Yesterday we established that Jesus is God. All things were created by and for Him. He became a man and lived on the earth. How did the almighty God that the heavens and earth cannot contain become a man and why would He want to? To answer this we must remember that God is perfect in all His ways. He loves perfectly and unconditionally. On the other hand He is perfectly just. The same God who came to walk about in the garden of Eden to fellowship with Adam and Eve, had to punish their disobedience. The LORD God placed the man and his wife in a perfect paradise and maintained an intimate relationship with them. They were innocent of any knowledge of sin, wandering naked and unashamed in the midst of the garden. They had one rule to obey. They were forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That ancient serpent, the devil, worked his cunning craft upon Eve. The woman enticed her husband. The evil one used the standard pattern of temptation that is outlined in John’s first epistle. He appealed to the lust of the flesh, the desire for physical pleasure. “The woman saw that the tree was good for food.” He plied the lust of the eye, the desire to have all that appeals to our eyes. “It was pleasant to the eyes.” The enemy of our souls finished with the pride of life, the desire for achievement and possessions. It was “a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Once they had eaten their eyes were opened and their innocence was gone. Sin had entered a sinless world. Much to his dismay God was obligated to punish them. It is written that the soul that sins must die. God admonished them, “thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Death was not instantaneous. A slow lingering process began that is still with us this day. Our bodies begin ageing and deteriorating throughout our lives until we breath our last breath. Scientists have pointed out that our bodies should last for ever because all of our cells except for our brain cells constantly replace themselves. For some reason they become corrupted in the process and our bodies slowly become feeble and aged. Adam and Eve attempted to cover their nakedness, which was symbolic of their sin, by sewing together fig leaves. When the LORD God came to walk in the garden, they heard Him and hid. He knew where they were. Just as the parent who sees the youngster, who has just broken the cookie jar trying to hide behind a curtain, “The Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” It is interesting to note that no one involved wanted to take responsibility for their own actions. This disturbing trend continues to this day. No matter how we try to pass on the blame, we are accountable to God for everything that we do and every word we speak. As we scratch the surface of why God would become a man I will leave you with an important fact first seen in the tale of Adam and Eve. You remember that they tried to cover their sin by the works of their own hands. This proved to be insufficient. God covered them. He made garments of animal hides. In order to make garments of animal hides, they animals must die. Blood must be shed to cover sin. More tomorrow
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 03:35:28 +0000
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