and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.--Genesis 3:7c
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna, and Mikayla,
Do good to your enemies...God speaks from experience here. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they became enemies of God. God's response satisfied justice but it spoke so much more to mercy.
"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."--Matthew 5:43-48
No better way to describe our Father's response and reaction to Adam and Eve's catastrophic fall than perfect.
Look at the last part of Genesis 3:7...and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. The fig tree is the national symbol of Israel and the only identifiable tree from the Garden of Eden. This verse speaks to man's attempt to cover his sin and guilt with his own works. We cannot reach up to God...But God who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loves reaches down. No other religion is like Christianity in this way...none. We have access to the God, the Creator of heaven and earth by faith in His Son. This is how we draw near to Him who draws near to us in mercy and compassion.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?" Genesis 3:8-11
Here they are in the beautiful Garden hiding from the One who created them, walked with them, counseled them, and loved them. Now they were experiencing feelings that they had not known before...shame, fear, confusion and guilt. God comes to them in goodness and kindness. He did not come in anger but as He had come to them before. "Where are you?" God asks. I am pretty sure God's voice here is that of a heartbroken parent whose child had just walked outside of His will and had literally placed the sentence of death on his own head. God's reaction and response here was abounding with mercy and kindness. Now God knew where they were and what they had done. There is no where we can go from His Spirit. What He wanted here from them was a confession. Please don't miss the mercy here.
Their sin had caused them to hide from the Lord, which is what rebellion always does...it separates us from God. Adam and Eve would not have sought God after they had sinned...the bible says clearly in Romans 3:11 that none seek God. God in mercy and love came to them. When we confess our sin, it frees us from the guilt and the shame involved and releases its grip...it prevents us from going further down the road of sin and doing worse things. God wanted this for Adam and Eve. He wanted to bring about confession and repentance. They instead responded by making excuses for their sin and exacerbating it. Adam blamed his wife for the sin and indirectly God for giving him such a woman and Eve blamed the serpent for beguiling her.
Confession does not bring about forgiveness...that was granted at the cross...it does however bring about a change of heart and a change in direction.
I have seen this occur in my own children especially when they were young and had gone their own way. I knew what they had done, but still questioned them and gave them the opportunity to bring their sin to the light and be released from it. My desire was not to embarrass them but to relieve them of the burden and have them turn and go the right way. In the beginning they would more than likely respond in the way that Adam and Eve did to God by playing the blame game. BUT as they saw confession and turning exampled in the house and experienced the peaceable fruit of righteousness, they began to stop, sometimes even in the middle of their sin, and turn. If you are a parent and are in the middle of a selfish tirade...turn things around by stopping mid scream and apologizing to your family for your behavior. You pride might be hurt but the results of those kind of confessions and the fruit born in your children's lives will be so worth it.
Verse 15 abounds with mercy... And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." So after cursing the physical serpent, God curses Satan himself.
Here in the third chapter of Genesis the Gospel is first mentioned and a Messiah promised. Satan and unbelievers are "your seed" and her Seed (Eve's) is Christ who will descend from her and all that are in Him. It is important to note that the woman does not possess a seed; rather, she possesses the ovum, which is fertilized by the male's seed. This verse then is the first indication that Messiah would be born of a virgin. In the midst of sin and sorrow, we have hope! Satan can only cause Jesus to suffer (bruise His heel) but Christ would one day destroy Satan with a fatal blow to his head. Jesus came to earth to die. By dying He conquered death and rendered Satan powerless against all who are saved...in Him.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! --1 John 3:1
More mercy in Genesis 3:21: Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Now in order to get tunics of skin, something had to die. Blood had to be shed. By all rights the first physical deaths that should have occurred were those of Adam and Eve. Instead, it was an animal...probably a lamb. A sacrifice had to be made to provide a covering...this was a picture of the future sacrifice of the Innocent One, the Lamb of God, who is Jesus Christ and that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.
More mercy in 3:22-24..."Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"—therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life."
God told man that he would surely die if he ate of the forbidden tree. If he ate now of the fruit of tree of life they would live forever in their cursed condition. Out of compassion then, God drove them from the Garden of Eden and blocked the entrances and ruled out this possibility.
None of what I read in Genesis 3 makes sense in "my" world. If I had created Adam and Eve, I would have destroyed them. I would not have covered them and provided my only begotten Son as a remedy for their rebellion...I would have left them in their fig leaves with the sentence of death on their heads...that is if I didn't annihilate them first . BUT GOD, WHO IS RICH IN MERCY DID SOMETHING THAT IN OUR HUMANNESS IS IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND. He responded in perfect truth, perfect justice, perfect righteousness, perfect mercy and perfect love.
"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! "FOR WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD? OR WHO HAS BECOME HIS COUNSELOR?" "OR WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM AND IT SHALL BE REPAID TO HIM?" For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever."--Romans 11:33-36
God's reaction to Adam and Eve's rebellion and sin shows us that we can never love too much. That goodness really does overcome evil. That when God speaks to us about loving our enemies, He means just that and speaks from a level of experience that we cannot even fathom. God provided for them a covering that spoke of His promise that would cover them completely and eternally so that they could once again live forever with Him. He would bring them back to life by His love. As believers His grace and love is present in our hearts by His Spirit that dwells within us. We are to shed it abroad and share it with those He places in our lives, despite how we are treated. As Christians we are to walk as He walked and to love as He loved by the power of His Spirit.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.--Romans 5:8
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. --Ephesians 2:1-10
Love
Mom
Once again: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! --1 John 3:1
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