EPICALLY PROFOUND
The following bullet points are taken from the book The epic of Eden.- If humanity would simply acknowledge the innate authority of the Creator, would recognize that they were tenants and stewards in God's garden, they would live in paradise forever. But if they had to have access to every part of the garden, if they had to "be free" to choose their own rules and decide for themselves what was "good and evil," if they had to be autonomous of the authority of the great King, then they would die. The choice was autonomy, the covenant was broken and the curse was enacted.
- Adam is the collective Hebrew term for "humanity."
- Adam and Eve are free to do anything except decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. Yahweh reserves the right (and the responsibility) to name those truths himself.
- This was Adam and Eve's perfect world. An entire race of people stretching their cognitive and creative powers to the limit to build the society of balance and Justice and joy.
- The blessing of this gift? A civilization without greed, malice or envy; progress without pollution, expansion without extinction. A world in which Adam and Eve's ever expanding family would be provided the guidance they needed to explore and develop their world such that the success of the strong did not involve the deprivation of the weak. Here government would be wise and just and kind, resources plentiful, war unnecessary, achievement unlimited and beauty and balance everywhere.
- Yet, as with all covenants, God's perfect plan was dependent on the choice of the vassal. Humanity must willingly submit to the plan of God. The steward must choose this world; for in God's perfect plan, the steward had been given the authority to reject it.
- The first aspect of Eve's curse involves childbirth. The second aspect of Eve's curse: Genesis 1 makes it clear that Eve was designed as Adam's co-regent. In every fashion Eve is presented as Adams equal in Genesis 1. But with the fall, this mutuality is shattered.
- With the fall this ideal partnership was transformed into the competitive grappling of two hungry souls. They still desperately need and desire one another, but they are no longer able to live their lives together with the same mutuality. Rather, they are now locked into a competitive relationship, each vying for control of the other, contending for the resources that now appears so transient.
- As Adam had the advantage of size and strength, and Eve was still constrained by her desire for hearth and home, the centuries testify to the fact that Eve's longing for her husband will too often result in her willing participation in her own oppression and abuse. A relationship that should have been characterized by mutual self-sacrifice, productivity and joy will create instead the deepest of frustration and pain.
- There is not a marriage on this planet that has not felt the Aftershock of this curse.
- Adam's curse: Adam was a farmer. He was meant to have full Joy in this role because every plant he touched, every inch of soil he tilled, bore exactly the harvest he desired, and more. But with the fall, Adam's authority over the cultivatable land was shattered. Adams careful and creative tilling of the Earth became toil, that at times was more than he could bear. And worse, the land could be fruitless. Adam's curse was not work, it was fruitless work.
- The Earth rebelled against humanity as part of the fall.
- Genesis 3 we see that because of the rebellion of the earth and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from God's presence, humanity will now live their lives in an adversarial world with a constant, knowing undercurrent of dread that there will not be enough, that their labor will not meet the need. This is the curse of Adam - limited resources an insecure future in a world that no longer responds to the commands of humanity.
- The ones made to rule the cultivatable Earth will now become fertilizer for it. That's perfect order has been turned upside down.
- The loss of the presence: Genesis 3:23-24 therefore the Lord God sent [Salah] him out from the garden of eden... so He drove man out; and at the East of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
- The final scene of this heartbreaking drama is that Yahweh drives his children from his presence, and the place that Adam and Eve were privileged to protect is now protected from them.
- Adam has lost yahweh, and now the people of God will live in exile from both his place and his presence. The verb in verse 23 salah is the same verb one uses to divorce a wife or disown a child. By their own choice, Adam and Eve are separated from their creator.
- The seven days turned upside down: what we've seen in the curses of Genesis 3 it's not merely the spewing of random penalties in response to a bad decision, but the reversal of intended benefits. Those made in the image of God and designed to live eternally will now die like the animals; the earth, which was designed to serve will now devour; the bringing forth of life will now produce death. In other words, the perfect seven-day structure of Eden has been turned upside down, thrown into a tailspin by the treason of God's stewards.
- Romans 8:19-23 for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of god. For the creation was subjected to fertility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of god. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the spirit, even we are selves grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
- This text is reiterating what Genesis won through three has already taught us, that God's first perfect plan was cast into futility by Adams choice. Therefore the entire creation (over which humanity had been given) "not of its own will" but because of Adam's.
- In sum, when the stewards of Eden are returned to their proper place in God's perfect seven-day structure by means of the recreative power of redemption, when their treasonous choice is reversed, so too will the cosmos be" freed from its slavery to corruption," and returned to its pre-fallen state.
- We are not merely waiting for our personal deliverance, we wait for the day when all of creation will be" born again."
- And what is the "freedom of the glory of the children of God"? The passage tells us it is "our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." In other words, the sign that our redemption is accomplished is the moment that our death-ridden bodies are resurrected into the ongoing state of eternal life.
- According to Dr. Meredith Kline, this text in Romans communicates that the adamah (ground or Earth) is as repelled by Adam's presense within it as we are. Adamah is groaning in childbirth even now, longing for the day when the child is delivered, when Adam is raised up from the dirt" our adoption as sons the redemption of our body." Romans 8 makes it clear that the goal of redemption is far broader than the simple salvation of the individual. Redemption is a cosmic plan of cosmic proportions. God's plan is that all creation will be "saved" from the effects of sin.
