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This Chapter 13 by Gary Harbo
Chapter 13. The Gospel Message
Christ was the fulfillment from God of all that He had been foreshadowing during the previous 4,000 years. Let’s begin this part of the study by analyzing what actually happened in the garden of Eden. God had told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from any of the trees in the garden except of course, the tree in the middle of the garden. This was the tree of knowledge that opened our eyes (knowledge or conscience) to good and evil. We all know what happened. The woman told Satan that they were not to eat from this tree. She even messed up the command by adding to God's word that they were not to touch it either.
Genesis 3:2-3 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”
However, God gave us free will, so Satan slipped in and has been taking advantage of us ever since. He is the great deceiver. Remember, the best lies are the ones that have some truth cleverly laid in the beginning of the argument, while the deception lays quietly hidden in the slippery slope of the whole argument. Let’s see how Satan accomplished this.
Genesis 3:4,5 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Let’s study the deception in that statement. It is a perfect example of the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” At that point in creation, we lived in a perfect world, all things worked as God had intended. “It was good.” That means that we were to live forever in the beautiful garden in perfect harmony with the animals, while walking with God. Our every need was taken care of. Life was eternal and good. There was no evil known to mankind. But of course, when it comes to evil, we are all ears. When the woman heard from Satan that she surely wouldn’t die, she believed him. She fell for the first lie, and upon eating the fruit, she was given the knowledge of good and evil and she didn’t die. At least not immediately, but she unknowingly lost her immortality and would someday experience a physical death. She then told Adam that he too should enjoy this wonderful fruit. Being a good mate, he followed her advice and chomped into the delicacy. Their eyes were opened to evil, and they immediately became ashamed of their thoughts. They feebly made fig leaf coverings for their bodies and hid in the garden from God. They were afraid, because they knew they had disobeyed God.
So there you have it. The first sin was made by a woman listening to the great deceiver. It has been happening to men and women ever since. However, before men get righteous and say that we were led down the path to deception by listening to women, remember this: the woman was not there when God created all of the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air. Therefore, she did not actually see God in action during the creating of these creatures. Adam was! Adam knew the full power of God and all the glory of His power. In fact, Adam was given the task of naming each creature that God formed out of the ground and brought into Adam’s presence. Adam was obviously there when Eve was created from his rib. Eve didn’t see the big picture, but Adam did. He totally blew it by eating the fruit and disobeying his Creator.
How did our loving God respond to the first sin? As He always does. He reached out to Adam and Eve as they were hiding in the bushes in fear. He knew where they were and what they had done. He is, after all, omniscient (He knows all) and omnipresent (He is everywhere). They were afraid to go to God, in the midst of their sin, but God in His infinite love, reaches out to contact them where they stand, guilty in the shame of their sin.
Genesis 3:19 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
So how did the first two sinners respond to the truth? The same way we have been responding ever since; by blaming others.
Genesis 3:12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
Did you notice that Adam not only blamed the woman, but he also had the gall to deflect some towards God. “The woman whom You gave to be with me.” He claims it wasn't his fault; there were others to blame. We've been trying to do that ever since.
How did the woman fare regarding taking responsibility?
Genesis 3:13 And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
She was ducking the blame just as miserably as the man. So what about Satan’s deceptive statement “You will not surely die?” After all, they were alive to tell about it. Well Satan deceived them into thinking that the fruit of the tree was a good thing and that there would be no cost to this knowledge. Wrong! We have been paying for it ever since. When Adam and Eve both ate the fruit, they they lost the right to eat from the tree of life which would have given them immortality. Til this day, from the moment we are born, we begin the act of dying. Thank you very much Adam and Eve. Especially you Adam, since you have no excuse.
Now that evil was in the flesh, how did God respond? Just as God always does, with a plan. God is omnipotent. He knows all. He knows the end from the beginning, so he knows us better than we know ourselves. Therefore He unveils His plan for salvation at that very moment in the garden. God tells Satan that his victory will be temporary, and that in the end, God will prevail. Satan will strike the heel, but God will crush the head of the serpent, and of course, that is the only effective way to kill a snake (the picture of Satan). God even gives Satan a peek at His plan.
Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity [mutual hatred]
Between you and the woman [Mary],
And between your seed and her Seed [Jesus];
He shall bruise your head, [break the reign of sin by redemption of all believers through the bearing of sin on the cross]
And you shall bruise His heel [the death on the cross].”Ephesians 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him [The plan was salvation through the blood of Christ] before the foundation of the world [the plan was created before the beginning of our world] , that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined [we all were predestined with the opportunity to be saved through the plan] us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself [those who appropriate the plan will be adopted into the body of Christ], according to the good pleasure of His will.”
2 Timothy 1:8,9 "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus [Christ dying for our sins is the plan] before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
All the info inside the [brackets] are my notes. So, in the very first book of the Bible, God has laid out a plan for our salvation through Jesus Christ, His Son. He immediately tells us that we need to cover our sins with a blood sacrifice. For the first time there was now death and shedding of blood which came from the animal skin that Good provided to cover Adam and Eve. He does this so that we may know when the Messiah comes to redeem us, it will take His blood to cleanse us from our sins. Let's look at the passage that specifically says that blood is required as payment for sin.
Genesis 3:21,22 Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
So before we were created, God had already come up with a plan to buy us back from our poor choices. Given the fact that He created us with free will, He knew we would eventually make a poor choice. God, in His infinite wisdom, created a plan to redeem us from our poor choices. This was His “Plan of Salvation” and He bore all the costs. It was His gift to us.
Ephesians 2:8,9 For by Grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
There is nothing we can do to pay him back. If we try to work for a gift, then it is no longer a gift and we have offended the giver. If we tried to earn our way into heaven, that would be like telling Jesus, “thank you for dying on the cross, but I prefer to do it my way.” This of course, is impossible. It took the perfect sinless life of God in the flesh to pay the cost for sin. We cannot pay it. It is impossible! In fact if we try, Paul tells us what the wages will get us.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So God knew that we were going to mess up and He had the plan to redeem us. I know it is hard to get our mind around it, but God knew this before He created us. You see, God is not bound by time. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows us like a book, because He wrote the book. Remember, He created us. Again, God is omniscient. He knows the beginning from the end, so he knew us better then we knew ourselves. All He requires from us is faith! We must believe in our heart, that Christ died for our sins, and that he arose from the dead. This is called “the gospel,” and it certainly means what it says. It is good news! Paul clearly tells us the gospel.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Morever, brethren, I declare to you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and the He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,”
Now right here in the garden at the judgment of the very first sin, God tells Satan that his victory will be temporary, and that in the end, God will prevail. Satan will strike the heel, but God will crush the head of the serpent, and of course, that is the only effective way to kill a snake (the picture of Satan). God even gives Satan a peek at His plan.
Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity [mutual hatred]
Between you and the woman [Mary],
And between your seed and her Seed [Jesus];
He shall bruise your head, [break the reign of sin by redemption of all believers through the bearing of sin on the cross]
And you shall bruise His heel [the death on the cross].”
All of the info inside the [brackets] are my notes. So in the very first book of the Bible, God has laid out a plan for our salvation through Jesus Christ, His Son. He immediately tells us that we need to cover our sin with blood. He does this so that we may learn and remember that when the Messiah does come to redeem us, it will take His blood to cleanse us from our sin. Let’s look at the passage that specifically says that blood is required as payment for sin.
Genesis 3:21,22 Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”
This tells us two things. For the first time in creation, blood has been spilled. This happened when God took the life of animals to make skins to cover Adam and Eve. Through this blood, their sins are covered. This is a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. We will always be in sin while in the fallen world, however the blood of Christ will cover our sins from the judgment to come. He will make us righteous in the eyes of God. The other thing that it tells us is that we could have continued eating from the tree of life and lived forever, if we had not taken evil into the flesh. So at that point God tells the angels that we are now knowledgeable about good and evil and therefore we must not be allowed to eat from the tree of life any longer. Upon leaving the garden we begin the process of dying.
Those days of eternal life are now gone, until Christ comes a second time. The first time Christ came to cleanse all believers through the blood of His flesh.
1 John 1:7 ...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The second coming of Christ will be to give us the new bodies of righteousness that will live forever. The second Adam (Jesus) did what the first Adam was incapable of. This is great news for the followers of Christ, but it is terrible news for the deceivers. For all unrepentant sinners will be judged by Christ and thrown into the lake of fire. Those that have not taken Christ into their heart are not cleansed with the blood of our Savior, and they will not be redeemed and sanctified. They cannot deceive their way out of the judgement, because Christ will judge the heart. There is only one option for salvation and that is repentance and turning to God through the blood of Christ. The cross is the one and only answer.
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Click here if you'd like to read chapter 9
Click here if you'd like to read chapter 11