope it helps :-)

The first time I read the story, I had the reaction I always have with the Bible. It's all made up by someone at some time. I dismissed this particular story as fantasy. Something so fantastic and mythologized it can't possibly happen. Someone's attempt to explain how we got here and why we suffer. That's the part that opened the door.

When I read it again, it still didn't make much sense. Why would a God who is Absolute Good condemn its creation to a life of hardship? Why would a God who is everywhere present and all-knowledge need to ask Adam where he is? Didn't he already know?

I read the chapters in Let There Be Light as well as Charles Fillmore's metaphysical definitions of the characters, but the story still didn't make much sense. There were too many layers, meanings, and contradictions to follow the story linearly. At this time I also read Leslie's comment. The perspective of the story as man's awakening to this life rather than a fall into suffering made much more sense to me within the paradigm of God being all good and everywhere present.

One morning after meditation, I decided to read the story out loud as a storyteller would read an Anansi story or Aesop's fable to a tribe. It was only then that I saw the different planes of the story: some Truth, some explanation, some entertainment.

The story is our attempt to explain how we came into being and why we endure hardship. It is also a story of our relationship to God and our True nature.

The story begins by setting up the serpent as the fall guy. Perhaps the author was afraid and in awe of the serpent at the same time. It seems sinister enough, slithering around on the ground, taunting its prey with its tongue and hissing sound, and delivering death with a single, exacting strike. A friend of mine explained to me that in matrilineal societies the serpent was revered. In an attempt to establish patriarchy, the serpent needed to be demonized. Whatever the reason, the serpent is the fall guy in this story.

I think that when God said you will die, what was meant was a death of the Absolute. It's a death of only knowing Eden (bliss). It isn't that he intends to kill the woman. He's just saying that life as you know it will end. So the serpent didn't really lie.

The woman consciously ate the fruit so that she could have an understanding of contrast. She wanted to know of this good and evil. She wasn't really worried about death to life as she knew it. Maybe she was only concerned with death in the literal sense. Sometimes we make conscious choices, not assessing the subtle consequences, but only the most obvious ones. Most of the time, it's not the worse case scenario that's going to happen, it's all the nuances in between.

So she ate it and shared it and now they are aware of guilt, shame, blame, betrayal, and fear, along with love, happiness, peace, joy, and abundance. She can sense that compared to what they had before, this isn't really as "good". They hide themselves and cover up to try to pretend that they aren't who they are and even that God isn't what they know of Him.

God is all knowledge, so his calling out to Adam to ask where he is isn't really for God's benefit, but for Adam to know that he is lost. When God asks Adam why he ate of the fruit, Adam blames Eve knowing full well that he also wanted to know contrast. He sensed that in the relative realm it wasn't a "good" thing to do. Eve then blames the serpent.

God proceeds to punish Adam, Eve, and the serpent. I firmly believe that God does not punish. To me, this is an explanation by the author of why things are the way they are. Why is childbirth so painful? Why is it so hard to till the soil? Why do I have to work so hard? Why is the serpent the way he is? Why is society set up in a patriarchal way?

God then protects us from the tree of life. I had a hard time with this one. It's really ironic and seems like further punishment. On one level it is. It is an attempt to explain why we die. However, I think the Truth in verses 22 through 24 is just the opposite. We are shielded from having to live in the relative forever. We will return to the Absolute.

Update: Or rather, the author is saying that we do not have to live in the relative forever. The author is saying that we can experience the Absolute.

That brings me back to the conscious choice in the beginning. We could eat of the tree of knowledge or the tree of life. The tree of knowledge introduces us to the relative realm, while the tree of life gives the gift of our existence perpetually. We chose to know contrast. It is why we are here on earth, but while we are here there is something in us that is always aware of the Absolute.

[12345]

This is completely my opinion, but I think that God presented the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as a device to allow humans to be real. I do think that God allows evil to exist because it allows us to *willingly choose* good over evil; He desires for us to have genuine love for Him. He could’ve *made* us perfect and *made* us love Him, but if He had, we would’ve been nothing more than robots. In human relationships, everyone knows that forcing someone to love you is meaningless; it is only when people truly love each other that it is special (corny and cliché I know, but nevertheless true). In the same vein, I think that it makes perfect sense that God will remove all evil and make a perfect world (heaven) for those who both truly loved God and who, in effect, willing *desired* to do good. I truly believe that this life is only a test to see whose love for God is genuine, and whose love is empty. To me, the idea of falling from grace represents people’s natural desire to do evil things and thus, people having no love or respect for God whenever they choose evil over good.

I also truly believe that we are only here for one purpose, and that is to try to live as Godly a life as possible. Jesus was the only perfect human who ever lived or ever will live, and we should structure our lives around ways to become Godlier. I have always marveled at the fact that the word ‘good’ is simply the word ‘God’ with an extra ‘o’. All the things that are wrong in the world are simply due to the fact that people have fallen out of alignment with God’s word and thus, good ways.

Living a Godly life is a reward in itself, and we should naturally *desire* to do this since all of the most admirable things in life are Godly. I think God’s original purpose for us was for people to *naturally desire* to be like Him (and thus to be as creative as possible), and to achieve this purpose, I think He allowed both good and evil to exist, hoping that through our *own free will* that we would choose good.

As long as God is the foundation of one’s individual dream/purpose (i.e., one always stays in alignment with God and thus good ways), I truly believe one should do whatever he or she feels creatively drawn to do.

As I said before, this is only my opinion.

God bless to all.

[Who am I]

This section is inserted here because it deals with a more fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the Fall (or Separation). There are several introductory remarks which are intended to make these explanations less fear-provoking. The first is a couplet which I drew to your attention during the fragments of Midsummer Night's Dream, which you heard last night:

"Be as thou wast wont to be,

See as thou wast wont to see."

It is noteworthy that these words were said by Oberon in releasing Titania from her own errors, both of being and perceiving. These were the words which re-established her true identity as well as her true abilities and judgment. The similarity here is obvious.

There are also some definitions, which I asked you to take from the dictionary, which will also be helpful. Their somewhat unusual nature is due to the fact that they are not first definitions in their chronological appearance........


Project (verb): to extend forward or out.

Project (noun): a plan in the mind.

World: a natural grand division. (Note that you originally wrote "word" instead of "world".)

We will refer later to projection as related to both mental illness and mental health. It will also be commented on that Lucifer literally projected himself from heaven. We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all.

This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection.

The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. The Tree of Knowledge, again an overly-literal concept, (as is clearly shown by the subsequent reference to "eating of the fruit of the tree") is a symbolic reference to some of the misuses of knowledge referred to in the section immediately preceding this one. There is, however, considerable clarification of this concept, which must be understood before the real meaning of the "detour into fear" can be fully comprehended. Projection, as defined above, (this refers to the verb) is a fundamental attribute of God, which he also gave to his Son. In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create. We have commented before on the FUNDAMENTAL error involved in confusing what has been created with what is being created. We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him. The next point, too, has already been made, but bears repetition here. The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS.

Whenever projection in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth. If you will consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite apparent:

First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.

Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.

Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the Separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now. The world, as defined above, WAS made as a natural grand division, or projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him.

It should be noted that the opposite of pro is con. Strictly speaking, then, the opposite of projecting is conjecting, a term which referred to a state of uncertainty or guess work. Other errors arise in connection with ancillary defenses, to be considered later.

For example, dejection, which is obviously associated with depression, injection, which can be misinterpreted readily enough, in terms of possession fallacies ....... and rejection, which is clearly associated with denial. It should be noted also that rejection can be used as refusing, a term which necessarily involves a perception of what is refused as something unworthy.

Projection as undertaken by God was very similar to the kind of inner radiance which the Children of the Father inherit from Him. It is important to note that the term "project outward" necessarily implies that the real source of projection is internal.

This is as true of the Son as of the Father.

[Who am I]

The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order.

When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception.

Man's spiritual eye can sleep, but as will shortly appear in the notes a sleeping eye can still see. One translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of note, is that "a deep sleep fell upon Adam". While the Bible continues to associate this sleep as a kind of anaesthetic utilized for protection of Adam during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is there any reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly incomplete, this point is much in its favor.

The history of man in the world as he saw it has not been characterized by any genuine or comprehensive re-awakening, or re-birth.

This is impossible as long as man projects in the spirit of miscreation. It still remains within him to project as God projected his own Spirit to him. In reality, this is his ONLY choice, because his free will was made for his own joy in creating the perfect.

All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception of man's ability to USURP the power of God. It is again emphasized that he neither CAN nor HAS been able to do this. In this statement lies the real justification for his escape from fear. This is brought about by his acceptance of the Atonement, which places him in a position to realize that his own errors never really occurred.

When the deep sleep fell upon Adam, he was then in a condition to experience nightmares, precisely because he was sleeping. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming, and the content of his dream is fearful, he is initially likely to interpret the light itself as part of the content of his own dream. However, as soon as he awakens, the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream, which is no longer accorded reality. I would like to conclude this with the Biblical injunction "Go ye and do likewise."

It is quite apparent that this depends on the kind of knowledge which was NOT referred to by the "Tree of Knowledge" which bore lies as fruit. The knowledge that illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which not only makes you free, but also shows you clearly that you ARE free.

The preceding sections were inserted because of the necessity of distinguishing between real and false knowledge. Having made this distinction, it is well to return to the errors already listed a while back. It might be well to recapitulate them here.

The first involved the fallacy that only the physical is real. The second involved things rather than people. The third involves the endowment of the physical with non-physical properties. And the fourth clarified the misuse of knowledge. All of them were subsumed under possession fallacies. The denial mechanism for three has already been set forth in some detail, and will also continue after the following:

The corresponding denial mechanism for 1) is the sense of PHYSICAL inability, or IMPOTENCE. The denial mechanism for 2) is often bankruptcy. Collectors of things often drive themselves well beyond their financial means, in an attempt to force discontinuance. If this idea of cessation cannot be tolerated, a strange compromise involving BOTH insatiable possessiveness and insatiable throwing-away (bankruptcy) may result. An example is the inveterate or compulsive gambler, particularly the horse-racing addict. Here, the conflicted drive is displaced both from people AND things, and is invested in animals. The implied DEROGATION of people is the cause of the underlying EXTREME superstition of the horse racing addict.

The alcoholic is in a similar position, except that his hostility is more inward than outward directed.

Defenses aimed at protecting (or retaining) error are particularly hard to undo, because they introduce second-order misperceptions which obscure the underlying errors still further.

The pseudo-corrective mechanism of three is apt to be more varied because of the more inclusive nature of the error, which has already been mentioned. Some of the possibilities are listed below:

a. One aspect of the possession/possessed conflict can be raised to predominance. If this is attempted in connection with POSSESSING, it leads to the paranoid solution. The underlying component of "being possessed" is retained in the "persecution" fantasies, which are generally concomitants.

b. If "being possessed" is brought to ascendance, a state of some sort of possession by external forces results, but NOT with a major emphasis on attacking others. Attack BY others becomes the more obvious component. In the more virulent forms, there is a sense of being possessed by demons, and unless there is vacillation with a), a catatonic solution is more likely than a paranoid one.

The FOCUSSED paranoid has become more rigid in his solution, and centers on ONE source of projection to escape from vacillation. (Aside: It should be noted that this type of paranoia is an upside-down form of religion, because of its obvious attempt to unify into oneness.)

Both 1, 2, and 4 and more likely to produce neurotic rather than psychotic states, though this is by no means guaranteed. However, 3 is inherently more vulnerable to the psychotic correction, again because of the more fundamental level confusion which is involved.

It should be noted, however, that the greater fear which is induced by 3 can ITSELF reach psychotic proportions, thus forcing the individual closer and closer to a psychotic solution.

It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. This is because of the miracle's inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. Its SOLE concern is to distinguish between truth, on the one hand, and ALL kinds of error, on the other. This is why some miracles SEEM to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first point in this course, e., that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.

The emphasis on mental illness which is marked in these notes reflects the "UNDOING" aspect of the miracle. The "DOING" aspect is, of course, much more important. But a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. Sometimes the undoing must precede it.

At other times, both can occur simultaneously, but you are not up to this at the moment.

Further, insights into mental illness can be misused, and lead to preoccupation with one's own symptoms. This is why this area is less constructive for most people than a course primarily devoted to mental health. However, some professions will find some principles of mental illness constructive, especially those which are concerned with mental illness in others. This obviously includes psychologists.

The obvious correction for ALL types of the possession-fallacy is to redefine possession correctly. In the sense of "taking over," the concept does not exist at all in divine reality, which is the only level of reality where real existence is a meaningful term.

No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance onto free will himself. This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment. Even in very mild forms, this kind of association is risky, and may spread quite unexpectedly, particularly under external stress. This is because it can be internally controlled ONLY if EXTERNAL conditions are peaceful. This is not safe, because external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet.

Why should you be at THEIR mercy? This issue is VERY closely related to the whole possession issue. You insist on thinking that people CAN possess you, if you believe that their thoughts (or the external environment) can affect you, regardless of WHAT they think. You are perfectly unaffected by ALL expressions of lack of love. These can be either from yourself and others, or from yourself to others, or from others to you.

Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles, of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others.

[Cantando]

Perhaps, in the context of the story, it means that God gave free will to man, and we chose to go our own way, thus separating ourselves from God (giving rise to our man made illusion of the world), which has been interpreted in traditional religion as disobedience/original sin/evil.

[Akashic_Librarian]

"The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought through Nature to find this Tree,
But their search was all in vain;
There grows one in the Human Brain."

That would be Blake's The Human Abstract and it talks about The Tree of Knowledge and The Tree of Life. In this poem Blake argues that The Tree's are present in Man, rather than external. The search he describes in the last stanza is a reference to the Tree of Life which God hid somewhere in the world, away from Adam and Eve. Thus he is denouncing organized religion. Saying that we search for answers through religion. But rather we should not try and find them through religion, but we should search introspectively to discover the answers to Life.

[freeman]

For me , Osho has covered this subject well.
He says Knowledge was/is the fall of Knowing, and this is why we were/are told not to eat from this tree.
A Zen Master gives a Zen approach.

It seems a suttle difference between knowledge & knowing, but after thinking/discussing on this for some years, there seems a huge difference!

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by freeman

It seems a suttle difference between knowledge & knowing, but after thinking/discussing on this for some years, there seems a huge difference!

I think so too.
Knowing comes direct from the soul/consciousness, without any intermediaries. We have lost/forgotten that natural ability and now look at our illusions to gain knowledge from. We use apparently real, external forms to extract what we already know. We create a game thinking we do not know and that knowledge is secret and hidden and we spend our lives asking questions and looking for answers.

[freeman]

Kinda like the guy who was scared to death of snakes. One night, in the darkness, he saw a rope, and, thinking it a snake(knowledge kickin in), he had a heart attack, and died...Killed by his knowledge?

[freeman]

Originally Posted by Cantando

I think so too.
Knowing comes direct from the soul/consciousness, without any intermediaries. We have lost/forgotten that natural ability and now look at our illusions to gain knowledge from. We use apparently real, external forms to extract what we already know. We create a game thinking we do not know and that knowledge is secret and hidden and we spend our lives asking questions and looking for answers.

Well said...Thanks!

[Delnov]

My take is that the garden in Eden was actually a physical garden. In His glorious wisdom to walk with created man, God put the garden in place as a mirror for Adam and Eve to behold the complexity and simplicity that was the composition of their 'being'.

The Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the physical garden represent the spirit, the soul and the body respectively. The Spirit belongs to God and goes back to Him, the Soul is judged by God in the end and the body goes back to the soil.

The garden in Eden was perfect since the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was perfect. Man (and I use this word to describe the created human being) is also, in the same way, adviced not to touch or 'eat' of his own soul. We eat of our souls when we are enticed and drawn into the corruption of the world e.g. when we participate in bribery, greed, sexual perversion, dishonesty e.t.c. That is, anything that goes against the flow of pure life that comes from the Spirit of God. Man is to guard against this through what is put in him by God, for the Creator has given man everything that he needs for life in order that he may escape the corruption of the world.

Man cannot therefore influence or touch the Spirit (which remains pure) in the same way that Adam and Eve did not touch the Tree of Life. The soul is accessible to man (the owner) and is even accessible to third parties (e.g. the serpent) but with the permission of the owner of the soul. The body is the physical hand that influences the physical world.

The process that God intended for created man to understand, is that life comes from Him and the source is the Tree of Life (the embodiment of Jesus Christ, for He is the way the truth and the life), through the Soul (which understands spiritual matters and translates them to the physical man, who cannot understand spirituality unless thus translated) and on to the physical man. This process guarantees life for man and life more abundantly at that. Any disruption in this process ensures that man is unable to live a full and effective life. That is where the serpent comes in.

Freewill is given to man by God so that man is able to choose whether to tap his life from the world or from the Spirit of God. Life from the world is a counterfeit of what the Spirit gives. God then gives man the divinity of Christ whether man acknowledges it or not, so that man can 'know' the truth and choose life from the Spirit. This should happen naturally. The serpent therefore uses all deception to distort the nature of the Soul to the point where the Soul is unable to discern what the Spirit of God communicates (separation). This finally destroys man. The analogy of this distortion is well documented in the book of Job in the Holy Bible.

Like Job, every attempt to destroy the Soul is an opportunity for man to side with God and grow in stature spiritually. This is the chief purpose for trials and temptations and that is why man should rejoice when faced by trials and temptations (according to the book of James).

This should leave man with a most important job to do. To guard his soul with all diligence since the quality of the Soul is commensurate to the quality of life in the physical. Jesus will also only come for a soul that is free of defects.

For me, this confirms the truth that is stated in the Holy Book, that it is the will of God that every man (soul) be saved, for He has a purpose for each and everyone. Man must not judge another on these matters. Unfortunately for many of us who subscribe to this teaching, we fail to grasp the meaning of the verse John 3:17 although most of us can recite the previous verse at age 3. If Jesus did not come to condemn the world then who am I to do so?