Genesis 3
As beings made in the image of God
we have the ability to make free choices.
Only in this way can we experience truly meaningful relationships with
God as opposed to an imposed bondage.
Yet this is a high risk strategy for it demands the possibility that we
may choose to disobey our creator and put our own selfish desires first. And so it was that when Adam and Eve were
tempted by the serpent they chose to disobey God and eat the fruit of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil which he had expressly forbidden (Ge 2:17). The consequences of their disobedience were
disastrous, for in that one act of rebellion the intimate relationship between
God and mankind was ruptured. Now as God
walked in the garden Adam and Eve hid from him because they were aware of their
guilt as expressed in their sense of nakedness.
Also broken was the harmony between mankind and the created order as
illustrated by pain in childbirth and work involving sweat and toil. So Genesis 3 is a watershed and the rest of
scripture chronicles the disastrous consequences of sin’s infiltration into
every facet of human life and history. Ultimately God
would send Jesus to put things right again. He is the last Adam (1Cor 15:45) who, unlike
the first Adam, resists the temptation to disobey His Father’s will and so dies
on the cross to reverse the spiritual death that the first Adam’s disobedience
brought. By way of response
meditate on (and memorise) Jn 3:16.
(member of the congregation)