Stand in holy owe you heavens; be amazed you Earth; behold the Almighty God, the Lord and Master of everything — in His Son Jesus, Himself went small and weak and painful and humble and rejected and humiliated and betrayed — and crucified.
“… God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them …”
2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT
“So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”
Ephesians 2:7-9 NLT
This is the “Everlasting Covenant. This is our Amazing God! This is the Divine Love in action!
Thank You loving Father.
Thank You dear Jesus.
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God said to Adam and Eve: All this is My gift to you. Heaven, Earth, Sea and all that in them is. Care for it. Go where you wish. Do what you like. Eat what you want. But I am placing just one restriction to test your loyalty. From the tree in the middle of garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – DO NOT EAT. For in the day you eat from it, you shall surely die.
They did eat. Oh dear.
Adam and Eve were representatives of the whole human race. When they ate, it is reckoned as if we all ate. When they sinned, it is reckoned as if we all sinned. Not fair? Look at the Big Picture. When Jesus came on His rescue mission, He became the new representative of the human race. When He lived His clean, sinless life, it is reckoned as if we all lived that clean, sinless life. When He conquered devil’s temptations, it is reckoned as if we all conquered devil’s temptations. When He suffered for our sins, it is reckoned as if we all suffered for our sins. When He died the penalty for our sins, it is reckoned as if we all died the penalty for our own sins. When He rouse from the death, it is reckoned as if we all rouse from the death with Him. When He ascended to heaven, it is reckoned as if we all ascended to heaven in Him. But be not misled. This is not a child’s play. Apostle was so sure of it that he said:
“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:4-7 NLT
The language in this last quote is not “reckoned as if we…”. But it is a language of a deed already done. And that is the truth. It is so, because Jesus ascended to heaven. Jesus ascended to heaven in His human form, in His human nature. He is there now as the new representative of the human race, as our Advocate, with the full rights and authority to do so because He now belongs to the human race. And we are led to believe that He is forever to retain our human nature. You can probably see the flow-on implications of this amazing outworking of God’s providence. —Human race, in the person of Jesus Christ, by the virtue of His self sacrifice and the human body which He is to keep, with this, the human race was elevated into the very family of God. What a humbling thought! What a glorious destiny!
This is given us as a free gift if we believe in Jesus. Totally amazing!
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Adam and Eve were created perfect. There was no flaw in them. No defect. No imperfection. No deficiencies. Their bodies were perfect. Their strength of intellect – awesome.
Like the starry heavens at night where we see the heavenly bodies clustering together in harmonious systems, which each system-within-system adds to the other the beauty, the functionality, the balance; where every individual network of stars move silently, at supersonic speeds, in breathtaking glory – each faithfully performing the task received from its Creator – just so, the newly created human beings, perfect in body and in mind and in spirit, system-within-system, function-within-function; intelligent, creative, happy; and capable to meaningfully communicate with their Creator – were the crowning glory of the newly created reality.
Based on the information in Psalm 104:2, where God is said to be clothed in garments of light, it isn’t hard to imagine that His newly created children Adam and Eve were also created with the garments of light. Appropriate to the purposes for which they were given, such garments would have been an amazing craftsmanship, powerful in beauty and ideal in wear. It may have been somewhat transparent so the perfect bodies graced their every move. That is probably why there is this short record:
“Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.”
Genesis 2:25 NLT
But oh, how sad and tragic. This idyllic condition did not last.
The moment Adam and Eve sinned – the change came. They lost their innocence. They lost holiness and purity of their lives. And if they had the garments of light – they lost them. They began to feel self conscious. Became ashamed and afraid. The first instinctive act was to cover their bodies with some do-it-your-self fig-leaf covering. They knew that these fig-leaf aprons will not do. And because they heard God coming – they hid themselves.
Oh dear.
Hiding from their best friend? From One who gave them life, and everything else? Doesn’t make sense. But that’s what sin is like. It separates us from our God. It makes us fear Him. Distrust Him.
In the short conversation which followed, we see their attempt at self justification, and then the attempt to blame someone else for their failure. A huge change. Inconsistent with the righteousness and goodness which governed their noble lives till then.
In the few generations which followed, the outworking of the principle of evil is clearly seen.
“The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.”
Genesis 6:5 NLT
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Then God made garments for Adam and Eve from skins. It isn’t hard to see where the skins came from – lambs or young goats. They were horror-stricken seeing it done. That was the first time ever they saw blood spilled. Life taken. Oh, how horrifyingly painful it was to realise – this is the cost of their disobedience. This is their fault. They probably fell to their knees, asking God for mercy. Asking for forgiveness.
It is not beyond imagination to see their loving God, stooping down, and gently explaining to them – that one of their own seed, their own descendant, will eventually come and of His own free will – give up His own life as a ransom price, so that their lost innocence can be returned to them.
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This event we just talked about, when Adam and Eve were totally perfect to start with, but then lost their integrity, honour and righteousness through disobedience – that whole episode is a tragic, but an important part of our history. It is so, because it is the very first time we see in Scriptures where God’s perfect righteousness is standing side by side with human righteousness – and the contrast cannot be greater. It is a vivid portrayal, as if acted on stage, of how our Father God clothed us with His own holiness, with honour and glory and light, giving us everything perfect, everything abundant, everything blissfully conducive to happiness and progress and development, but we foolishly acted in our own ‘wisdom’, thinking we knew better – and lost it all in a single bite. The change was immediate and is portrayed by the human effort to stitch together some fig-leaf covering to hide our shame. It represents human effort to create some semblance of respectability. But it’s failure is so obvious that it didn’t even need any comment in Scripture. After God pronounced their just punishment, which was generously mixed with mercy, He made some temporary garments for them from animal skins, until the real garments, the Christ’s righteousness become available. It is a perfect illustration of God’s loving care for His children – and His plan, His intention to Redeem us.
The whole Bible is the story which tells us the Good News of how God and His Son Jesus Christ acted to reclaim the lost human family. We will spend a good deal of time and effort to search what is God doing, and what He has done to redeem our failure, and to restore the beautiful righteousness – after the blood of Jesus repaired the breach of separation which man’s sin has caused.
The change Adam and Eve experienced was horrendous. The life of harmony and peace, the life of goodness, kindness, gentleness, fairness, benevolence, holiness, integrity, honesty, purity, the life of joy and lofty aspirations – has turned into a life of fear, of constant battle with tendencies to do wrong things. To think evil. They felt a pull, some strange inclination toward a life which is unworthy, unfair, impure, ignoring the needs of others. It became easy to tell a lie. To think of impure things. All this was oh so strange. Never previously seen nor encountered. Unfamiliar, alien and wrong. Yes. Wrong, wicked and painful. Painful to self, and expressed dishonourably to all others. Careless, selfish, mean and unkind. It was life-shattering. Filled with pain, disappointment, self incrimination and guilt – they were overwhelmed.
They slumped down in defeat, and wept. They lost hope.
And once again, God, seeing their great need, came. He talked to them encouragement. He gave them some of His own strength so they could endure it. He used the words of hope. He repeated His promise that one of their own offspring, the seed of the woman, will come and He will crush the head of the serpent. He will restore things back to what they have been in the beginning. And even better. But for now, they need to bear this with courage and trust in God and in the coming Deliverer.
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Soon they discovered, that spending time with God, thinking of Him, remembering Him, loving Him, repeating to themselves the hope His promises gave them – does help a lot. It gave them strength to fight the constant evil tendencies in their own hearts. They took care that worshiping God is the most important priority. To thank Him for not abandoning them. To hold onto the hope He gives them.
As generations began to multiply, a line of people emerged who would hold God as first and foremost in their lives. They held the knowledge of God alive, and sought Him with their whole hearts. We read the expression “They walked with God”. Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam was one of them.
“When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.”
Genesis 5:21-24 NLT
Noah was another.
“This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God.”
Genesis 6:9 NLT
Then we see the faithful Job, Abraham, Joseph, Moses… and a long line of famous persons who are well known, and also many obscure individuals or families of whom we never heard a word, but who are greatly honoured by God, because they wholeheartedly worshiped Him, believed His promises, and lived honourably – following ‘His ways’.