THE age of innocence, as far as we can tell, was but a short one. Of its exact duration the Scripture does not inform us, but, from the inspired history of the human race, the opinion has been formed that man failed at once, and that the first age came to an end on the first Sabbath day. Be its length what it may, the rest of the Creator was soon broken by man’s sin, and from that day until now, these words of the Lord Jesus, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:1717But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. (John 5:17)), hold good; for sin and misery have called forth from the day of the fall, continued activity in mercy and grace from the God of love. But though the Sabbath of the Creator was broken into “There remaineth... a rest to the people of God.” (Heb. 4:99There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9).) It is the divine purpose, that there shall be a rest, into which man, redeemed from sin, shall be brought. As God could look upon His created works after the six days occupied in creation, and say of what He had wrought, “It is very good,” so shall He look upon His work of redeeming love in the new creation, and shall rest in His love, and all His people shall enter into that rest.
When God made man, He made him in His own images and after His own likeness. Man was God’s representative, and had His character stamped upon him. Now, through the entrance of sin into the world, man has fallen far from this high representative character; he is debased and degraded; the likeness is, we may say, almost lost, though in such qualities of human nature as are noble and excellent, we may still trace the fair remains of that which sin has not utterly obliterated.
In some parts of the earth, man has sunk down almost to the level of the beasts that perish―he has fallen from his first estate to one of ignorance and savagedom. In other parts where paganism prevails, and where his intellectual powers remain in full vigor, man’s morality is of the lowest kind. The history of man upon the earth relates the steady decline from his first estate. Where man is left to himself, to work out his own will, usually he falls lower and lower into shame and degradation. Our readers, having reverence for holiness and righteousness, do not esteem the increase of scientific knowledge without true morality as progress. It is mere folly to speak of man continually rising up to a higher standard of morality from an original semi-savage condition; man’s history denies this, and in Christian nations, with the spread of infidelity, there is a spread of iniquity, there is the sinking back of which we speak.
When God made man in His own image and likeness, man, as the creature of God’s handiwork, was at his highest elevation; but, though man has fallen, God has not altered His purpose regarding him. We find in the New Testament the words “likeness” and “image” occurring again, and in the grew future all God’s redeemed people shall beat the image of His Son and be like Him. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:4949And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Corinthians 15:49)); “Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:20, 2120For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:20‑21)); “We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him” (1 John 3:22Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)).
The Lord God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and so he became a living soul. He gave life to the brute creation, and a soul to the beasts that perish, but man’s life was breathed into him by Jehovah, and so he was created an immortal being. The body formed out of the dust of the earth might return to the dust, but the living soul could never die. Modern science makes but a poor show of progress, when it announces man’s origin to be no higher than the jelly fish, and his end no greater than a dog’s!
Man, as made by God, was notable for wisdom. He was fashioned by his Creator to hold communion with Him, as to which our present-day-science knows absolutely nothing. In our own time man boasts much of knowledge, but wisdom is greater than knowledge. Knowledge is the result of learning, wisdom springs out of the soul intuitively. After the Lord God had made all the varied creatures on the earth, He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof.” (Gen. 2:1919And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. (Genesis 2:19).) He named them out of the spring of his wisdom (a very different thing from results arrived at from the labors of science), and what he named them, that God received as the suited description of them.
In the New Testament we read of “the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:2424And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24).), for God is unchangeable; His purpose is that out of the family of man there shall be those created in Christ after Himself. “New creature” (Gal. 6:1515For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. (Galatians 6:15)) is the characteristic of true Christians, and as Adam was the head of the first race, so Christ is the head of the latter race.
God placed man in the rest of His Sabbath in paradise. In those early days work was not connected with the sweat of the brow, with fatigue or hardship, as is the case since the fall; but when the day of glory dawns for the redeemed, they shall rest in the rest of God, and there will be for each and all, work for God and for the Lamb― “His servants shall serve Him.” (Rev. 22:33And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: (Revelation 22:3).)
Thus, the purposes of God, respecting men, are found at the end as well as at the beginning of the Bible, and indeed the great principles that are recorded in the early chapters of the book of Genesis, are those which we see rising up again in the full revelation of the New Testament.
We have observed that God made man wise at the first, and that when he fell he did so willingly and with open eyes. “Adam was not deceived.” (1 Tim. 2:44Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)). The serpent, in his subtlety, addressed himself to Eve, tempting and deceiving her. He found entrance into her heart through the gates of her senses: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes.” Her taste and sight yearned after the forbidden tree. Satan appealed to her with the insinuation “Hath God said?” and, giving, ear thereto, the fatal seed of infidelity was sown in her heart. She transferred her homage of the Creator to the voice of a creature, and listened to his word. Her mind followed her sight; she esteemed it as a “tree to be desired to make one wise.” That it would make one wise she knew before her temptation, but the desire to be made wise by it, in defiance of God’s command, was her sin.
“Hath God said?” has echoed in the soul of every transgressor against God’s word, from that day till now; it is ever the beginning of departure from Him. In our own day, christendom’s infidelity develops from this germ― “Hath God said?” to grow and increase till it shall ripen into “God hath not said,” and the apostasy foretold shall be present.
Then Eve “took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Gen. 3:66And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Genesis 3:6).) Here we see the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which “is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:1616For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (1 John 2:16)) so well known, and so characteristic of the fallen human race. By hearing man fell, by hearing he is saved; by eating he died, by eating he lives. (John 6)
Thus it was that man fell from his first estate, and the springs of his being becalm polluted by sin. He had a conscience, received the knowledge of good and evil, but no power to rise above the evil.
One of the first consequences of the fatal change that had come over man, was his terror at the voice of God. Maybe, it was the evening, as we have hinted, of the first Sabbath, and the Lord God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. He made voice heard, but that sound was no longer to man the sweetest music. The Lord was calling for Adam and his wife, and they, in their terror, had hidden themselves among the trees of paradise.
Receiving no response, hearing no hastening steps, the Lord God called to Adam, “Where art thou?” and he, unable to refuse the call, said, “I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Sinful fear of God and hopeless efforts to hide himself from God, have marked man’s history ever since that day.
Upon being obliged to confess his sins to God, man sought to throw upon Him the burden of his sin― “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:1212And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Genesis 3:12)), and this first ungenerous impulse of fallen human nature, still pervades each heart which refuses to confess its own deep-seated evil.
The judgment of God fell upon the transgressors of His command. To both Adam and Eve sorrow was apportioned; but, even in the hour when the sentence was passed upon man, God gave forth a word of deliverance―true it was addressed to the enemy, but the sure word of promise gave birth within man’s heart to a new power―even hope; and hope in God has ever been the strength of the children of faith in this sinful world. The sure word of God, faith in God, and hope in His word sustain the soul.
Before the Lord sent man forth from Eden, He clothed him with the beauty of the victims that had suffered death in their stead. No doubt these robes, made by Jehovah, were, as are all His works, beautiful. Could garments which typify the very perfection of the great Victim be otherwise? Habit has degraded the notion of these robes in our minds, for, from very childhood, pictures have been before our eyes of our first parents Fleeing from paradise with ill-considered skins half hung over their shoulders. Thus, before man faced death in himself, he was robed, through death, in garments which the Lord had made. And then, lest Adam should take of the tree of life, and live forever in his alien state, subject to the sorrows his sin lad brought upon him, the Lord God drove aim out of paradise, and effectually barred iris way back.
So the earth’s fair paradise was lost to man forever, and was never to be regained. The cherubim ―God’s servants to carry out His purposes of judgment―and the flaming sword, which turns every way, kept the way if the tree of life.