To whom was the commandment given regarding the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil? Was it as
absolute as the woman here makes it, they aren’t allowed to touch it? Adam heard the word and surely was
responsible for passing it on to the woman and apparently his fear of this sin
was great enough to add to the commandment.
The promise the serpent makes is that this knowledge is all that
separates them from being like God.
Life, eternal life, is what separates us from God, not the knowledge of
good and evil. He is and always has been
but there was a time when we were not, our life is conditional upon Him who
created us. The first thing the two seem
to believe they know about good and evil is that it isn’t good to be naked so
they remedy the situation with leaves, harmless enough. God’s solution to the problem leaves them with
no doubt sin is more serious than they presumed, some animal had to die and how
horrible that must have been for them to know their transgression caused that
death. Was Eve deceived by the serpent? Only in the sense that the fruit didn’t
deliver what was promised, she wasn’t like God.
This sin caused separation from God they hid from Him, from one another,
Adam blamed both God for giving the woman to him and the woman and they hid
parts of themselves from one another, and from creation itself, enmity and
difficulty in producing a harvest.
John is a man who knows who he is and who he isn’t. His primary confession is who he isn’t. He isn’t the Christ, he isn’t Elijah and he
isn’t the prophet from Deuteronomy. The
Pharisees who question him have been sent by another and they have to go back
with an answer to who John is so they persist.
John’s answer to who he is certainly makes them sit up and wonder, “I am
a voice…” He is the fulfillment of the
prophetic word that one will come before to announce the coming of Messiah and
John is simply that voice. He makes no
extravagant claims, Jesus will do that on his behalf. John understands his mission as preparing the
way and his message and his baptism serve that purpose. We have the same mission as John in our
lives, are we as humble as John about it?
Do we seek a name for ourselves or are we content to be a voice? After the sin in the garden, God no longer
walked among them, in Jesus, He returned and will return again. Intimacy is restored and even more with the
indwelling of the Spirit.
The writer brings in a Psalm that begins with an important
consideration, “What is man?” Further,
the Psalm asks, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The Message phrases it, “What is man and
woman that you bother with them; why take a second look their way?” Those questions are important for us to know
because the story of what happens to creation is completely explained by man’s
actions. It is critical for us to see that we are the problem and that responsibility,
the fact that God holds us responsible, tells us that we are a different order
of creation from everything else. We are
held to a higher standard. The only
solution to the problem of man is for God to redeem us and save us from
ourselves by taking on our likeness and living as man was intended to live, walking with God and
obedient to all His commands. He
experienced all that we do, including suffering and death, as a man, in order
to save us from death into life. The
curse is being reversed!
Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!
The church for you doth wait,
Her strength unequal to her task;
Rise up and make her great!
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