FAITHWALKERS OF GENESIS: ADAM (1)
Regarding what the Lord Jesus requires of Christians, we have the benefit of ancient Hebrew history. We can discover from their example the spiritual definition of obedience. We can know what honors the Lord and what does not.
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The origin of what Biblical historians call Yahwism, which many centuries later developed into the rudimentary forms of early Judaism, began with a few solitary men wandering in vast open wilderness regions and barren deserts. The population of the planet was a small fraction of what it became in later ages, and a man could wander for great stretches and never see another. Such boundless open scenery and limitless night skies, ablaze with distant starlight and an ever-phasing meandering moon, set loose the imagination of these nomads and awakened cosmic wonder regarding Creation. Some paid more attention than others.
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
Many centuries earlier, after the fall of Adam and Eve and their banishment from the garden, they wandered in the wilds for 130 years on a subsistence diet doing whatever they must to survive. They had been separated from God by sin and severed from communication with Him, and their own relationship with each other was no doubt often strained to the point of breaking. Every day brought another reminder of their calamitous disobedience and rebellion, and how the new god they had chosen had abandoned them soon after and caused disaster. Adding to their torment, Adam and Eve’s good son Abel, the one from whom the Messiah would have descended, had been murdered in his relative youth over a century before.
Amid this dismal backdrop, we have a better understanding of the depressing condition of Adam’s protracted life in exile. After long decades of worry and introspection, and vainly seeking an unknown undiscoverable land of comfort and rest, if only a brief oasis, Adam at last surrendered. There in the midst of a stark and unforgiving landscape so unlike the wonderful abundant garden of his early memories, he found a place of repentance: He got right with God. As the fruit of obedience, joy returned, and they were immediately blessed:
Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, “God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD. [Genesis 4:25-26] [1]
© 2017 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Posted on November 8, 2017, in Teaching and tagged Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, Judgment, Lord Jesus, Obedience, Repentance, Seth, Sin and Rebellion, The Sinai Desert Experience, Wandering in the Wilderness. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Now we live “as foreigners and strangers in reverent fear”. Or at least we should be learning to in our generation… Thanks
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Thanks Gary. It was easier for the ancients. They were much closer to the awesome displays of pure nature around and above them and could more readily see the Creator’s signature. Today’s world is generally far too easily distracted, meaning we have to work harder at learning to…
Be Blessed.
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The Patriarchs of Genesis have always fascinated me. Here are some thoughts on Enoch from my High Plains Drifter blog:
Enoch: The Seventh from Adam
Genesis 5: 21-24: “And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not, for God took him.”
Hebrews 11: 5: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”
Jude 14 & 15: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
How did Enoch walk with God? How can someone be spiritually intimate with the Lord before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Very little is written about Enoch. According to the Bible, Enoch lived 365 years; the last 300 years of his life Enoch walked with God. The number 365 is significant. There are 365 days in a complete year. Enoch living 365 years is a foreshadowing of the complete man of God (man of faith or man of obedience).
Recently I have heard of a pastor who preached that Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, not because they sinned against God, but because they did not repent of their sin. Scripture never tells us that Adam repented of his sin or that Adam walked with God after he and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. So why was Enoch different? Enoch was born with Adamic Sin. How did Enoch walk with God?
Enoch, no doubt, offered the required blood sacrifices unto the Lord for his sins and the sins of his family. This was before the Law, the Prophets and the New Testament. Not only did Enoch, by faith, offer an excellent sacrifice unto the Lord, but I believe, that Enoch truly repented of his sin and believed on the finished work of the cross before the fact.
Faith in God transcends time and space. The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13: 8): somehow Enoch knew this truth from oral tradition or from revealed knowledge. He put his faith in the coming Messiah, died to self-will and was able to walk with God.
Enoch, by faith, was translated and did not experience death. Before he was translated, his testimony was that he had pleased God. It is only by faith (obedience) that we are able to please God.
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Thank you Tim, for a thought-provoking comment on an often neglected subject. Actually, though, the numbers tell us that Adam did repent, 130 years later. He would still have been removed from the Garden whether he repented or not, but that did not mean ongoing relationship with the Lord was not possible.
He spent the last 800 years of his life back with the Lord, though out of the Garden and not yet in heaven. The number 8 is indicative of resurrection, regeneration, and a new beginning.
Great to hear from you again. Hope all is well. Be Blessed.
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