Continued
from the last episode
Text
of Interest:
“But
as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God.”
1 Cor 2:9 – 10 (KJV)
Case Study Text:
“And
so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was
made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is
of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.”
1
Cor 15:45 – 47 (KJV)
The negative attitude of the man
towards the instruction of God is an indication that he never believed God.
That is to say that his acceptance of the gesture from whatever the tree of
knowledge of good and evil stands for is his personal indictment on the validity
of the instruction of God and hence his disobedience to it. This suggests that
the instruction God gave to him is not worth relying or trusting upon and as a
result should not be believed. And if the instruction cannot be believed, it
means Adam had no faith in God. The sin of Adam therefore, is the sin of
unbelief. The only way the man would have found himself in God is to believe in
the words of God.
So faithlessness on the word of God
leads to unbelief and unbelief leads to condemnation, because it is through
believe in the word of God men are saved from destruction and eternal life is
given to them (Rom 10:8 -10). Adam’s refusal to accept the instruction from God
results that eternal life which was offered to him through the tree of life
could not be established in his life. And without eternal life no one has a
place in God and if one does not have a place in God one cannot be referred as
heir of God. Therefore, Adam was never a child of God according to God’s
eternal purpose that all men should become his children through the acceptance
of the tree of life (Eph 1:4 - 5). If Adam had believed in God and by
stretching out his hand to take the fruit from the tree of life and ate it, he
would have become the archetype that is perfectly made in the image of God from
whom other sons would have emanated into existence.
Now it is important to note that the
interest of the Serpent was on how well the man understood the instruction God
gave and also how well he understood the declaration God made to him. The
consistent method of the Serpent is to question God’s proclamation on the life
of an individual. People are engaged in this, they are often times tested or
tempted by the Serpent who is not fully unveiled at this stage, to know if they
are really in the know of what is being said about them. So what the Serpent
does is to say the opposite of what God has said at any time he confronts his
victims; and buttresses his position with glaring physical evidences that can
attract the heart of his victim. By this he weighs the understanding of his
victim as regards to God’s words over him or her and eventually his target
lacks the understanding of God’s word, he overcomes him or her. That was what
happened to the man and as he gave in to all his deceptive evidences and by the
time he knew what is on board he has lost his right.
Now before the man gave in and ate the
fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God forewarned him about the
consequence(s) that will result from eating the fruit. That is a demonstration
of God’s love on the man, He told him what will happen beforehand and not after
it has happened. If God came after the man had eaten the fruit and told him
about the consequences of eating the fruit, God would have been blamed for
whatever the result is but for the fact that He told the man and he willingly
went ahead to eat the fruit, the man is to be blamed for his downfall. The man
instead of taking everything that God said to him with caution what he did was
to handle it with all amount of laxity because he never believed in the things
that God said to him, if he had believed the curse wouldn’t have come.
There is something important for us to
note, when God created the man He gave him the right to make choice, which is
by implication the right to be master over his own life. This suggests that
whatever the man wants to do will definitely be within the whim of his will and
nobody can interfere without his permission. Here, the serpent penetrated the
man by promoting his self and making him to understand what he will gain and
what God doesn’t want him to gain. So it right to say that the man disobeyed
the instruction of God because of self. He wouldn’t like to lose self to God’s
will and as a result he went ahead to do what is good for self. So what God
wanted from the man is that he should willingly acquiesces his will to Him by
denying self but the man did the opposite.
To be continued…..
Till I come your way again, keep on
basking in the Arena of Indubitable Truth!
Chukwuemeka C. Asiegbu
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