PARADISE - LOST AND REGAINED
The Internet has been both a boon and a blight. On 11 May 2000 a lady found a new e-mail message on her computer, which simply said, "I love you". It looked innocent enough, perhaps even romantic. Like most of us would, she clicked to open the message, and the so-called "Love Bug" was born. With lightning speed it raced around the world, bringing politics and business to a halt. It was a deadly computer virus that caused millions of computer software programmes to crash. One virus, but so much contamination. But it’s not the first time that a single virus has caused so much grief to mankind. In fact, it’s a kind of replay of a deadlier virus that hit Planet Earth more than six thousand years ago polluting the first human couple, Adam and Eve. Despite God’s warning not to click on to Satan’s message, they did so with appalling consequences for them, and through them to all mankind. That virus is called "Sin".
Scripture clearly intends us to accept that they were the founders of the race of human beings that God created in his own image. The genealogies in the Gospels trace the human race back to Adam. Jesus himself taught that "at the beginning the Creator made them male and female" (Matt 19:4). The apostle Paul told the Athenian philosophers that God made every nation "from one man" (Acts 17:26). The several billions of human beings now living on Earth share the same anatomy and genes, all pointing to a common ancestor. It’s what Adam did in rebelling against his Creator and what God did in response that has shaped the course of history, and that affects each one of us. It’s impossible to understand the chaotic state of the world and it’s tragic condition unless we understand how mankind moved from Paradise to Paradise Lost.
Planet Earth is God’s creation and he made it a perfect world. The whole story of the human race can be summed up in terms of what has happened because of Adam and what has happened and will yet happen because of Christ. God created Adam in his own image as a perfect man as the zenith of his creation. Adam, together with Eve, was placed in a wonderful estate somewhere in the Middle East, in all likelihood, near the Persian Gulf. It was named "the Garden of Eden". It was a perfect environment, in fact Paradise. And what a wonderful life it was for the first couple! They didn’t have to earn their food by the sweat of the brow - just to pick the fruit! God had placed them in a beautiful garden. Adam was the park keeper, the estate manager.
It was all sheer enjoyment. There was no evil, no cause for unhappiness at all. It was a place where God talks with man. The highpoint of the day was when God would come to meet Adam "in the cool of the evening" and have fellowship with him. God had made man in order that he might have this companionship. Man would also benefit for being made in God’s likeness he needed communion with his Maker. It’s been said that man has a "God-shaped gap" in his make-up. It was a state of perfection - a state of innocence - a state of perfect bliss.
At the centre of the Garden were two trees - the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. These were to be crucial in the relationship between God and man. The trees were God’s reserved territory, standing as a symbol of God’s supremacy over his creation. The "knowledge" Tree represented "deciding for oneself what is right" - "doing your own thing" without God. It’s the morality of humanism where "anything is right" if it suits you.
It’s seen in the pollution of the Earth’s precious environment in the cause of greed. It’s the scientist who tampers with creation in experimenting with the human embryo and the wanton killing of the unborn for social reasons. It was at this point that the freedom of human life is limited by one prohibition. Adam and Eve were told quite clearly that the trees were "out of bounds". The trees were not to be touched. God had established a moral boundary in the divine command "You shall not eat".
God has set moral boundaries for our good. And if we over-step those boundaries, the word comes to us as it came to Adam and Eve, "In the day that you eat of it you shall die." The prohibition not to eat of the Tree wasn’t a harsh restriction, but rather given for the good of our first parents. Freedom without bounds can all too quickly become destructive. That’s why we tell children not to play with matches! True liberty is only found within bounds. If you have a goldfish in a bowl and somehow it gets "liberated" from its water, it won’t survive long in its new-found freedom! Adam and Eve were told that their continued life of bliss depended on obedience to the word of God.
This was a risk that God took, as there was the awful possibility that the freedom God had given the human couple might be expressed in disobedience. Part of the freedom of the Garden of Paradise is the freedom not to trust God, and when taken it becomes the doorway to the loss of freedom itself. Why God created the world with the possibility of man’s Fall is a question we ultimately have to leave within the mystery of God. However, for a time all was well and yet there was menace in the air!
There now appears a new character in the human story - the serpent. This reptile was the agent or the tool of Satan. The serpent was Satan incarnate, the Devil. Scripture declares him to be a real personality. He is described as "the god of this world" (2 Cor 4:4), "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph 2:2). He is the powerful being who lives in a world of lies and deceit, aggression and retaliation. He is still alive and well on planet Earth.
Adam and Eve were faced with making a choice between God and the Devil. The temptation came in the form of the voice of the snake; the cover for the supernatural evil being called Satan, the Devil. The voice of temptation was cunningly disguised as one who was trying to be helpful to Eve. First there was a reflection upon the goodness of God. "Where is your freedom when God has prohibited the fruit of a particular tree? Why should he keep you from this delicacy?" It’s typical of Satan to focus upon the single prohibition and ignore the bountiful provision that God had made.
The Devil then became even more subtle in his temptation in questioning the accuracy of what God had said: "Has God said this?" Then once the seed of doubt had been sown, he added "and don’t you realise that God has said this to keep you bound?" That was the seed of discontent. They had previously realised that they were dependent upon God the Creator, but now they began to dislike this and wanted to be equal with God. "You shall become as gods": that was the inviting prospect laid before Eve. Isn’t that just what Satan tells the world of today? "Mankind has come of age! You don’t need revealed religion any more! Cast off the superstitions of the past and do as you please!" It was a blatant invitation to disobey God.
Eve swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker. We’re told that "She saw … she took …" She was no longer guided by principles and truth, but instead followed her own desires - and it was too late! It wasn’t long before Adam followed her example. Obedience had given way to rebellion and suddenly their wonderful world of Paradise crumbled. There was a sense of shame. Their eyes were opened. The Devil had said "they should know" and so they did - grief, sorrow and shame. And what’s more, they lost their self-esteem. Their relationship was over. Where previously they enjoyed fellowship with their Creator God, his presence in the Garden calling out to them now made them uncomfortable, even a threat. It was a defining moment in human history.
Human beings are not like animals. We are a higher order of creation, made as responsible beings that have to face God. Our first parents hadn’t realised this, but they had to and they did! God cannot be evaded. The world doesn’t realise this, but it will at the Day of Judgement. "Adam, where are you?" The time of reckoning had come. God pronounced the sentence that was made known to them when they made their choice. There was now going to be strife between "the seed of the woman" and "the seed of the serpent". And that has been the history of mankind ever since - wars, troubles, and unhappiness between nations, communities and families. But not only that, the natural world was to be blighted - weeds, thorns and thistles would present mankind with a constant struggle in obtaining a living. There would be a fight against illness and infection, and ultimately, death itself. There’s only one explanation - it’s Paradise Lost!
Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden. We’re told that cherubim and a flaming sword stood in the way of their returning to take of the tree of life. It’s ironic that mankind having lost Paradise should ever seek to regain it by its own efforts. It’s been tried in terms of different systems of government - monarchy, capitalism, social democracy and communism. But they’re not the answer. Social scientists advocate more education, better housing and enhanced life-style. That’s fine, but self-help doesn’t work on a spiritual level. The human race has never been so well educated, but that hasn’t solved its problems. People once believed that the world was getting better. "Enlightenment and brotherhood," they said, "would usher in a new age." But what do we actually see? Ethnic cleansing, hatred, war, greed and selfishness. There’s an escalation of disease, especially AIDS, the mistreatment of children and the alarming increase in drug abuse and crime.
Man himself is man’s biggest problem! A cartoon has well depicted this. It shows a scholarly man sitting on top of a great pile of books, looking at himself in a mirror, and above his head a question mark. He has mastered every subject of learning, but could not answer the problem of himself. The infection of sin has warped our natures so that they erupt in selfishness and greed. There’s no way back to Paradise in that condition. The cherubim represent the presence and the holiness of God and the flaming sword is his law and justice. The Ten Commandments condemn us because we don’t and, in fact, can’t keep them.
It’s been bad news so far, so here is the good news! I’ve sketched out the Garden of Eden story. You could well ask, "Well, that’s interesting, but that must have taken place at least 6,000 years ago, perhaps even more, but what is its relevance to me in the Third Millennium? What’s it got to do with me?" I have to tell you that what happened there is very apposite to all of us. When God cursed the serpent, meaning the Devil, in the Garden, he added some very significant words, "The offspring of the woman … will crush your head and you will strike at his heel." I don’t know what Adam and Eve made of those words, but it’s a promise of hope for the future. Although the guilty pair was expelled from Paradise, the Creator God hadn’t given up on his creation. No, he declared his love for them. "I will do something … I will send a Redeemer." The picture is that through a man, the serpent that had been instrumental in the downfall of man, will itself be crushed.
There is a way to regain Paradise - and this is the Christian message. Sir Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Battle of Britain pilots - that "so many owe so much to so few". Those famous words need to be slightly adapted when we think of what God in Christ has done. It is that "so many owe so much to only one person". How can that be? The apostle Paul devotes a chapter in his letter to the believers at Rome to demonstrate the principle that many can be affected, for good or ill, by one person’s actions. He presents Adam and Jesus as the respective heads of the old and new humanities. He argues the case that it was through one man, Adam, sin entered the world. The result of that sin was death, and so death came to all because all share in Adam’s sin of self-assertion and deviation from God’s command. That’s the bad news.
The good news Paul writes is that Christ’s self-sacrifice on the Cross brings eternal life to all that come to Jesus in repentance and faith. The apostle’s logic is to see it in terms of cause and effect: "Just as the result of one (Adam’s) trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness (Jesus on the Cross) was justification that brings life for all men" (Rom 5:18). Paul then confirms the message in terms of Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience: "Just as through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Christ) the many will be made righteous" (19). The wonder of the Gospel is that, although we were once "in Adam", we can be "in Christ"! The hymn writer put it so well: "O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came".
The Gospel story begins right back in that fateful day in the Garden of Eden at the Fall of man. God said to the Devil in speaking to the serpent: "the seed of the woman … he shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heel". These words have been called "the protoevangelium" or the first glimmer of the Gospel of redemption. The words reach out over the many generations of the human race until the Advent of Jesus. They are summarised so beautifully by Paul in writing to the Galatian believers, "When the time was fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons" (4:4,5).
Christ was that "seed of the woman". This is a most unusual expression. The word "seed" is used over 100 times in the Bible, but always in connection with the male, never with the female. The explanation is that Jesus was born of Mary alone. The Gospels tell us that his was a virgin birth: "he was conceived of the Holy Spirit" (Matt 1:18). Jesus was uniquely qualified to be man’s redeemer. This is made clear in a classic quotation: "If he had not been man, he could not have redeemed men. If he had not been a righteous man, he could not have redeemed unrighteous men. And if he had not been God’s Son, he could not have redeemed men for God or made them the sons of God."
The First Adam, the representative head of the human race, brought mankind under the power of evil, but Christ, the Second or Last Adam, is the representative Head of a new humanity of the redeemed. In my opening illustration I said that the computer virus could be likened to "sin". Thank God he has provided an antivirus - it’s called the Cross of Jesus. It cost Jesus his death on the Cross, a sacrifice, the atonement for sin. There’s a faint picture of the principle of sacrifice in the action God took in providing Adam and Eve with clothing: an animal was killed for its skin. It began a sequence of sacrifices that culminated in the once-for-all sacrifice of his life at Calvary.
The way is now opened again to "the tree of life". Fellowship is now restored with the Creator God, the Father. The potency of death is defeated. In the old Adam we all die, however, in the Last Adam, we have eternal life. Hear the witness of Jesus to Martha who was sorrowing over the death of her brother: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." Hear the witness of Paul: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive." Isaac Watts put it like this in his great hymn, "Jesus shall reign where’re the sun" - "In him the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their father lost".
The Genesis story began with Paradise, but because of man’s sin it became Paradise Lost. God’s purposes for this world will ultimately triumph. The last book in the Bible, Revelation tells of a new heaven and a new earth. The apostle John saw in his vision: "the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven." He heard a voice saying: "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God." (21:2,3). This is Paradise Restored!
How can we regain Paradise? We have nothing to do but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to come to him in repentance and faith in his saving work on the Cross on our behalf. This is Paradise Regained. Make sure you are there!
