A Natural Conscience

God did not leave our first parents guessing about government forms and consequences of following each.  He was clear.  He planted two examples right before their eyes.  There were two trees in the Garden of Eden that represented two perspectives or two different forms of government….  

The first tree was the Tree of Life.  Life.  The word says it all.  It probably means something a little different than what first comes to mind.  Life does not describe our daily grind.  Nor does it merely refer to the fact that you and I are breathing.  The word Life describes that quality form and function that God created of the human vessel.  And it describes the eternal quantity of our creation.  We were created fully alive forever.  

I admit that I cannot describe this.  Not really.  There was a naturalness to living, as God designed it, that I am only coming to know by His Holy Spirit.  However, I can tell you that to be alive, I mean really alive, as a human, is to be conscious of God.  This I know.  To be alive is to know and be known by God.  To know God is also to know humanity.  It is to have my eyes wide open, my ears tuned to the sound, my hands in surrender and service, my lips expressive in gratitude… .these are Life.  And surely they are only an attempt at description.  What I do know, is that Life is conscious of and responsive towards Life.  There is a Living Rule.  The Tree of Life offered internalization of that Living Rule - a Government of God on the inside.  We could not know Life and respond to Life without the Government of God.  

Humanity has been endued with a natural conscience.  After all, God breathed our eternal substance.  That long ago breathe enables the human generations to continue and carry a conviction about the form and function of Life.  However, the generations, within themselves, do not understand this conviction.  There is no knowledge of the God of this lingering breathe.  Our own human design has baffled us and this conviction works against our personal plans.  According to our knowledge, if we are to continue as a race, we must suppress this conviction.  Romans 1:18 tells us that this is exactly what we do.  The conviction is suppressed so that we may go about our plans according to what we think is best.  We rule by our perspectives, not God’s.  This has been the majority choice over the human generations, but it’s not the way God designed us to live…

That original Tree grew fruit to be enjoyed and internalized by the human generations for eternity.  The Tree of Life would forever feed our internal conscience, our lingering breathe, our deep conviction that Life should rule Life; that God should have full jurisdiction over Living.  Humanity would have possessed a natural conscience of the boundaries and qualities of Life simply by eating of the knowledge of God.  We would have known and been known!