Here in this passage is revealed the
awareness that God is overall. He is
the one who saves us from our time of calamity, as well as from our condition of
sin and death.
God knew what would happen long
before it ever came to be. Which raises
a question of why? If God knew (or
predicted) what would happen to mankind before it ever happened, then why did
He let it play out the way it did?
Why
did an eternal God permit this battle between good and evil, light and dark,
and then sacrifice Himself on a cross to redeem us back to Himself? Couldn't there have been easier ways to save us?
Considering
the nature of human beings to be the head and not the tail, a leader instead of
a follower, we were faced with a dilemma in the garden of Eden, we were chosen
by God to have dominion over all creation, except for one thing, which was the tree
of life in the center of the garden.
That was reserved for God alone.
Why would God put the tree of life there in the middle of the garden of
Eden unless He had already predicted what His creation (man) would do.
There was contentment for Man in following
God and walking with Him in the garden during the cool of the evening, but there was a sense that
there was more, something that was being withheld, what was it to be like God? What was it like to bear the burden
of creation itself and know what it means to sit as God in the heavenlies? These were the thoughts that crept into the
mind of Adam and Eve.
These
thoughts were not conceived in a vacuum, these thoughts came from a high-minded
angel named Lucifer, who’s sole purpose before he was removed was leading and creating worship of God
in the heavenlies. He had great
influence over many angelic beings in the plane of existence which was his
reality. It was when He saw the creation
of man that Lucifer saw an opportunity to take power away from God and become
Godlike in the creation. The interesting
thing to note here is that Lucifer did not want to be God himself, he only wanted
equality with God, a shared Godship so to speak. This concept appealed to a portion of the angelic community
as well, so Lucifer unveiled his plan for co-equal Godship.
God saw this as a prideful attempt by Lucifer to usurp His power and position which God chose not to share with angelic beings, but instead made mankind to be the recipient of this power,
this is why the tree of life was placed in the center of the garden and not in
some far-off unseen heavenly place.
Lucifer, in
his anger against God rebelled and took great exception to God’s plan which he
saw as a waste of time and resource which could be better used by the angelic
community to bring the Godlike nature to them, after all, they were already worshipping
God and singing Gods high praise, this would be a short move to sharing
the throne of God as well, or so they thought.
God responded
to Lucifer’s pride and decided that his place in heaven was compromised and his
worship was tainted with pride and ambition and was no longer a pleasing aroma
to God but carried with it the foul stench of rebellion.
God removed Lucifer from heaven, through Lucifer’s influence he took a
third of all of the angelic beings with him and they were all castigated and assigned to the earth.
Which is where mankind was given rule over all of the created order.
Adam and Eve
would have obeyed God and have avoided the tree of life in the center of the
garden, if it weren’t for the influence of Lucifer (now called Satan)
attempting to deceive Eve by the same argument he posed in Heaven for which he was
removed, “you can be Godlike if you eat the apple from the tree of life”.
Justification for this thought entered into Eve’s mind “It would be good to
be like God, knowing good from evil.” So she took the bait and then gave
it to Adam. In taking the bait, all
legal right to man’s dominion over created order was transferred over to Satan
and to the angels that followed Him to earth.
The plan was simple, now mankind had to die because the penalty for sin was death, Satan knew this
and thought that this would be the ultimate revenge upon God by corrupting His
creation by not allowing him co-equal Godship. God predicted this outcome and
knew that the only way for man to come to the full knowledge of who God wasn’t
by observing the outward manifestations of obedience alone, it was much more
than that, for there had to be a penalty.
Man still had to die, but by
receiving the death of Christ Jesus as our own death, (our scapegoat) God could provide
the appropriate sacrifice for sin, not by man's effort.
It is when we come to the cross of Jesus and reckon ourselves dead to
sin, and receive the free gift of God’s sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we
can be made alive in Christ.
What Satan
meant for evil, God meant for Good so that man could be redeemed through the
sacrifice of Christ Jesus.
This doesn’t
remove Satan and his demons from the world, they are still here and are still angry
because they still want equality with God, that has not changed and their
time here on earth is short to attempt to accomplish this impossible feat.
It is when we
are restored to a right relationship with our heavenly Father that we can once
again assume dominion over all creation and remove any demonic force that tries
to usurp control over God’s creation from a rebellious heart and speak the blessings and the affection of God over everyone and everything we encounter.
When we speak from a changed heart of obedience to Christ and release the
heart of God over all of creation that same change takes hold of creation. Satan
hates this because it establishes God’s plan for mankind in its fullness and
excludes him.
God
predicted that He (Himself) would have to be the sacrifice (penalty) for sin to save mankind from dying in their sins. This
was the only way to assure that man had an opportunity, a way out of sin without having to physically
die as Jesus did on our behalf.
As we die to our old sinful nature and reckon ourselves dead to sin, and
receive Jesus’ sacrifice as our penalty, it releases a new life (a resurrected life) of Christ in us.
This is the why in the question above, the Lord is our Savior. He is the only one who can not only save us from ourselves but also from the effects of sins that so easily beset us.
Be Blessed;
Stephen
Barnett
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