Life on the Highest Plane # 16

So we see God in Eden seeking the sinner who, because of his sense of guilt and shame with its resultant fear, was hiding from Him.

Genesis 3:9, "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"

What a marvelous unveiling of the infinite, abounding grace of God! A wounded, wronged God seeking a guilty, ungodly sinner! The Lord God taking the initiative to bring Adam and Eve back home to Himself! And this is but the opening scene in the continuous unfolding of God's infinitely gracious dealings with fallen humanity from that hour to this.

God then brought Adam and Eve face to face with the fact and guilt of their sin and gave them a fair, full opportunity to confess it. But instead of a contrite, broken-hearted confession there came a cowardly, half-hearted one mixed with much of palliation and shifting of responsibility.

Again the exceeding riches of God's grace shone forth in His giving the promise of a Saviour. "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" foretold to those guilty sinners who were soon to be banished from God's presence that He would open for them and for the race a way of access to Himself through the suffering of another.

Having now given vent to His infinite mercy and love in the gracious promise of a Saviour, God does full justice to His holy nature and His holy law in pronouncing a curse upon their sin. The God of all grace becomes the sinner's Judge. Sweat, suffering and sorrow are the awful consequences of sin. Then comes the sentence of death for "the wages of sin is death," and the banishment from God's presence.

Genesis 3:19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Genesis 3:23, 24, "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man."

Having dealt with the sinner in grace God now deals with satan in wrath. There could be no mercy manifested here. The issue between God and satan was a far more serious one. In the Eden temptation satan had contested God's right to the ownership of and the dominion over His own creation. Through their yielding to sin God had lost the sovereignty over the world and the race. Such insult and treachery must be dealt with according to their deserts.

The Prophecy of a Conflict and the Pronouncement of a Doom

God Himself declares a war against this arch rebel that He will fight to the finish and in which He will show no mercy. God prophesies an age-long conflict and pronounces an eternal doom.

Genesis 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

From this sentence of eternal enmity there could be no reprieve.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 16 - "Life on the Lowest Plane" - The Rule of Sin Over Man" )