Bible Studies
Apostle John’s words in 1 John 2:26 wave like a banner above Eden’s ground.
… These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you …
I’d never realized before how much Eden was a training ground. There were two students. But their were also two vying to be teachers, not that there was much of a competition. Problems arose when clay vessels failed to have the eyesight, the discernment, to recognize the false teacher in their midst.
Jesus said to His disciples, A disciple is not better than his teacher is. However, everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.
Notice the fully trained. Clay’s training was just beginning.
This false teacher, refusing to be fully trained (if that’s even applicable to angels) was determined to take man and ‘recreate’ this clay in his own fallen image.
English is such an imprecise language, but not Hebrew. Nuances of meaning come clearly into focus that are otherwise lost. That’s what keeps striking me as a read, again and again, Adam and Eve’s actions once their eyes were opened.
They sewed fig leaves together to make themselves coverings.
I mentioned in an earlier post that the Hebrew usage refers to “armor.” I keep going back to that, and am amazed. They walked with God. They knew Him in ways we never can. Psalm gives us a hint of the God they most likely knew.
... Who covers Yourself with light as a garment... (Psalm 104)
Paul’s appeal to believers in Romans 13 takes on a much greater significance after spending these days in Eden.
… let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light …
Instead, the beloved turned to fig leaves.
And Divine Love?
Paul reveals the strokes of God’s brush at that moment in Eden.
… For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die … yet God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
God’s Voice called through Eden. I can almost hear it.
“What are you thinking? Where is your heart?”
Certainly, nothing was hidden from God. Not their condition. Not their hearts. And most definitely not their whereabouts. They may have been trying to shield that truth from Him, from themselves. But God isn’t into hiding … anything. His love is about covering a multitude of sins.
So He calls them all together … not in a pow wow … but in a ‘let’s get one thing straight’ convention. He didn’t even call them on their lies, if you notice. He let them bury themselves deeper still with their own words, with their own equivocations. Then He settled the matter once and for all.
Did you notice who was present?
I’ve often wondered about the serpent after Adam ate. Did he slink away? Somehow, I double it; it’s not in his nature. It was all about the great challenge over a kingdom after all. Did he wait around with a leer on his face, waiting for the hammer to fall and shatter the clay? That’s far more likely. Whatever his initial actions, he was present at this convention.
I wonder if a sense of shock filled him when the first words of judgment falling from God’s mouth fell on him. Did he think his ways had been hidden from the Creator of all things?
But after Righteous spoke, and Justice’s gavel had fallen, Mercy moved … clothing His beloved with His own covering. A covering, though merely in shadow here, bespoke of that cover which truly would cover a multitude of sins.
… Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with god through our LORD Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Rom. 5:1-5)
Eden … a training ground where sin first struck at the heart of man. Eden … where Grace brings us out of hiding. Eden … where the price of my sin, laid on another, brings me hope. Eden … where I hear, and now, little children, abide in Him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
(1 John 2:28)
© 6 January 2006
DeAnna L. Brooks
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