Relationships

Evil enters in.

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1The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

2“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3“It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

4“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5“God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” Genesis 3:1-5

When evil enters the picture it starts with lies. Evil calls into question what God has said. Evil always tests our grasp on God — who God is and what God has said. Will we diminish God in our lives by eroding His Word – either by taking from it or by adding to it?

Then the outright confrontation comes. “You won’t die!” “Your eyes will be opened.” “You will be like God.”

The serpent presents God as one who is holding out on them, who can’t be trusted. The serpent presents the experiential knowledge of evil as a necessary prerequisite for being divine, complete, and powerful. He lies.

The consequence of separation

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15The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—17except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:15-17

To hold the power of life and death in our hands is almost unimaginable. But that power is exactly what God announced to adam. “If you eat [of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] you are sure to die.”

God is the Source of life. To remain connected to Him is to live. To remain in His Word is to live. To remain in Him is to live. The choice to remain in His communion was given freely to adam. It was a choice of life and death.

When I cut a head of lettuce from the garden and leave it on the porch, it will die; it will rot. It is corruptible. So it is with the created ones. Separate from The Source of our life, we rot, we die. Life diminishes and death reigns.

God laid out the consequences of independence from Him. For Adam and Eve the power for life to its fullest was already available to them. The power for life was not in this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Trust was the currency of their power; They were already truly powerful in the communion of God.

Your love choice.

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15The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 16But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—17except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:15-17

This tree of the knowledge of good and evil appears to be the problem when we look back through the lens of our suffering and evil. Why did God do this? The tree is the hinge on which love turns. God created humanity with capacity and opportunity to choose love. So it is with the “image of God.” Love maintains a mixture of awe and respect with trust. Love cherishes the other. Love enters communion. These are all choices. Without “the tree” there are no choices and humanity resides in the garden as automatons, puppets on a string, acting only within a predetermined script.

Just as relationship within the communion of God is dynamic; so relationship between God and those who bear His image is dynamic.

Love for God is to live in respect to God with trust in Him and in His Word. The image of God has been bestowed on us and with it comes both capacity and responsibility to choose.

Relationships without shame.

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18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

21So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

23“At last!” the man exclaimed.

“This one is bone from my bone,

and flesh from my flesh!

She will be called ‘woman,’

because she was taken from ‘man.’”

24This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

25Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. Genesis 2:18-25

Shame hides. Shame creates a compulsion to hide either by overdoing togetherness or separateness. Shame is an enemy of communion. But shame is not the product of separateness or of union.

No shame. We have difficulty imagining such a condition.

God intended for Adam to discover his aloneness or difference from the creation. I believe the naming process created an awareness of self and of the other; or perhaps I should say the naming process engaged Adam with the stuff of earth and created the awareness in Adam of the absence of the “other” who was “just right for him.”

When Adam saw the woman, he recognized and rejoiced in her. His poetic explosion highlights their connection and their separateness. True communion must be permeated with the grace of God; it is the condition required for the strength and glory of an eben-ezer (strong help) to be received and cherished without fear, guilt, or shame. In the backstory of the Gospel its hard for us to imagine relationships without shame.

Created in the image of God.

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26Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

27So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

28Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  Genesis 1:26-28

The Christian view of humanity before the Great Catastrophe is glorious. God created people. He created people with capacity for relationships, love, and authority.  And God blessed them; He set before them the abundance of earth and set before them the opportunity to delight in Him and in each other and the diversity of creation.

Humanity carries within a fundamental and qualitative difference from the rest of Creation. They have been made “in the image of God.” They have been bestowed with a character representative and related to the Creator separate from the rest of Creation. Yet they are distinctly connected to the Creation for they have been endowed by God with capacity to rule and to choose.

But perhaps more importantly, humanity was created with a capacity for knowing God and living in communion with Him through loving responsive to Him.