Scripture Reading: Genesis 3 and 4
Review and Explanation: By now we know that the first announcement of God's plan to restore the earth as a place where His rule is fully honored and obeyed occurred shortly after the Fall and is recorded in Genesis 3:15. In this verse, God revealed a major component of His plan: He would provide a Virgin-born Deliverer-King (see earlier posts for a fuller explanation). Adam and Eve were expected to respond to God's announcement with faith, which means they also were expected to embrace and cooperate with the details of the plan revealed to them. This expectation can be stated in the form of three principles:
- The promises and blessings of God's Kingdom come to us only by faith and by cooperating with His plan.
- We cannot secure for ourselves the promises and blessings of God's Kingdom in any other way.
- Frustration and death are in store for those who refuse to put their trust in the Lord and to embrace and cooperate with His plan.
We see these three principles at work immediately after the Fall. Adam responds to God's plan by faith and signals his cooperation when he names his wife "Eve". The name "Eve" means "the mother of all the living." This name tells us that Adam clung by faith to the promise God made to raise up a Virgin-born Deliverer-King. Otherwise, in despair he might have called his wife "the mother of all the dying."
After Adam responded to God by faith and signaled his cooperation, God made coverings of animal skins for him and Eve. The coverings provided relief for the shame associated with their nakedness. Thus God added a significant element to the revelation of His plan: namely, that His plan would include a provision for the punishment of sin through the bloody sacrifice of a substitute.
From then on, faith in God, embracing and cooperating with His plan to restore the earth as a place where His rule is fully honored and obeyed, meant responding appropriately to what God had revealed concerning the coming Deliverer-King and sacrifice.
God continued revealing more of His plan as time moved forward. On each occasion, people had to choose. Would they trust God and cooperate with His plan? Or would they rebel and attempt to secure the blessings of His kingdom in some other fashion? These questions will guide our interpretations of the Bible stories that follow Genesis 3. Tomorrow, Lord willing, I will write about this in relation to the story of Cain, Abel, and Seth from Genesis 4.
Reflection Questions: How do the three principles stated at the beginning of this entry govern the way you are responding to the Lord and living your life? In what specific ways are you cooperating with God's plan to restore the earth as a place where His rule is fully honored and obeyed? How might you show today that you are responding to the Lord with faith while embracing and cooperating with His plan?
1 comment:
When you get to blogging on Genesis 9, can you address some questions about Noah's drunkenness? It seems to me that Noah's sin of excess started a huge downward slide for humanity; it was hardly Canaan's fault, nor really Ham's. Noah introduced, or re-introduced, a number of problems into the newly washed world: curses, slavery, & drunkenness. If Nimrod wasn't supposed to make a name for himself or his people, what was he to do while enduring life under Noah's hung over utterances?
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