The Good News

Man died.  This was the finality of sin.  Yet, what did it mean for Man to Die? 

Man’s death meant that we were now sinners (and therefore would continue to commit sin); we were recipients of God’s wrath; we were enemies of God; we were lost; we were resistant to God; we were offenders against God and we were judged and condemned. 

Only if all of these conditions were turned around fully would Man be Alive again.  

The fig leaves weren’t sufficient to solve the problem and neither were the tunics of skin.  This was only a temporary covering of their shame, but not good enough to give Life to Man again.  Isn't it strange that to a large extent, Man has not understood his predicament even today, nor has he understood that none of the items he uses to cover himself can ever give him Life again? 

All of Man’s achievements, successes, attainments and accomplishments put together, cannot give him Life. 

Someone, who had no personal sin, had to become Man and take Man’s sin on himself.  Since Man’s sin was to be placed on Him, this person would become a recipient of God’s wrath, would become an enemy of God, would be rejected by God and would need to be judged and condemned to death, by God, in place of Man. 

Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God was that person.  Jesus died, just as Man died in the Garden of Eden.  This was the extent of Jesus’ love for you and me.  Yet death could not hold Him and He rose again.

Man’s predicament had been solved for all of time.  Nevertheless, each person born on this earth needs to make a personal choice to repent of his/her sin and receive the solution that Jesus alone provides.  The individual will need to receive the Life of Christ by dying with Jesus on the cross by faith and rising with Him.

Jesus died in Man’s place so that we should no more live for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and rose again.  Without death of our selves we can never expect to live out the Life of Christ.  Sin is wrapped with our self and therefore the self must go.  We are crucified with Christ, but we now live because it is His Holy Spirit, who is now living through us.  This is a constant faith experience. 

This is the Holy Spirit walk that enables us to manifest the Christ life.  It is in this Spirit walk that we are taken back to the initial relationship that we had with God when He created Man.  The old has gone the new has come.  We are now prepared and reinstated to take our designated places as co-rulers with God.  We reign with Him though He holds the title deed.  He is the owner of all of creation and we are His steward-rulers.  All of creation is eagerly waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. 

As we walk this Holy Spirit walk, we seek the coming of Christ’s Kingdom and His will to be done on earth.  We wage a spiritual war against principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age in order to pull down spiritual strongholds and usher the Kingdom of God here on earth.  We are hastening the coming of the King, who will establish His eternal Kingdom here on earth. 

This is the Good News!

The Fall

The sad story of the Fall of Man is too painful to comprehend, but examine and understand the ‘Fall’, we must!  For therein lies our hope for a turn-around to fullness of life.

The tree and its fruit was surely a topic of regular conversation for Adam and Eve, since Eve was thorough on every aspect of the command of God - not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

Every time they discussed the tree and all that it represented, it should have sent them into a deeper measure of worshipful awe of the Creator.  Sadly, the story reveals that this was not to be.  There seems to be an ebbing away from a passionate love relationship with God to a mere obedience of Him out of fear of the consequences.  God created Man so that God and Man could be in a deep, passionate, love relationship with each other.  Man’s obedience to God was to be an expression of his love for God. 

The story discloses to us that there was an emotion, bordering on resentment, welling up within Man towards God.  God never told them not to touch the tree, but the manner in which this incorrectness is added in their response to the serpent, reveals a heart that seemed ready to rebel against God.  Should they not have been strong, firm and accurate in their response to the serpent?

Why was it ‘their’ response and not just Eve’s, to the serpent?  The fact is, Adam was there, throughout the conversation between Eve and the serpent. This was not a dialogue, as it appears, but a trio-logue, except that one party was a silent participant.  

Why would Adam be silent during this most crucial conversation concerning Life and Death for all of creation? The answer is too heart-breaking.  He was a participant of the gradual change of heart towards God.  He too was bent on rebellion.  The fact that Adam remained silent during this conversation reveals a plot to provide a way out for him, if this objective to eat the fruit, should all go wrong; which was proved later!

Does it surprise us then, that they ate the fruit?

Eating the fruit sealed the Fall of Man.  Till the time of actual disobedience, there was still hope of coming back to God, renewing their relationship with the Creator and growing into His likeness on a daily basis.  At the Fall, Man died.  It was finished. 

There was now a separation between Man and God, which no one could bridge.  God alone had to save Man, who was doomed.  

The Marriage Vows

As Adam woke out of his deep sleep, he knew, without a doubt, that the person, whom God was ushering towards him, was his wife. 

In a moment of great realisation and intense joy, Adam knew that the colossal emptiness in his life was now over and he burst into spontaneous and brilliant poetry.  What Adam pronounced in that exquisite moment were the first marriage vows.  Rightly so, isn’t it?  Only the marriage vows would be fitting for that moment. 

God instituted the husband-wife marriage relationship, but it had to be the man, who had to initiate and pronounce the marriage commitment.  The relationship of marriage was a covenant built on the commitment that Adam pronounced.  It would be wise to look closely at the major themes within the marriage covenant. 

Woman is a unique creation of God, but made out of man.  The husband is made complete by the woman, whom God brings into his life.  Similarly, the wife is made complete by the man, whom God brings into her life.  This completeness consists of every element of their personalities.  It includes their physical makeup, their emotional build-up, their intellectual development, their social capabilities, their spiritual growth and their relation with the environment.  Therefore, the husband and wife, in total abandon, give themselves to each other in order to make the other complete. The husband does not selfishly seek his own completeness through the marriage relationship, but he desires to make his wife complete.  Similarly, the wife’s desire is to make her husband complete. 

For the husband and his wife to give themselves to each other in total abandon, requires for them to delink from every other previous relationship.  There remains a mandate though, for the husband and his wife to be responsible towards all of their previous relationships.  They now ensure that these responsibilities are conducted within and through the development of their own covenant relationship with each other.

To nurture the husband-wife covenant relationship, they both are always in a state of celebration and romance.  Yes, there will be differences, but every issue that causes a spark will result in them being drawn closer and growing fonder of each other.  The sexual celebration experience is looked forward to with anticipation and excitement. This experience is reserved exclusively by God for the husband and his wife.  The husband and wife therefore protect each other from falling prey to temptation in the area of sex.  They guard and nurture the sexual celebration experience within the marriage covenant. 

Marriage is instituted by God and under His authority, wisdom and strength we are bequeathed to enjoy great marriages. Let us not, foolishly, cast away our inheritance.  

Marriage

It was God who said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him”.  If this is what God decreed for the most intimate of all human relationships – marriage, between one man and one woman - then this is how human society should be knit. 

   

In this unique and beautiful relationship of marriage, man and woman find their fulfilment and happiness. Since this is a God-instituted human establishment, Satan is determined to do everything to attack the institution of marriage and bring it to ruin. He wants to look at God and say, “Look how effectively I have destroyed the most beautiful human relationship that You set in place!”

So, to strengthen and build the marriage relationship, mere human answers will not suffice. Spiritual solutions are required.

There were three important, interlocking principles that God put in place for a joyful marriage relationship. The first principle is to enjoy friendship and companionship between and with each other.  God saw that man was alone; and so would a woman be – alone - without a man. God knew that they needed companionship. However, man and woman cannot cultivate their friendship and companionship with each other without being God-dependent.  At no point can a man or woman take this principle for granted as it will result in a breakdown in marriage. Isn't it evident from the fact that a man and woman can be husband and wife for several years, yet be so distant from each other?

Secondly, they are helpers of each other. Neither one can insist on a superior position in the marriage relationship. They help each other to accomplish God’s purpose for them in marriage. Adam was assigned a task and Eve joined in with him to discharge God’s mission for them. To be helpers to each other, they constantly need to deal with their egos, reckoning themselves dead with Christ. Do we not see how ego clashes are destroying marriage relationships?

Thirdly, they are comparable to each other. Comparability refers to being as good as each other. Roles, therefore, are shared and supported in a marriage.  Comparability marches alongside the truth that men and women are created uniquely different and they bring their uniqueness into the marriage relationship, completing the image of God. The traditional role assignment for men and women in marriage is a fallacy. Men and women need to submit and rely on the Holy Spirit in order to shed long-established viewpoints on marriage.   

God’s heart breaks when He sees our marriages breaking up.     

Wholeness

Man’s life began with God.  Man was formed from the dust of the ground and it was God who breathed His breath into the nostrils of Man and Man became a living being. This was not just physical life but Man was now, whole and truly alive.   This wholesomeness for Man included his spiritual, mental, social, physical, ecological and personal well being. All of Man’s wholesomeness lay rooted and rested in his relationship with God.

In order for Man to continuously affirm for himself that he needs to be in relationship with God, God placed a tree in the middle of the garden.  Man was instructed by God not to eat of the fruit of this tree.  It was a crucial dynamic for Man’s wholesomeness.   Every time Man passed the tree, they were reminded of their relationship with their Creator. They would say, ‘no’ to eat the fruit of the tree and by doing so, affirmed for themselves, creation and to the Creator, “We choose to be in relationship with God”.  Man by choice, chose to remain in relationship with God and thereby experienced and enjoyed, wholesomeness. 

We see what this meant to God.  God’s heart was pleased with Man.  He watched them rejecting to eat the fruit, every time they passed the tree.  The communication from Man to God was, “God, we love you and we choose to obey you”.  Man was in a love relationship with God and Man demonstrated his love for God by rejecting to eat of the fruit of the tree.  The result - Man continued in his wholesomeness. 

Along with the instruction to Man, not to eat of the fruit of tree, God also warned them, informing them of the consequences.  The warning was that the day they ate the fruit of the tree, they would surely die.  The death here meant that they would be separated from their relationship with God.  The result of separation from God was that Man would break down and the wholesomeness that Man experienced and enjoyed because of his relationship with His creator, would end.

Man was not ignorant of the consequences of his choice.  The choice that Man made to eat the fruit of the tree did not happen as an impulsive act. It was DELIBERATE.  Man chose and still chooses to rebel and reject a relationship with his Creator. In doing so, Man breaks down.  This is what we see in us and all around us.  We are a broken people and we resemble Humpty Dumpty. 

Sin, therefore is deep and total.  Sin is rebellion against God and Man is in sin because we are in rebellion against our creator.  There is no superficial, band-aid remedy for the problem of sin in Man, which has caused Man’s broken down state.  Man’s condition is terminal and Man by our own effort cannot restore relationship with our Creator and regain wholesomeness. 

Man is now both helpless as well as hostile toward God at the same time.