Lessons From Adam and Eve #1

After God had created all things, verse 31 of the first chapter reads, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” It was given to man to rule the animal kingdom, to have dominion over all creatures. It was also given seed to plant vegetation. All of it was given to man’s benefit and use. Any resemblance in all the animal and plant species is not the result of some natural development from one lower form of specie to another higher form of life. Instead, it was a reflection of the power, style, and creativity of the designer.  Rather than seeing similarity and concluding that one evolved from another, the similarity is due to the work of the same designer. Adam and Eve demonstrated the crowning display of His creativity by designing a physical body with a divine image and likeness.  We must not confuse the combination of the physical and spiritual by assigning God with a physical form.  Jesus told the woman at the well that God is a spirit, and while He may present Himself to humanity in a physical form (Jesus Christ), He is not restrained by the limits of physicality.  He is everywhere, all-knowing, and all-powerful that only a spirit being can fulfill.   When describing Jesus of Nazareth, we have difficulty describing how he can be both God and man.   After Jesus left John, the Immerser, in the waters of Jordan, He was led by the Spirit within Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.   His response to the temptation of Satan was the opposite of Adam and Eve.   All three had a human body.  All three were tempted in similar ways — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (cf. 1 John 2:15-17).  But, Adam and Eve did not have the same capacity to handle the temptations in the same way Jesus responded to them.   There is an obvious reason, and each condition represents the extremity between no discernment and full discernment.  Adam and Eve were like children. They lacked discernment between good and evil, and the Hebrew writer likens this ability to discern between good and evil to the full-grown mature person (Hebrews 5:13-14). The knowledge of good and evil or the consciousness of sin and its consequences was found in the eating of the forbidden tree.