In order to maintain that fellowship, God instructed the man and the woman regarding the trees in the Garden of Eden. They could eat of all of them except for one special one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did eat of that tree, they would die. They did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus sin was introduced into Eden, right into the environment in which the relationship was to take place. They brought it right home.
Sin was introduced, and it destroyed the relationship, and so God drove them out. God drove them out. Practically every picture or painting you see shows God kind of leading them out. No! He drove them out! It implies a punishing anger, that their relationship was broken. Right at the very beginning we have a huge major principle: Sin destroys relationships. That is the principle. Sin produces separation.
To understand this a little bit further, it is good to understand that at the heart of sin the central concept is a sense of failure. It is a specific kind of failure, or a failure that produces a specific result, a specific fruit. Genesis 2 and 3 teach us that sin is a failure to maintain a relationship - first with God, and secondarily with man. Sin produces separation - first with God, and secondarily with man. Eventually sin produces death - the first death, and the ultimate separation from which there can never be a relationship, the second death.
In addition to being separated from fellowship with God, they were also separated from the tree of life and access to the Holy Spirit.
A very clear progression is shown in this story of the breaking of Adam and Eve's relationship with God:
Genesis 3:24 says that the tree of life is guarded. The Holy Spirit is guarded. We understand that symbolically, making it very clear that our way back to the tree of life and access to the Holy Spirit is not going to be easy. In fact, it is impossible! No human being is going to get past a cherubim.
If we think of these things literally, do you think you are going to challenge a cherubim? Do you think that somehow you are going to catch him asleep, that you can sneak around him? Do you think that you can overcome him with all your muscular strength and your great intelligence, or maybe whip him with a sword? Impossible! That is the whole lesson.
There is no relationship possible with God until He removes the barrier. He then personally and individually invites us to come back. Do you wonder where is the come back? We never had a relationship with Him before. The thought is that we were separated from Him through the sin of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had a relationship with Him. Adam and Eve represent all of mankind. Therefore, in God's mind, we had a relationship, but we busted it in the person of Adam and Eve. And so God invites us back to have a relationship with Him.
God causes us to be drawn into a relationship with Him. He is in this beautiful Parkland. Symbolically, that is where He lives, and He removes the cherubim, and says, Come back to Me, and you can have access to the Tree of Life.
We have to be close to Him. Are you getting the picture? That is the key to growth in the Holy Spirit.
I will try to follow through with this to show how we can draw near to God and be so close to Him that His Spirit flows to us. If we can just understand it, that we are in His presence. It is that close, and because we are in His presence and there is no barrier separating us from the Tree of Life - He is the Tree of Life - we can imbibe of it, and because we do, His mind will be in us.
Sin was introduced, and it destroyed the relationship, and so God drove them out. God drove them out. Practically every picture or painting you see shows God kind of leading them out. No! He drove them out! It implies a punishing anger, that their relationship was broken. Right at the very beginning we have a huge major principle: Sin destroys relationships. That is the principle. Sin produces separation.
To understand this a little bit further, it is good to understand that at the heart of sin the central concept is a sense of failure. It is a specific kind of failure, or a failure that produces a specific result, a specific fruit. Genesis 2 and 3 teach us that sin is a failure to maintain a relationship - first with God, and secondarily with man. Sin produces separation - first with God, and secondarily with man. Eventually sin produces death - the first death, and the ultimate separation from which there can never be a relationship, the second death.
In addition to being separated from fellowship with God, they were also separated from the tree of life and access to the Holy Spirit.
A very clear progression is shown in this story of the breaking of Adam and Eve's relationship with God:
Genesis 3:24 says that the tree of life is guarded. The Holy Spirit is guarded. We understand that symbolically, making it very clear that our way back to the tree of life and access to the Holy Spirit is not going to be easy. In fact, it is impossible! No human being is going to get past a cherubim.
If we think of these things literally, do you think you are going to challenge a cherubim? Do you think that somehow you are going to catch him asleep, that you can sneak around him? Do you think that you can overcome him with all your muscular strength and your great intelligence, or maybe whip him with a sword? Impossible! That is the whole lesson.
There is no relationship possible with God until He removes the barrier. He then personally and individually invites us to come back. Do you wonder where is the come back? We never had a relationship with Him before. The thought is that we were separated from Him through the sin of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had a relationship with Him. Adam and Eve represent all of mankind. Therefore, in God's mind, we had a relationship, but we busted it in the person of Adam and Eve. And so God invites us back to have a relationship with Him.
God causes us to be drawn into a relationship with Him. He is in this beautiful Parkland. Symbolically, that is where He lives, and He removes the cherubim, and says, Come back to Me, and you can have access to the Tree of Life.
We have to be close to Him. Are you getting the picture? That is the key to growth in the Holy Spirit.
I will try to follow through with this to show how we can draw near to God and be so close to Him that His Spirit flows to us. If we can just understand it, that we are in His presence. It is that close, and because we are in His presence and there is no barrier separating us from the Tree of Life - He is the Tree of Life - we can imbibe of it, and because we do, His mind will be in us.
Let's begin in Genesis 3. I want to show that exile is a form of punishment that God has used from the very beginning. Here in Genesis 3, in the book of beginnings, we have the first instance of exile imposed by God Himself.
Exile from the Garden of Eden, from all that was wonderful and good that God had created in that perfect environment in which He had placed Adam and Eve and they couldn't go back, ever. God placed an angel with a flaming sword that would turn whichever way we - man - juked to get back, and it would deny us paradise for now.
This context shows three reasons we can glean to determine why God uses exile. The first one is very evident - it was punishment for their sins. Look, you guys took the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when I said you shouldn't take of it. That's sin. That's breaking a direct command of God. So exile was the punishment.
What else is here? Well what did their exile do? It separated them from access to Him. So the second thing that exile does is separate man from God. Now He doesn't like that. He doesn't want to be separated from us, but because of sin, it just happens. It has got to happen because He does not like sin in the least. So it's kind of a corollary to the first point. The first point is directly because of sin and the second point is to separate us from Him.
The third point is one you have to read into it, but it's obvious from the intent and the way God is. God imposes exile to spur repentance because it should be the natural inclination of men who have known God and all the glorious things that we can have in His presence, to get back into His good graces.
So the first point is we are exiled because of sin. The second point is we are exiled because we have to be separated from God. And the third point is because God wants us to repent.
God, once again, had to react violently - because of sin. He had to cut them off from Him and from eternal life, which was symbolized by the Tree of Life. He did not want them to face the same consequences that faced Satan the Devil. Satan had chosen the way of sin. Here, this new creation, Adam and Eve, had chosen the way of sin again. But God had an immediate remedy for the situation. He did not solve it, necessarily; but it was a stop gap measure. That is, death. Mankind can die. And so He blocked the way to the Tree of Life, so that He could resurrect them at another better time and repair the gap - repair the breach.
So, He was able to stop the process from going to its ultimate conclusion, which would have been the same as what had happened with Satan the Devil - eternal separation from God. And so this violent act of thrusting them out of the Garden, and guarding the way back with this flaming sword wielded by an angel, was a good thing. It was kind. It was loving. It enabled Adam and Eve to repent one day, and to have eternal life. So God's violent actions, in these cases, are not evil. They are actually good for mankind. Let us notice God's reasons, here, for doing this.
That succinctly says what I just mentioned. What it did was that it opened their eyes. They knew the good through God, because that was all that He had taught them. But now they had other avenues of pursuit - the evil side. They were no longer innocents. They had real choice - to choose, not just what God offered but what Satan offered. And He said, We've got to make sure that they don't become immortal, until they are ready. And so He closed off the way to the tree of life.
The Governor - the Government - reacts by making a judgment and issuing a sentence. So we see here that another purpose, or responsibility, of government is to enforce its rules. We also see the warning that, because of law , the process toward disorganization will be sped up. That is what we begin to see, especially in those things regarding the curse that came upon Eve and then Adam. Especially the one with Adam - cursed is the ground for your sake.
We are beginning to see the fruit of disobedience to government - the process of disintegration, of disorganization. The movement toward chaos will be increased incrementally by the disobedience of the government, let us say, that is in power. Now, in chapter 4, we see a similar occurrence. We will not go through that, because it is very similar to chapter 3. But I want you to note that what we have here is a very clear record in regard to government, and we are only in the fourth chapter of this most important of all books.
This encapsulates the effects of sin. It is separate from God. Adam and Eve wanted to hide themselves from God. Their perspective on the things of life had changed. Now we find that because of these things, God does this:
Now the separation is very clear, and mankind is cut off from God and cut off from the Holy Spirit. The episode there in the garden of Eden, as it is recorded, makes it very clear that it was mankind that took themselves away from God, not the other way around. There are no indications in Genesis 3 that Adam and Eve wanted the breach to be healed - not at all. All they did was justify themselves. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.
Not only were Adam and Eve and their progeny separated from God and removed from dwelling with Him in the Garden of Eden, they were also separated from the source of life - the Tree of Life! The tragic results are very clear there for anyone to see! God simply and clearly expounds upon the result of sin. Next we have an example involving Cain and the curse coming upon him.
