Death ... The last enemy to be destroyed
Many assume that disobedience was the first sin, and representative of every bad choice that we might do thereafter.Adam/Eve didn't know that to disobey was bad though, remember? They didn't make any knowing choice and by all standards were therefore unaccountable.
The only knowledge that they had existed in the form of a command given by God. The fruit of that knowledge will have been the conclusions that were drawn based on it. After they internalized that fruit, they lost love for themselves (evidenced by shame) and lost faith in God's unconditional love (evidenced by fear). They became aware of the commandment in a new light and concluded that they were bad. They couldn't love themselves through their mistake, so they didn't expect God to either. That doesn't make any of it true!What it did make true, was that they were disconnected from God because they were disconnected from love. "God is love" (1 John 4:8). That means that they were dead! (Just like God warned - imagine that.)God, who is represented as a loving father biblically, then is strolling through the garden and doesn't see his children anywhere. Concerned (NOT enraged), he inquires (NOT booms), "Where are you?" If your own children were hiding because they had just painted their rooms with ketchup, you would still wonder where they were. If you were accustomed to their little voices and laughter, you might grow concerned by their silence.They were disabled and did not reveal their true selves to God, they did not stop believing the lies that they were telling themselves. They didn't truly come clean and open up. Rather than shouting "What have you done!!", God will have immediately known the consequences for their actions. If our children drank poison, we wouldn't flare our nostrils and shout. We would sound concerned and plugged in, "Oh no! What have you done?!" Why wouldn't God who paints himself as a parent sound loving and soft in his concern as well?Are the struggles found in our own childhood interfering with our hearing God in a functional way?God then tells them what was going to happen because of what they had done. Always concerned for them, and knowing the fig leaves not to be such a great covering for his shame ridden and fear filled children, he dressed them in animal skins.They will have passed their own dysfunctional thinking on to their children. In 1 John 3:11-14 the people were compelled by the author to love one another, and not to be as Cain, who killed his brother because his own works were evil. Hebrews 11:4-6 says that Abel's sacrifice was offered by faith.. BY faith. It was his faith that made his offering righteous. Cain lacked faith, and so his offering was a lesser sacrifice. In Jude 1:11, the "way of Cain" was to err in the likeness of Balaam for gain.Remember Balaam? His "ass" spoke to him, after he beat it. He was willing to be hired to curse Israel, though through him God would declare otherwise. He would find himself reciting words that very closely resembled that which God said to Cain, "God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? And has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19).("If you do well, is there not exaltation? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is toward you; but you should rule over it." Genesis 4:7)Balaam was originally interested in lying for Balak's wages. God's will superceded his own, not allowing him to do so. Rather, Balaam knew that God was not a man that he would lie.This lie about Israel's curse, will have had many more implications. Israel was enlisted as mediators (Priesthood) and rulers (Kingship) if they kept the covenant made with God.One of the first reminders to Israel by Jesus was that the law could be summed up in loving God and (the one "like" it), loving your neighbor. How could humanity, having been disconnected from love ever have kept the law?Cain, lacking in faith, would take the life of his brother similarly to Balaam's desire, so that he could have God for himself. Yet, what was this lacking in faith which drove the people of the bible to wish to obtain God for themselves? Is this not defined in the garden? Is this not the lack of faith in love itself?There was a grave need for reconnection and the good news was that Jesus was going to do it. A universal resurrection was to take place - just as death entered the world through one man, life would enter through another (Romans 5:12). Just as "all died" in the work of Adam, so "all" would be given life through and by Jesus (1 Cor 15:22). The world would not be disconnected from love eternally, a Savior had come. Death would be destroyed in that any validation that could be found in the law to believe the lie, was removed. Love actually fulfilled that law in demonstrating righteousness in contrast to it. The law condemned. Humanity was bound to sin and death through it. The entire point of that law was to make sin known, so that love might be known in comparison to it. It served its' purpose, so we are freed from it, and even by it.The law was understood as right living. It was the measuring stick for which humanity determined itself "good" or "bad". Love transcends "good" or "bad" in the very same way that we love our own children through their mistakes. Did God not demonstrate the same?The sin of believing the lie still abounds. The good news, is that since we were unable to go to God, God has come to us. We are unable to disconnect from God's warm embrace. If only for a fleeting moment, we might all feel that.
The only knowledge that they had existed in the form of a command given by God. The fruit of that knowledge will have been the conclusions that were drawn based on it. After they internalized that fruit, they lost love for themselves (evidenced by shame) and lost faith in God's unconditional love (evidenced by fear). They became aware of the commandment in a new light and concluded that they were bad. They couldn't love themselves through their mistake, so they didn't expect God to either. That doesn't make any of it true!What it did make true, was that they were disconnected from God because they were disconnected from love. "God is love" (1 John 4:8). That means that they were dead! (Just like God warned - imagine that.)God, who is represented as a loving father biblically, then is strolling through the garden and doesn't see his children anywhere. Concerned (NOT enraged), he inquires (NOT booms), "Where are you?" If your own children were hiding because they had just painted their rooms with ketchup, you would still wonder where they were. If you were accustomed to their little voices and laughter, you might grow concerned by their silence.They were disabled and did not reveal their true selves to God, they did not stop believing the lies that they were telling themselves. They didn't truly come clean and open up. Rather than shouting "What have you done!!", God will have immediately known the consequences for their actions. If our children drank poison, we wouldn't flare our nostrils and shout. We would sound concerned and plugged in, "Oh no! What have you done?!" Why wouldn't God who paints himself as a parent sound loving and soft in his concern as well?Are the struggles found in our own childhood interfering with our hearing God in a functional way?God then tells them what was going to happen because of what they had done. Always concerned for them, and knowing the fig leaves not to be such a great covering for his shame ridden and fear filled children, he dressed them in animal skins.They will have passed their own dysfunctional thinking on to their children. In 1 John 3:11-14 the people were compelled by the author to love one another, and not to be as Cain, who killed his brother because his own works were evil. Hebrews 11:4-6 says that Abel's sacrifice was offered by faith.. BY faith. It was his faith that made his offering righteous. Cain lacked faith, and so his offering was a lesser sacrifice. In Jude 1:11, the "way of Cain" was to err in the likeness of Balaam for gain.Remember Balaam? His "ass" spoke to him, after he beat it. He was willing to be hired to curse Israel, though through him God would declare otherwise. He would find himself reciting words that very closely resembled that which God said to Cain, "God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? And has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19).("If you do well, is there not exaltation? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is toward you; but you should rule over it." Genesis 4:7)Balaam was originally interested in lying for Balak's wages. God's will superceded his own, not allowing him to do so. Rather, Balaam knew that God was not a man that he would lie.This lie about Israel's curse, will have had many more implications. Israel was enlisted as mediators (Priesthood) and rulers (Kingship) if they kept the covenant made with God.One of the first reminders to Israel by Jesus was that the law could be summed up in loving God and (the one "like" it), loving your neighbor. How could humanity, having been disconnected from love ever have kept the law?Cain, lacking in faith, would take the life of his brother similarly to Balaam's desire, so that he could have God for himself. Yet, what was this lacking in faith which drove the people of the bible to wish to obtain God for themselves? Is this not defined in the garden? Is this not the lack of faith in love itself?There was a grave need for reconnection and the good news was that Jesus was going to do it. A universal resurrection was to take place - just as death entered the world through one man, life would enter through another (Romans 5:12). Just as "all died" in the work of Adam, so "all" would be given life through and by Jesus (1 Cor 15:22). The world would not be disconnected from love eternally, a Savior had come. Death would be destroyed in that any validation that could be found in the law to believe the lie, was removed. Love actually fulfilled that law in demonstrating righteousness in contrast to it. The law condemned. Humanity was bound to sin and death through it. The entire point of that law was to make sin known, so that love might be known in comparison to it. It served its' purpose, so we are freed from it, and even by it.The law was understood as right living. It was the measuring stick for which humanity determined itself "good" or "bad". Love transcends "good" or "bad" in the very same way that we love our own children through their mistakes. Did God not demonstrate the same?The sin of believing the lie still abounds. The good news, is that since we were unable to go to God, God has come to us. We are unable to disconnect from God's warm embrace. If only for a fleeting moment, we might all feel that.
The picture above was taken in a cave on the Little Sinking Creek. The Sheltowee Trace Trail, Daniel Boone National Forest, Lee County, Kentucky. The creek actually runs under the ground here and resurfaces down the creek bed a ways. This is a karst area where the water eats away at the limestone creating caverns under the stream beds where the creeks and streams disappear. The mineral formation looks like long extended fingers holding up the rock. I have seen the rare West Va. long eared bats in this cave as well as a few other caves in the area.
