Your answers to my question of last month prove from God’s Word, as I desired they might, the important truth that the only true God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost created us and all things.
God the Father.
Eph. 4:6, One God and Father of all. Rev. 4:11. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created. Gen. 5:1, 2; 9:6; Ex. 20:11; Deut. 32:6,15; Neh. 9:6; Job 10:9; 38:4-7; Psa. 8:3; 24:1, 2; 89:12; 95:5, 6; 96:5; 100:3; 109:24; 119:73; 121:2; 136:5; 146:5, 6; 148:5; 149:2; Prov. 3:19; 8:26-29; Eccl. 12:1; Isa. 37:16; 40:28; 42:5; 44:24; 45:7, 12, 18; 48:13; 51:13; Jer. 10:12; Zech. 12:1; Mal. 2:10, 15; Matt. 19:4; Mark 10:6; 13:19; Acts 14:15; 17:24; Rom. 1:20; 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 2:10; Rev. 10:6; 14:7.
God the Son
Col. 1:16. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him. John 1:3; Heb. 1:2,10; Psa. 102:25; 1 Cor. 8:6.
God the Spirit
Job 33:4. The Spirit of God hath made me. Psa. 33:6; 104:30.
Our relationship to God springs from this truth; so that our only happiness consists in knowing, loving, and living to God. The subject that is to engage our attention this month, is the happy and blessed state of our first parents as created by God, before they fell from Him through not obeying His Word. Gen. 2:3-25 gives us the beautiful picture of man enjoying the favor and blessing of his Creator. The name of God is changed in this chapter. It is the covenant name, by which God was related to His chosen people Israel, Jehovah Elohim, translated in our Bibles LORD God. It was the test of the faith of His people Israel, to confess to the idolatrous nations of the world that Jehovah was the one only true and living God, the Maker of heaven and earth; even as it now is the test of Christian faith to confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (1 John 4:15), and that His atoning death is the only means of a sinner’s justification before God. Gal. 1 chap.
You will mark that when every letter in the word LORD is printed in your Bibles, in capitals, it always stands for Jehovah. He is the God of every creature, down to a blade of grass, but He is the Lord God of His people. In the fifth verse we are taught that God created “every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” Every moving creature in the waters that had life (or a living soul, margin), and every fowl of the air, and every beast of the field, came into being at God’s word. Man, too, was formed by the Lord God of the dust of the ground, but man received his soul direct from God; not simply by His word, like the animals, but by the Lord God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. Directly a beast dies his soul perishes, but when man dies his spirit returns unto God, who gave it. Eccl. 12:7.
Now let us look at God’s love to man in planting for him so beautiful a garden, and filling it for him with every delight. The same goodness of God provided for each of my young readers before they were born. There was a mother to love you, food to nourish you, and clothes to cover you, all ready and awaiting your birth. Have you ever thanked God for His goodness to you? The blessed Saviour recalled God’s care for Him in His infancy, when He was dying on the bitter cross. Let us read His words in Psa. 22:9, “Thou didst make me hope (or, as margin, Thou keptest me in safety), upon my mother’s breasts.” Adam never was a babe; God created him a strong man, in all the vigor and beauty of manhood; but the Son of God stooped to be born a babe, of a poor virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. How touching it is to hear Him, when dying in pain and weakness on the cross, recalling God’s upholding Him from His birth.
The meaning of Eden is pleasure. God planted this beautiful garden, and thought of everything to make Adam happy. There were trees, pleasant to the sight, on every side, laden with fruits of excellent flavor; and throughout the garden flowed a beautiful river, which kept everything watered and fertile. Adam had only to dress and keep the garden, for labor and toil were unknown; and, as the spring of all happiness to man is his obedience to, and communion with, his gracious Maker, the Lord God gave Adam one command to bind him to Himself, and make His word and will to Adam supreme in that scene of innocence and delight. Adam had everything to serve his pleasure, and in the midst of the garden grew the tree of life for his use and blessing. The test of his faith in God’s goodness, and of his obedience to God’s word was simply not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God added the solemn warning against disobedience, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” As long as he believed in the wisdom and goodness of his Maker, Adam could have had no desire for the forbidden fruit. It was enough for faith to know that the Lord God had told him not to eat thereof.
After thus caring for Adam’s pleasure, God still thought of His creature’s increased happiness. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him,” were the words of God’s loving interest in man. And the Lord God brought all the creatures to Adam, each beautiful after its kind, and Adam named them according to the different orders of their creation, “but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” He was above them all, and exercised dominion over them, but he could not make companions of any of them. We delight to see children kind to dumb creatures, but we should think badly of the boy or girl, who had no friend to love and make a companion of, but a bird or a dog. It is not good that one of us should be alone. To live without doing kindnesses to others and being useful in our families or among our friends will surely end in the sin of selfishness, which is one of the ugliest idols that an unconverted child can make his god.
The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and from one of his ribs He made Eve, and presented her to him, and Adam beheld his help meet—bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh—perfectly suited to be his companion in his place of dominion and enjoyment.
I hope, dear children, I shall find from your answers, that in this beautiful story of Paradise you will see types and patterns of better things, and of brighter glories, and of deeper joys than were known to Adam and Eve in that short though lovely dawn of man’s history, ere sin had entered and spoiled all.
Your affectionate friend, UNCLE R.