From peace to rivalry, from joy to gloom, from fearlessness to fear, from unity to enmity,
from hope to hopelessness, from calm and order, to chaos and anarchy – that describes
the scene in the Garden post the Fall. Sin disrupts all that was good. A bondage of
corruption that has left the created world in futility and in the pangs and agony of
childbirth, awaiting the redemption of the sons of men, and the liberation that comes
by Divine Decree and Sovereign Grace alone.
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Burying the Disgrace of Sin under Flimsy Leaves until
God by His Inner Voice strikes our Inner Conscience.
God loved them and they loved God.
Also, the man and the woman loved one another. It was a great joy for them to be
together.
This too was very good. The man and the woman loved their world and their
work. The earth was a blessing for them, bringing forth all kinds of good things, and the
man and the woman were a blessing for the earth as they joyfully tended it with love
and care. During those days, in the beginning, there was peace on earth everywhere,
even in the hearts of the first two human beings. Then the man and the woman sinned
and there was no longer peace.
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In order to have a better comprehension of the contrast the Scriptures paint between
the First and the Second Adam, in terms of their works and their persons, and in order for
us to understand the extent of our depravity in the First Adam, we need to have a
comprehension of the Person and Works of the Second Adam, to understand the greatness of salvation which is found in Christ alone.
At this stage, before the Fall, Adam and Eve had listened only to God. There were no
other voices; there were no other influences. Up until this point God has provided
everything Adam and Eve had needed and now in the Garden a test of their loyalty to
God arises. And their conscious decision to disobey God has disastrous consequences
on Adam and Eve, on their relationship with God, on all who will come from their seed
and on all of creation. Destruction, disaster and death enter upon the disobedience of
the first man and his wife.
Today our primary concern
then is with Adam in the Garden, and God making for Him a helper suitable for Him, as
per God’s sovereign design.
We commence at chapter 2:4 (of Genesis) today, which introduces a new section of the primaeval history of the world.
In six days God formed and then filled the earth, and in Sovereign and Omniscient
Wisdom our God leaves the dazzling creation under the rule of Adam and Eve.
Our concern for today is particularly to see the display of God and
man in the beginning, particularly as we consider God as the Prime-Mover, Man-Maker,
Great-Positioner, and Responsibility-Giver in Genesis.
This is the second occasion in our expositions of the Book of Genesis that we have moved
beyond the Seven Days of Creation and considered some other portions of Scripture
also still within Genesis. Our first move beyond chapter 1 was to consider God’s dealings
with His servant Jacob and we find ourselves now once again beyond the bounds of
chapter 1 considering the life of Joseph.
Providence and Sin: I want us to consider the Display of God’s Providence and
Sovereignty in the lives of His Servants during unexplained times of suffering, and I would
like to start off by asking how the providence of God works in the context of man’s sin.
Does providence even come into play? Are the two in any way influential upon one
another? Or is there no way whatsoever in which the pure and holy providence of a
righteous God can be in direct contact with the low, mean and vile sin of man? Now
before we even do that, let us first consider what these two big words mean.
We have seen thus far, that the Sabbath Institution or Lord’s Day is a creation ordinance
and that from the very beginning, right at the outset of creation, God set aside one day
in seven for worship and rest. This, God instituted, for all people everywhere and at all
times to observe. And we have also learnt that the first purpose of the Sabbath is given
that we may rest.
After six days of forming and filling, God comes to the seventh day upon which He rests.
And we need to see that this seventh day was significantly different from all the others
that had gone before.
