It was almost perfect

Good morning and welcome to our gathering here for the last Sunday of the year. We just want to have one final reminder, the sign-ups as the electives for this quarter are all done. Sign-ups for next quarter, this will be the last day, and that's out on the hallway. Who You Are in Christ, The Gospel of John in Biblical Anthropology and Biblical Counseling, all three of those will be lasting nine months, so it looks like we'll be ending in September, and then having new electives all together after that. So at any rate, last Sunday for signups.

Now, we've been telling you here, we want you to have Genesis on the brain. And so we have been, in recent weeks, over this last month, introducing these eight words that we want you to use to memorize Genesis, right? And so say this with me here. I know you can do it, OK? Creation, fall, flood, nations. All right. And now the next Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. All right. So we got those eight words. If you got those, you're well on your way to memorizing Genesis. OK.

Now, about today's handout, I don't want anyone to go into shock. It's only one side of one page. That's just unbelievable. I don't think that's happened in many years. So at any rate, but that's actually something, given our new approach, is likely to be pretty typical. So easy for you to memorize that, too, right? OK.

We will, however, put a page number on it, even though you only have one page. And the reason is this. This page number you'll see off in the corner, that means that's a slide that corresponds to something on your handout. If it's not got a page number, then it's not in your handout and write fast. Okay? All right. Okay.

One of the things we want to talk about is just kind of get a general big picture about what Genesis 1 and 2 are saying to us. And so let's step our way through it. Genesis 1.1 is kind of a summary statement of all of God's creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From the second verse there in Genesis 1 to verse 31 is about the six days of creation. Day one, day two, day three, all the way to day six. So that's the day-by-day chronology of what was created in each day.

Genesis 2.1, now we're talking the passage that Wayne just read for us here.

Genesis 2.1 is also a summary statement about God's creation after the fact. It says God completed the creation that's described here.

The next two verses is a statement that God rested, that is, He ceased from His creative work on that seventh day. I need to make sure I clarify something that does not mean that God was really, really tired after creating for six days. That's not what we're talking about. It means that he ceased working. He had been creating for six days in a row and he ceased his work on that seventh day. That's what that is about.

The next verses, 2-4 through 25, the end of chapter 2, isn't a separate creation account. Some people have come up with this idea, oh, that's a separate creation account, and Moses just hacked the two together. No, it is not. It gives deeper insights, particularly into that sixth creation day. That's what the second chapter of Genesis is substantially about, beginning with verse 4.

All right. We okay so far? Now, also on the top of your first page there, it's the only page you've got, right? All right. Genesis 2-4 is an introduction to the additional insights regarding God's creation of the first two human beings. Okay? It is an introduction to those additional insights.

The next verses, verses 5 and 6, go back to the second and third days of creation That is at the end of the second day, beginning of the third day, to say this was the way the atmosphere, the climate was on that day. And that explains the way things were there in the Garden of Eden and on the rest of the earth as well. The next verses, Genesis 2, 7 through 17, 17 is the last verse we'll be looking at today, gives more detail about the setting for the first two human beings on the sixth day of creation. So we get the setting that they're placed in, in the Garden of Eden. Additionally, those verses give us the account of the creation of man, this man Adam, and the first direction that this man was given. Okay.

One of the key things, and this is not in your handout, the name Adam shows up in Genesis 2.20.

As we'll see shortly, Eve is Genesis 3.20. So those are the verses, easy to kind of keep them in your mind.

Adam is in Genesis 2.20, Eve 3.20. All right.

As we go through the book of Genesis, we're going to notice something that shows up for the first time today, and that is that God, through the book of Genesis, and matter of fact, through the scripture, has a number of different names. Now, some of those names are not personal names. like we would have names, but many of those are either titles or characteristics of God. So that's one of the things we're going to see as we step through the book of Genesis is a number of different names for God, including not only his personal name, but also names that give his characteristics, names that give things that he does and accomplishes. One of the names that shows up here for the first time here is In the Beginning God Elohim is the name. This name Elohim shows up for the first time here in Genesis 1.

It says that God is a powerful God. He is a sovereign God. He is a creator God. That's what that name communicates. It is the name used repeatedly in the first chapter when God, it says, in the beginning God, that's Elohim. But all through the rest of the first chapter is God creates. And remember one of the things we said, God creates by speaking as God creates, as God communicates, as God judges.

This is good. This is good. That is Elohim. The Elohim, the I am ending, is an ending in the Hebrew that is plural. It doesn't mean that there's lots and lots of gods. It means that God is of great magnitude. That's how the Hebrew communicates the immensity of the Lord, the greatness of the Lord. Then we find In chapter 2, the name changes, not because God changes, but there's a particular reason, and we'll see more and more what these reasons are.

The name is Yahweh, sometimes carried over into our English, and actually by mistake Jehovah, but Yahweh, which is God's covenant name. It is the name by which God makes arrangements and agreements and puts stipulations upon man. It is the arrangement by which God promises, as we'll see later on, with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob. He is the covenant maker and the covenant keeper. Another way to put that is He is the promise keeper. He is the one who keeps promises that He makes. Throughout the book of Genesis, we'll see time and time again. As a matter of fact, throughout the Bible, you'll see that time and time again. We don't want you to be short on supplements, do we? We have a three-page supplement on the names of God in the cabinet to the right as you exit this room.

And now from the chart that we had earlier, here's kind of the listing of the creation week just to make it clear where we're at. Day seven here is the day that is addressed in those first few verses where God is resting from his creative process. That fits the chart. We've also shown this color chart with the sequence going from day one to day seven as we see here.

Now, you also have on your handout this generations outline of Genesis. It's one way that you could take the whole 50 chapter book and give it a fairly concise, simple outline. And that is, it takes the word generations and after the introduction just follows each one of those generations as a means of breaking up and following the sequence of the book of Genesis. The word generations first shows up and on the translation we used here, the New American Standard, it shows up as the account. The King James has it as generations. And we'll see as we go through the book of Genesis how that works out.

Now let's take some examples so you know what I mean. This number three, the generations of Adam. And then we'll see generations of Noah. Let's take a look at, for instance, and this is not on your handout. Here's an example from Genesis 5, 1 through 3. This is the book of the generations of Adam. It then gives the account of the genealogy. And by the way, this might blow your circuits, but we're going to study the genealogies. OK? Yeah, we're going to go through that. It's not quite like going through Leviticus in detail, but anyway, we will do that. OK.

So this is the book of the generations of Adam in the day when God created man. So notice that it kind of summarizes chapters 1 and 2. He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female. That's what Genesis chapter 1 said. And he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his image and named him Seth. Okay. So that's an example. A similar one, a little shorter, is just the beginning of Genesis 6-9. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Again, an introduction to the genealogy regarding Noah. Something else.

If you've been with us, especially through our study of the book of Isaiah, we had this term that we introduced called a chiasm. And what we're going to find is that Genesis Chapter 2 starting with verse 4 to the end of chapter 3. And by the way, that's going to take us into February to complete. But that section there is what is called a chiasm. Now, if that's a new term to you, we'll explain that.

A chiasm is a mirror image in writing. Chiasm is a mirror image in writing. It's something that starts and then goes to a middle point and actually comes in a reflective form to the end so that it starts similarly to how it ends. To give you a little easier picture to follow, it's this idea. Now, let me walk you through an example of what that looks like.

Here God takes action and Adam is passive in the very first part the part that we'll be studying here this morning of that passage. And then at the very end of that passage that we talk about, the end of chapter 3, God takes action and Adam is passive again. Or, let's start with the second section, which we'll be studying starting next Sunday, that's next year. That part is similar to The last second of the last part where in both cases God takes action, Adam plays a minor role, and then Eve and a serpent or animals are passive in both cases, and so on. So that's the idea, and interestingly we'll be walking through this for the weeks to come.

Again, the name Eve shows up in Genesis 3.20. We gave her name there. Her name won't actually show up until 3.20. All right. Now, there's been a question raised.

What about angels in creation? Where do these angels fit in? Well, the angels are not clearly mentioned in Genesis 1 and 2. The Jews have a couple of traditions. Some of the Jewish traditions, and this was outside the Bible, were that the angels were created on the second day. Some say on the fifth day. But nonetheless, the angels did sing in praise to God when the physical world was being created. This is from the book of Job, which by the way is a fascinating book.

Job 38.7 says that the angels sang while God was creating the world. Isn't that something? They sang in praise. Isn't that amazing? I know it's impossible. I would love to have been there. But anyway, so that's one of the things that the angels did. So far as created spirit beings, this is something to ponder here.

The angels are, like ourselves, created spiritual beings. They have a different character certainly, but they're created spiritual beings. God is the only spiritual being who is self-existent. All other spiritual beings, angels and mankind, are created spiritual beings.

The emphasis in scripture, of course, is on human beings. And as we go through the book of Genesis, we'll see why. But certainly, scripture is a revelation to us as human beings. All right, now you also have, and this chart is on page one in your handout, categories of angels and human beings as created spiritual beings. And this is interesting. There's angels and humans are each created spiritual beings. The angels have different categories.

There's at least cherubs and seraphs, and we maybe heard the plural of that, cherubim and seraphim. Four living creatures we saw in Revelation chapter 4. They are possibly a variation within the seraphim, but I'll go ahead and list them as a separate one here.

Among human beings there are three principal groups that Scripture continues to identify, and that's Gentiles, Israel, and the Church. We're going to see in Genesis The first two, Gentiles and Israel. You have a reference here for each of those. Now, something that is not addressed in this chart, we're going to see in the book of Genesis, more than once, the angel of the Lord. That is also not addressed here. Other general terms for angels. We'll see other terms for angels show up. Example in Genesis chapter 6. There will be other terms for angels. or Christ, who is prophesied several times. We're going to see Christ initially prophesied in chapter 3, just the next chapter. So anyway, those are not addressed, but at least we have some initial understanding here of these created beings.

Now, we wouldn't want you to be without supplements. We actually have two sets of supplements on angels. And feel free to take advantage of those. They're both on the cabinet to the right as you exit this room. If you've had too many supplements, let me know. I'm not sure what we'll do about it, but let me know anyway. Okay.

Now, what I'd like you to do is to take your Bibles out and turn to Genesis 2, 1 through 17. Get that section in front of you here. So here is Genesis 2, 1 through 17. We're getting from there the summary of the first six creation days. Genesis 2, 1 as Wayne read for us, Thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. The finishing summary statement of the completion of things.

This verse states the completion of creation, the creation that was summarized in advance in Genesis 1.1. God had finished his creative work as of the end of the sixth day.

Remember, there was evening and morning each day, and at the sixth day, God had created everything at the end of that sixth day. This leads us to the seventh day, which is described for us in verses 2 and 3. As we go there, verses 2 and 3 read like this, By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

So verse 2 here recognizes God's completion of His created work. It says that he rested here on the seventh day, which means, as we said before, he ceased his work. It doesn't mean that he was exhausted. I would be exhausted well before seventh. But anyway, he completed his work and ceased it.

In verse 3, it is the basis of the Jewish Sabbath. It is interesting, for the Jews, the Lord set it up this way. that this pattern of six days of work and then the seventh day of rest is the basis for their Sabbath. Exodus 20, which is in the midst of what we have termed the Ten Commandments, verse 8 starts like this. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath day of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." And that was how the Jews were given that pattern.

In the early church, We see, and it starts right in the early books of the New Testament, we see that upon the Lord's resurrection that the church began gathering on the first day of the week. The church, of course, is not under the Sabbath law, but we are called to enter God's rest. Hebrews 4, 8 through 11 tells us about God's rest intended for us, for you and for me. We'll talk about that in a bit, but I would ask you the question, have you discovered God's rest in your own life?

Now, in verse 4 of chapter 2, this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. Genesis 2 verse 4 here begins not this second creation account of some claim, but a more detailed account of the sixth day, the creation specifically, and of the environment of human beings.

The word translated account here, or if you have it in the King James and a few other translations, it just simply says generations, the pattern that we used as an outline there. It's from a Hebrew word that we're going to see many times, as you see it enumerated there in that chart of the outline by generations. As we look at this pattern here, it's going to be at the start of each of the genealogies. In this case, it's a special instance. You don't have any genealogies because you still haven't made the people. So he's giving the account of the creation of these first human beings.

Now, as we get into verses 5 and 6, we have a change taking place. Verses 5 and 6 read like this, Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted. For the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth, and the water the whole surface of the ground.

Do you see the description here? You say, used to? And notice that there is a need to describe this. And the reason is this. Circumstances in the environment here on planet Earth was quite different than it was even by the day that Noah wrote this. And so he had to explain, this is the way the Earth's atmosphere and climate had to be in the past. And it's different from what it is now. And he needed to explain that and lay that before them.

It is to take a garden scene, a matter of a mist that would come up. and water everything as opposed to what we have now, rain. A completely different climate. As I thought about this, I thought, oh boy, I imagine, because I went through engineering school, and one of the classes that you take there, in not all civil engineering curriculums, but many of them, is something in the way of engineering hydrology. All that would have been different. Not only the atmosphere of the earth, but as we'll see later, the underground structure of the earth. Quite different in those days than it is now. All the things that we studied about rain and clouds and precipitation and the hydrologic cycle, that would all be out the window. Things have changed quite a bit since that time.

Now, we get into verse 7. Here is the creation of man. We saw that summarized at the end of Genesis chapter 1. Now here in chapter 2 verse 7 is some additional insights. That's why this is not just some other creation account, but it's additional insights into how God went about creating man and the significance of it. Verse 5 here takes us back, oh excuse me, verse 7.

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. This word formed is used in such a way that it conveys, and matter of fact, chapter 10 of Job makes this picture clear. God acts as an artist. He pulls together the material part of man and works in artistry to bring this first human being into existence. As at first God formed Adam, but notice that first human being though perfectly and fully formed was still not a living being. So what do you see?

In the next step, God began the physiological process. He breathed into man and started that body, which was fully formed, started it working, started the breathing process and the circulatory process and got everything going. So it wasn't just enough to have the material there, God also initiated all the physiological processes that went into Adam's first breath and everything that went with it.

There is nothing in this verse that supports the idea that human life came from animals. The material came from the dust of the ground directly. The animals had already been separately created. Not only did the material directly come from the ground, but God initiated that material, which had previously been non-living material, into life, separate from anything that the animals had.

Now, this part. I want to leave you with a Bible puzzle. I'm not going to answer it for a month. So, this is an easy puzzle, an easy quiz, if you want to call it that. You've got a month to do it. It's take-home and it's open book. It doesn't get any better than that. I'm going to make it even better than that. You're going to get a clue. But here's the way it is.

There are four ways that humans have come into being on this earth and each one of those four ways is given or at least implied in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. Got that? There are four ways human beings have come into existence. Genesis chapters 2 and 3 give all four of them. Here's the clue, three of those waves happened only once. So you figure that out, see you in a month. On to the next part, Genesis 2, 8 and 9. Verses 8 and 9 goes like this.

The Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, it may be that this verse is describing instant growth of trees specifically in the garden here, rather than the creation of trees on the third day. It could be from the language there. In any case, I really would have loved to have seen any garden that God planted. I mean, there are some beautiful gardens, and we've got pictures of them here on the screen. But a garden that God planted?

Oh, wow. That must have been cool, really cool. Now, something else. Here you have, for the first time, here is Adam. Here is the garden. And Adam's for the first time in the garden. And do you know what? Adam, at that point, made a startling discovery. Okay? Well, that's a joke. Okay. All right. Let's get on to the next part here.

The Bible makes note of three categories of trees in these verses. Every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. That's something that we saw first mentioned there in the end of chapter 1, didn't we? So here's all these trees. You can eat of all of them. There they are, all those out there. The second one, the tree of life, we're going to see again mentioned specifically in chapter 3. We're also going to make note, particularly, of something else.

The tree of life is brought up here in chapters 2 and chapters 3 of Genesis. Interestingly enough, it also gets brought up in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, including in the last chapter. And we'll take a closer look at the correlation. There's a lot in common between the first three chapters of Genesis and the last three chapters of the Bible and the book of Revelation.

There's a great deal of connection. We'll take a look at that in about a month or more. Continuing on with that, the third kind of tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now that we need to think about. Adam would certainly know what good is.

God had created a whole bunch of things that were good and God had really left a whole bunch of good things for him to enjoy. God even said that everything he made was very good. So far, so good. But evil was a matter of something contrary to God's character. Something contrary to God's direction.

Somehow Adam, even though he hadn't experienced it, was able to get an idea what evil is. Have you ever had something like that? You think about, you know, this has never happened to me, but I know that would be a bad thing. Or I've never done this, but I knew that if I did it, that would be a bad thing. There is sort of a prior sense that something might be bad, even though it's not been a part of our personal experience. I think Adam, since he seems to have been given language and been given a lot of the constructs of language, had that kind of sense. I'm not sure what this is, but it doesn't sound good, right?

Now, we'll find out more about this tree of the knowledge of good and evil when we get to verse 17 here. Now, let's take a look at the Garden of Eden in verses 10 through 14. Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became four rivers.

The name of the first is Pishon. It flows around the whole land of Havalah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good, and the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon, and it flows around the whole land of Kush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, and it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Now, the source of these words is very ancient. I think that's something that's well for us to recognize here.

As we'll see, the flood in the days of Noah was global and catastrophic. And the fact that we have some of those words you look at and say, well, that's familiar, and some of them rather unfamiliar. And the fact that the flood was so massive makes it difficult to connect up precisely what of that is something that we can currently recognize and one of it was simply brought over from the pre-flood conditions. So if we were to look at what we can recognize, we would say that this lands us somewhere in northern Iraq. But our ability now to identify exactly where was the Garden of Eden, and exactly where these rivers are, would be pretty hard to do. There is some identifiable names, there are some names and then some of them are tough to make a connection to.

Now, as we look at it though, delium is a resinous material from a tree similar to myrrh. One of the things we also see here is there is natural resources that are coming out and a naming of them and a discovering of them. I would submit to you that that's a part of the The subduing the earth that was talked about, be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth is a naming, a recognizing, a discovering, an organizing, a managing of those things.

And we see the part of that here. We're also going to see as we get to the book of Revelation, there's an identification initially here of gems and minerals and things of that sort. And we're going to see more of that show up in Revelation as well. And so when we get to that point, we'll point that out in more detail.

Okay, verses 15 through 17. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. Now, verse 8 had already placed man in the garden and told us about the trees, but verse 15 here, also placing Adam in the garden, does something different. And that is, we have direction about the trees, not just information about them, direction about them. Eat this, don't eat that. This is good, don't touch that. That's bad.

Something else to notice here, In an untainted world, work was a part of what God designed. Work is not just from the fall, okay? The character of it is from the fall. But work itself was something that God intended from the very beginning. Work, aside from the aspects of the fall, is actually a good thing. It's part of what God called very good. Notice something else. Freedom to eat of any of the trees. Any one you want. As much as you want, no limitations. I guess there's nothing wrong with gluttony, right? Or there wasn't any such thing.

But here, what did he do? He pointed out this one tree. That one, don't eat it. That one, don't eat it. In the day, God said that Adam would eat of that forbidden tree. He would be spiritually separated from God. That's this death. He would die. Why? Because God is life. Because God is life. There would be other consequences that are spelled out in more detail in chapter 3 to that death. That death that would come about from the very day that he took of that tree.

Now, something you have on your handout, page one of all things, easy to find. Something you have on your handout is this chart. And there are four covenants that we can identify in the book of Genesis. They're not all the same character. And the first one is the one we've just finished reading about. And it was also included at the end of chapter one.

That's the Edenic covenant. One of the things you'll notice here is you've got this IC at the end of each of the names. If that sounds too icky to you, just go to the covenant in Eden, or the covenant with Adam, or the covenant with Noah, the covenant with Abraham. That's the idea.

And there are scripture passages given for each one of those. Obviously, today, the Edenic covenant, or the covenant made in Eden, is specifically what's talked about. Now, we'll be talking about those other covenants later on as we go through the book of Genesis. And this Edenic covenant, or the covenant that was made in Edom, the covenant in Edom required five...

That's weird. Here, we'll cover it up. That's better. Okay. The covenant in Edom required five things from Adam. Okay? Well, four fingers and a thumb. Five things from Adam. Let's identify them here. Oh, good boy. Okay. First, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Not like that though. Okay. Be fruitful and multiply. They were to basically have many offspring. Okay? Multiply to fill the earth. Don't hold back on this. Multiply and be fruitful. Fill the earth was the order of the day. And so Adam was told this. And by the way, the Jews considered that to be one of the 613 commandments that you must do. That was a requirement. You must do it.

Subdue the earth. And one of the points we made earlier, this particular statement has sometimes been given blame for ecological problems, but there's I think three points to make. One is that subduing the earth was interpreted to mean and understood to mean care for and manage the earth and understand it, name it, and discover things. Not abuse. Not abuse. That's something quite different.

The other thing is subduing the earth. This command was initially given under conditions that were perfect. not the conditions we have now where man has sinned and is separated from the life of God, but also the ground was not cursed. So there are two subsequent major effects of sin impacting the carrying out of this order. We have also in this covenant rule over the animals that God has made, all the creatures that God made in the fish, in the sea, the birds of the air, the animals on the land.

Rule over them. Again, not abuse them. That's not what he meant. Careful care. And that carries over to care for the earth and the plants of the garden. When you work here, you are to work and care for and keep the garden. Again, it's not that in order to wreck it. And finally, do not eat from this tree. Do not eat from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So those five things.

The covenant in Eden, I'll simplify it to that. The covenant in Eden is a stewardship. Adam was entrusted with what? The whole earth. The whole earth and everything on it. Isn't that something? Imagine, there's one guy, You see this big, giant, massive thing here? I've got all these animals and plants all over it. Take care of it. Can you imagine what that looked like to Adam? That must have been astounding. He was entrusted as a stewardship of the whole earth, responsible to God, answerable to God for how he carried out that stewardship.

Very important understanding. Now, As we come to the end of this passage, where are we headed the next few Sundays? We're going to be looking at the last half of Genesis chapter 2, and we're going to be kind of hovering over that chapter. And the reason is because there will be Adam and Eve there in the garden, and there's a particular verse that we want to pause and take a look at and that's Genesis 2.24. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. We'll want to take a specific look at that because it has several different kinds of consequences and lots of significance.

This verse is quoted by Christ himself. It is quoted twice by Paul. and lots more information that scripture provides. So we'll take a look at that over the next three weeks. Now, I've got some questions for you. The last verse we looked at said, don't touch that tree. In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Don't eat it.

Why would God purposely place that tree that he was going to forbid in the garden. Why didn't God just make a perfect world where those kinds of choices couldn't be made? Why didn't he just say, I'm going to make this world so that that kind of choice just doesn't happen? Why would God, knowing that Adam would sin, because God was not ignorant, this was not his experiment, knowing that Adam would sin, go right ahead and create the man and create the garden and put him in it and tell him, don't touch it. Why would he do that? God created human beings in his own image with a capacity for love. There was, in the eternity past, love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There was already a love relationship.

To include human beings in that circle was to create a human being with a capacity for love. But a pre-programmed robot, even given biology, a pre-programmed robot, is not free to choose love. It's not free to choose to love. The only way for there to be love is to have a being capable at some point of choosing otherwise.

God made both kinds of spiritual beings we talked about earlier, the angels and human beings. Isn't it interesting that at some point God made it so that both angels and human beings had the ability of contrary choice, the ability to choose against continuing relationship with him. So why would God allow the possibility of sin and pain and death? Why would God allow these things knowing full well what it would take to restore things?

This is going to be pricey. What's it going to take if Adam makes the wrong choice? Knowing full well what the price would be. This is going to be very expensive. His son would have to die. Couldn't he just avoid this altogether by making a creation, a man that couldn't choose that?

You see, God made a judgment call, as he is well able to do, that said, love is worth the price. As a matter of fact, love is the price. Right? Love is the price. God looked at the price and said, oh, that's a bargain. Hebrews 12.2, quoting in part here, says, Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross. despising the shame. You see, because of what God accomplished in His Son, all the sins, all of them, from that day forward, were paid for by Christ's death. Pain is part of what God will use to conform us to the image of His Son. And unless we as a believer are taken alive to be with the Lord, Death is the point at which the Lord gives us a new body, a body that doesn't become subject ever again to sin and pain and death.

Have you discovered that forgiveness that's found in Christ at the price He was fully willing to pay? Have you discovered that? Have you come to acknowledge or maybe even Recognize God's process of conforming you to the image of a son? Have you discovered God's rest in your own life? Have you found that the Lord's coming to take us with him really is the blessed hope in your own life and heart? Have you discovered that? Have you found that? I pray that the answer to these questions that you have in your own heart and mind and life is yes. Let's pray.

Lord, we see in this passage here today the setup for what certainly are momentous events beyond compare. And yet we also see the setup for what you have done. in order to offer us entirely by grace this immense salvation. And we can enter into blessings far beyond what Adam would ever see. Far beyond what he would see there in the Garden of Eden. And we thank you for all the ways that you've blessed us. We thank you for the forgiveness that we can claim because of your son. We give you thanks and we just put our trust in you. In Jesus name. Amen.