What is your take on the whole ejection from Eden? When you read it in Genesis 3, what do you think? In that moment when Adam and Eve, images of God, are barred from the garden, what feelings does that conjure up for you? For me, it conjures up a scene from the book, The Count of Monte Cristo.
In the book, after the Count has been gracious to everyone that was kind to him before he was wrongfully imprisoned, there is a turning point. There is a drastic change of character and pace and story. For revenge is about to be enacted. This is what the Count says before he launches himself at his enemies with an unsurpassed violence.
"And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude. I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked."
I used to imagine that was how God felt when he kicked Adam and Eve out. That He was enraged and disgusted and overwhelmed with the desire to hurt them. And in the midst of all those negative thoughts, I missed the unbelievable tenderness of the verses.
You probably did not miss it, but I did. I failed to see that by barring Adam and Eve from Eden he was loving them. By preventing them from entering, He was creating a way for them to find Him in the end. For if they ate the tree of life, they would live forever and be apart from God forever. In verse 22, God says, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." They would never die, never know His embrace again.
So the ejection from the Garden wasn't hatred. It was death, because in this case, death was a gift, the gift of one day being reunited with the Lord that loved them enough to allow them to die.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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12 comments:
Wow.. I never thought of it like that before. I've always thought of it more like they had to be punished, so God had to do it, because they had become sinful and could not be in his presence. It was always merely something that had to be done. That was very thought provoking.
I missed the tenderness for a long time too. An old man I played the story for in Africa got it right away, though.
http://mmm-belly-may.typepad.com/mmmbellymay_days/2008/04/storyteller.html
Never thought about the ejection from the garden in that way.......wow......
Interesting thoughts. I honestly got kind of fixated on the flashing swords, which lead me to think about World of Warcraft, which inevitably lead me to thinking about other things.
That is a cool take on it.
I remember when I first read this passage to my then 4 yr old. She immediately wanted to know how long Adam and Eve would have to be in 'time out' before God came back to get them!
Dude...I have never heard it like that before...it's like light shining down on my though cloud! very thought provoking indeed.
oh and I think you need to consider getting a myspace.
just something to think about
Ahhh, yes. But remember, that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." And the Word knew that He had our backs.
Wow. I NEVER got that til now. WOW. Thank you.
WOW, and thank you
I referenced this in my post "The Fall of Family" at my blog- http://kathy-on-sol-3.blogspot.com
Thought you should know.
I've studied that point before.
Its great really.
So wonderful
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