Chapter Two:
Christ in the Garden of Eden
by Wade Wright
by Wade Wright
The third chapter of Genesis leaves the
story of creation, and tells the sad tale of the fall of Adam, and Eve from
their first estate as God’s beloved creature made in his own image. God labored
in creation, until it was complete, and then He rested. In chapter three, He is
once again active, for we see Him walking in the garden, seeking Adam. Adam had
no way of seeing all that has become history to us, but we can look into our
history, and see Adams future, where it is
once again said that the Lord was at rest. Twice in the book of Hebrews, Christ
is said to have sat down at the right hand of God. We read this and note that
He has been given a place of honor, and agree that it is deserved. Like much of
the scriptures, however, there are other meanings to the fact that Christ; the Lamb
of God is seated. Just as God labored in creation until it was finished and
then rested, Jesus began the work of redemption when He came to seek and save
that which was lost, Adam and Eve. He continued that same work in Israel
where the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost, and rested
when it was finished. He declared the work He began in Eden to be complete when He bowed his head on
the cross, said it is finished, and dismissed his spirit. All of creation
reflects the character of the creator, and the more we explore the universe of
which we are a part, we find it to be a place of order. God, in his infinite
wisdom foresaw man’s need of a savior, and took counsel with himself to restore
his creature. In Hebrews 13:20 we see the phrase; the blood of the everlasting
covenant. If a covenant, or anything else for that matter, is to be
everlasting, it cannot be in any way dependant on a man to be a principal of
that covenant for two very good reasons. First of all, man is not everlasting,
for he has a beginning, and secondly, the character of man is hardly reliable
enough to imagine anything he undertakes to be everlasting.
Revelation 13:8 speaks of “the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world”, and the context shows this clearly to
refer the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:4 makes reference to those chosen
before the foundation of the world. None of this was the work, or even the
thinking of man, for man’s beginning was some time after the foundation of the
earth was well established. These things were settled in the immutable counsel
of God outside the boundaries of time. When he came walking in the garden
seeking Adam and Eve He began the work of redemption, just as He had purposed, and
agreed with himself, forming the everlasting covenant. In keeping with his holy
and perfect character, He saw it through to completion, bowed his head, and
declared it to be finished, when He had poured out his life’s blood on Calvary. Only then is He pictured as seated at the right
hand of the Father. There is more to Jesus, however, than his deity.
On the one hand, it might seem odd to
think of being more than God, yet it is plain from the scriptures that Jehovah
God humbled himself to take up the form of man his creature, thereby becoming
both man and God. The first chapter of the gospel of John is devoted to this
subject, and in 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, Jesus is referred to as the last Adam,
and the second man. The second man, for from the time our earthly father, Adam,
until the first coming of Christ, no other was in the image of God. God created
man in his image, but sin came and the image was marred, until Jesus came.
Begotten by the Holy Spirit of God, without sin, there was for only the second
time, a man in God’s own image. He is the last Adam, for there will not be
another. And all the redeemed of the earth have their standing before God in
Christ Jesus. He is our spiritual father, just as Adam is our earthly. Adam is
a picture of Jesus, there in the garden, for he is the father of a people.
Adam is also the husband of a beloved
wife, just as Jesus is portrayed as the husband of his church. Imagine for a
moment that we could freeze time, and look at the sixth verse of Genesis
chapter three, and let’s freeze it after Eve has eaten from the forbidden
fruit, but Adam has not. In that brief moment, Adam’s beloved wife is alone,
lost ruined, eternally separated from God’s love by a single act of
disobedience. She has been deceived, [1 Timothy 2:14] but Adam has a conscious
decision to make. Does he obey God and remain sinlessly perfect, but alone, or
does he join his beloved wife who is now also alone, but in a new and ruined
state. Your very existence and mine hang in the balance as Adam looks at the
fruit his wife holds out to him. What other reason could there be for Adam to
willingly sin against God, but his love for Eve? And what other reason could
you give for Jesus to go willingly to Calvary,
except his great love for us?
The
parallel becomes clearer if you examine the nature of sin from God’s
perspective. I began to understand this when, quite by accident I discovered
that the Old Testament word for sin is often used for sacrifice. From our point
of view, the sacrifice is the cure for sin, so how can you call it the same
thing? God’s perspective is that He judges sin, but will judge a suitable
sacrifice instead. Adam, in a willful act of disobedience became the object of
God’s judgment, while Jesus, in a wondrous act of love became the Lamb of God,
also the object of judgment, and both on behalf of their beloved bride.
Wonderful story of love, tell it to me again!
We don’t usually think of Genesis as a
book of prophecy, but there is a prophecy here, directly from the mouth of the
LORD God. When in verse 15 He promised the woman a seed which would war against
the serpent and would bruise his head. Today, thousands of years later, there
is still spiritual warfare between the people of God, and those who are of
their father the devil. It is not customary to mention a “seed” as belonging to
a woman, but rather to the offspring of a man. It is a reference to the
miraculous birth of Jesus, who had no earthly father. His humanity was entirely
from his mother, Mary. When he gave up his life on Calvary,
the serpent had bruised his heel. But, praise God He did not remain dead as all
other men must do. Because He had no sin death had no authority over him, and
the grave could not hold him. He forever bruised the head of the serpent
[Satan] when he rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death.
Jehovah God, seeking that which was lost,
the loving husband casting his lot with his beloved, and a prophecy of the
victory won for all mankind at Calvary, and yet the picture is not complete,
for there is a fourth portrait of Christ in the Garden of Eden. Having sinned,
man discovered his nakedness, and tried to cover himself with fig leaves. Fig
leaves were not acceptable to God, who provided them with skin garments. Do you
suppose God was being practical, knowing the fig leaves would quickly wither?
They did of course, but God was giving us a much more important bit of
information. First of all, anything man did would be unacceptable to a holy
God, for man was now defiled by sin. Even though Adam had imagined he could
cover his sin, when the LORD arrived in the garden, he realized he was still
naked. Some great and sad day all of mankind will stand in the presence of that
same LORD, and those who have clothed themselves only in their own works will
know that they are naked still, just as Adam was. It is true today, for the
bible plainly tell us that our works are as filthy rags beside his holiness. In
order to make man presentable before a holy God, the wages of sin would have to
be paid, and that wage is death.[Romans 6:23] If God had sent Adam and Eve to
the place of eternal judgment, the lake of fire mentioned in the twentieth
chapter of Revelations, the issue of sin would have been settled between God
and man, but you and I would never have been. Our loving father made provision
for them, and us, by taking the life of an innocent animal to cover the
nakedness of Adam and Eve, a picture of the coming Lamb of God, Jesus Christ
the Lord, who once and for all gave his life on Calvary
for our sins. Nothing any of us can do would render us as acceptable to a holy
God, just as the fig leaves were not acceptable, but God’s mercy provided the
only acceptable substitute. By his grace Devine, He provided himself, the only
one who could give a sinless offering, and clothed us in his righteousness,
rather than the works of our hands.
There is yet another, perhaps more
obscure element of Christ’s work portrayed in Eden, in the ill fated serpent. Poor
loathsome creature of today, once the most subtle of God’s creatures, the
serpent was cursed above all others, for the entire earth was cursed for man’s
sake. He was cursed in that he was subjected to the judgment of Almighty God,
and such a judgment that no other would know the depths of it. Jesus became the
object of God’s judgment in our place, and thereby a curse. And just as the
serpent was cursed above all others, this same Jesus is also more cursed than any
other, for He bore the sins of all mankind. God’s love comes freely to all men,
but only because the justice of His unbending authority has made Jesus to be
that which is judged and cursed above all else. There is no grace or mercy
extended to us unless the judgment of sin is settled. But, praise God, it was
settled when Jesus became a curse for us. Redemption’s wondrous work of love,
covenanted in the timeless mind of Almighty God, set in motion in Eden, and finished on the cross of Calvary.
My song shall ever be how marvelous, how wonderful, is my saviors love for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment