“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6: 5 KJV).
In the days of Noah, God judged the wickedness of man that came about through his unbridled imagination. After His judgment of man’s wickedness, that was the result of his unbridled imagination. God did not take away man’s imagination. In turn, Israel by following the “imagination of her evil heart” (Jer. 3: 17; 7: 24; 9: 14; 11: 8; 13: 10; 16: 12; 18: 12; 23: 17) worshipped images or idols which were a figment of the imagination that turned her away from the true God and she was judged and sent into captivity. And we still have our imagination with us today, and we are still getting into trouble with God from its misuse.
If God took away man’s imagination after he had done so wickedly with it, then He would have to confess that He made a mistake when He created man with an imagination. The imagination in and of itself is not an evil thing. It is the driving force of our sinful nature behind the misuse of the imagination that is evil.
The imagination was nothing but good before the Fall. Satan got Eve to imagine something different than what God actually said and meant, and she acted on her imagination and convinced Adam to follow and sin, and death was the result.
The imagination is used when we exercise our creative powers. We use it to create good things as well as bad things. The list is long of things people have first imagined and then created that have benefitted mankind. But the list is longer of things people have imagined and created that have only hurt mankind.
The imagination is subjective truth; “I imagine.” The Bible (KJV) is objective truth, “God spoke.” It is when we use our imagination as our point of reference when it comes to our morality instead of the Bible that we get into trouble. Our imagination must be submissive to the Word of God if it is to be used to please God. As one preacher said, “The imagination must be sanctified by the Word of God.”
There is much in our world today that came from the imagination, that is subjective truth, that is incorporated into our laws, and we are forced to behave as though it is real and we see all of society being corrupted as a result as it was in Noah’s day. In order to keep ourselves from being corrupted by living in denial as others do through their imagination, we must live in reality as presented to us from the Word of God. God’s Word must be our point of reference in every situation and circumstance. If we walk after our evil imagination or subjective truth, we will walk after the flesh and sin and die. To follow the Word of God, or objective truth, we will walk after the Spirit and live.
