Everyone is a descendant of Adam, the man who ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In eating the fruit of this tree, man came to know good and evil.

In Genesis chapter 2 verse 17 God said,

Let us think about these words. If Adam ate the fruit he would come to know good and evil, and when this happened he would die. Adam did indeed eat the fruit, and he died. His physical body became subject to death, although it was some time before this physical death actually occurred.

Yet there was something that died the moment Adam ate the fruit. His spirit died. The death of his spirit didn't mean that his spirit disappeared. It meant that his relationship with God who is spirit was cut off, and his spirit became fettered. At the same time, a sense of fear and shame before God entered his heart. This was the death of his spirit - the anguish of his conscience. This came about as a result of his coming to know good.

How about you? Isn't your conscience troubled because of your knowledge of what is good? Dogs, pigs, and other animals don't know what is meant by good. As a result, they experience no pangs of conscience or feelings of fear arising from their actions. Even though a lion may tear off a person's arm and eat it, a dog may bite someone, or a cow may eat someone else's grass, none of these animals experience pangs of conscience. This is because they don't know what good is.

You, however, have a spirit. You are a descendant of Adam and, as such, you know what good is. Consequently, your spirit is dead. Your conscience troubles you and you experience fears. This is because you know good but your conscience sees no good in you. You find that a conflict arises within you as a result of the disparity between what you know to be good and what is reflected in your conscience.

Adam attempted to hide this disparity by sewing fig leaves together to make himself loin coverings. In this way, he was trying to conceal his conscience.

Here we have the origin of religion. All religions are man's way of attempting to cover the shame in his conscience. Although this may not be true in all cases, "Christianity" today is making a tremendous effort to conceal man's troubled conscience. It does this by means of activities such as prayers that lack true peace and liberation; hymns that constitute mere formality or are sung from the emotions; sermons that appeal only to reason, feelings, or the will; elaborate ceremonies carried out in magnificent church buildings; and educational and social programs.

Try asking yourself if you have ever found true peace and happiness in your conscience by participating in any of the above mentioned activities. Have you found real satisfaction deep down inside? Have you ever felt truly grateful to God in your heart? Have you found true rest, a rest that never fades or changes? If you have real assurance in your conscience that you have made peace with your adversary, then any formalities and activities that you may take part in will be of significance. If you don't have such assurance, however, the moment you hear God's voice you will find yourself standing in the same position as Adam, clothed in fig leaves but trembling with fear. Even though Adam was wearing the loin coverings of fig leaves, he said that he was afraid because he was naked.

These days people talk of their "experiences" of speaking in tongues, faith healing, trembling sensations, a sudden warm feeling, and so on, and yet the conflict deep down in their hearts remains unresolved. Why is this? It's because they have no light in their spirit, and their conscience hasn't been liberated. All of their experiences are just like Adam's fig leaves.

Your standards of what is good, based on your own sense of judgment and refined character, may be of value in society, but this good is nothing more than Adam's good which arose as a result of his eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Taking this concept of good as their standard, men discuss faith and come up with religion; they discuss life and come up with existentialist philosophy; they discuss ethics and come up with a system of social moral standards; and they discuss politics and come up with socialism and communism based on atheism. Man also examines the Bible in the light of his own concept of what is good and comes up with all kinds of humanitarian theology, intellectualism which ignores the experience of rebirth, or views of faith that have nothing to do with the spirit. All of these fall short of the goodness that is revealed by God and result only in the subversion of the truth. Only the cross can stand before God, and the cross negates everything that originates from man.

Man can't know God through his own worldly wisdom. It's when man tries to apply his own wisdom that he deviates from the truth and heretical teachings arise. All of these belong to the sphere of religion and are nothing more than fig leaves.