Today’s text is coming from Genesis 3:22-23, “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.”
This is part of God’s judgment against Adam and Eve for their sin. When Adam and Eve chose to believe the serpent instead of God, everything changed in their life and in the world. However, what we see starting in the garden of Eden is that even in judgment God shows mercy. The penalty for disobedience that God had told Adam was death. God was speaking of both physical death as well as spiritual death, the separation and broken relationship between Adam and God. And that is exactly what happened. However, God would have been within His right as Creator and Judge to strike both Adam and Eve physically dead the moment they disobeyed. He could have chosen to allow them to continue making their own choices, and let them experience the consequences. Yet what we see in the garden of Eden is a preview of what God would do at the cross. Fully knowing that they had sinned, God came to Adam. God was pursuing Adam even though Adam had sinned. In an incredible display of mercy and grace, God made a sacrifice for Adam and Eve and clothed them with the skin of the animal sacrifice. But God knew that Adam and Eve, know that sin had come into the world, would continue to make poor choices. Therefore, God protected Adam and Eve from themselves by sending them out of the garden of Eden. Had they eaten from the tree of life after having committed sin, they would have been trapped in a permanent state of fullness, without chance of redemption and restoration. Yet we see God protecting them, while making sure that redemption and restoration remained a possibility not only for Adam and Eve, but for all of humanity.
While the story of the garden of Eden is a literal, historical event, it also teaches us some important truths that we see throughout the remainder of the Bible. First, God is gracious and merciful. He could have destroyed Adam and Eve and walked away from them, but instead in love, God pursued them, made a sacrifice for them, and protected them. In the story we see man’s pursuit of self-righteousness. Having realized that they had sinned, in an attempt to cover their sin up, Adam and Eve made a covering of leaves for themselves. But it was insufficient to cover their sin from the all-knowing God. Their attempts to make themselves right with God, and pretend that they hadn’t sinned, were completely inadequate. Therefore, we see God perform the first blood sacrifice of an animal for the purpose of covering Adam and Eve’s sin. This points us to the Law that would be given at Mt. Sinai to Moses, but ultimately it points us to the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross thousands of years later. At the cross, a sinless sacrifice was made so that sinful mankind could be redeemed and restored to a right relationship with God. In this way, this story also reveals the exclusivity of salvation being from God. Only God’s sacrifice could atone for Adam and Eve’s sin. The same is true for you and I. Only faith in Jesus’ death in our place can atone for our sins, redeem us, and restore us back to a right relationship with God. This story also shows us that God must judge sin. Because He is holy, He cannot look on sin without judging it.
One of the biggest takeaways from the text apart from understanding the method and mode of salvation is that we must understand the seriousness of sin. We cannot look the other way or downplay sin. However, when others sin hurts us, this story also shows us the standard we should use. We should be as merciful to them as God has been to us.
Let us thank God and praise Him for His great salvation, but let us also strive to show grace and mercy to others as God has shown to us.
By His grace and for His glory,
Pastor Justin