The day of rest instituted by God. Genesis 2:2, a type of the rest that remaineth to the people of God. Heb. 4:3, 4, 9, 10; The Garden of Eden, type of the Paradise where God will place all that love Him, and where Jesus will be in the midst of all His people, as the tree of life in the midst of Eden. Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14.
The river that flowed through Eden; type of the river of the water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the Holy Jerusalem. Rev. 22:1.
Adam, a type of Christ, as lord of creation, and the figure of Him that was to come. Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45; Eph. 1:22, and as head of the Church. Eph. 5:30.
The deep sleep of Adam, type of Christ going through death to have His people with Himself through the eternal ages. John 12:23-33.
Eve, a type of the Church, Eph. 5:31, 32, and as Eve received all her blessings in Adam, so also the Bride of Christ receives all from Him. There was no one so near and so dear to Adam as Eve, so the Church will have the nearest place to Christ in the coming glory. Rev. 19:6-9.
Adam and Eve were very happy in Paradise, but when we are with the Lord, it will be joy unspeakable. 1 Peter 1:8.
The third chapter of Genesis stands in contrast with the former chapters which we have read together. It is God’s plain and full account of sin entering into the world by one man, Rom. 5:12, which brought death upon the whole race.
Many persons, ignorant of themselves, and who have never, as Solomon puts it, known “every man the plague of his own heart,” 1 Kings 8:38, have said, Had I been in Adam’s circumstances, I would not have given up God for an apple; and perhaps many of our young readers, confident in themselves, and ready to boast in the goodness of a heart, which God declares to be “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” Jer. 17:9, think that they would not have been beguiled by the serpent, as Eve was; while they forget, that she was attacked by Satan, and fell, when she was innocent and without sin, whereas they have a sinful nature for Satan to work on, which loves evil, and hates good, and so makes them an easy prey to his wiles.
Nothing keeps children from desiring to know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour, more than the ignorance of the sinfulness of their hearts. I remember, when I was yet a youth, being much troubled by a short sentence, which I heard, because my conscience bore witness that it described my state, “Light views of sin give slighting views of Christ.” I find it so now with children. As long as they escape punishment, and are commended by their parents or teachers, they mind but little how God regards them. The root of this indifference is unbelief. They read in God’s Word that they are lost sinners, that by nature they are the children of wrath, and that, unless they are born again, they cannot enter the kingdom of God; but they do not believe this in their hearts, and so their hearts grow harder every year, and their consciences more and more dull and insensible.
Now, dear children, it was this same unbelief which gave Satan a door into Eve’s heart. God had told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve heard what God had said, and yet, directly Satan, under the disguise of one of the animals, began to speak to her, and to question the truth of God’s word, Eve listened, and believed the traitor.
You may be astonished that Eve should have forsaken the word of her Maker, because one of the animals in the garden contradicted it; but have you never given up God’s commands to please a playmate, or to keep into favor with some sinful companion? Eve was fallen from God directly she doubted His word, and trusted in the word of the serpent. He did not tell her to disbelieve God, but he led her to believe that part of what God said was not true. She waited not even to ask counsel of her husband, but immediately put herself into Satan’s hands, and then she trusted her eyes, and looked at the fruit, and decided that it was good for food, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. Unbelief opened the way to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and she took and eat, and then, having destroyed herself, she turned a tempter, and gave the fruit to Adam.
The Word of God says that Adam was not deceived, 1 Tim. 2:14. Satan does not speak to him, he had Eve now to do his work for him, and this he always prefers to being seen himself, like the fowler, who keeps out of sight; and uses captive birds to hop about on his snares, to call the free birds to them, and thus taking them off their guard, they are soon entangled in the fowler’s net, and are easily caught by him. Eve gave up God’s word to believe in a creature of whom she knew nothing, and Adam gave up his allegiance to God out of love to Eve, thus serving the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore. Rom. 1:25. Eve “took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat,” v. 6. And then Satan’s lie came out. Their eyes indeed were opened, but only to see they were naked and powerless; they knew good and evil, but it was by losing the good forever; and becoming altogether evil. At once they use deceit to hide their shame from each other’s eyes, but when they hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, their fig leaf coverings will not avail them, and they seek to hide from God among the trees of the garden.
When God speaks to them, their wicked excuses show how utterly they have fallen from their gracious Maker. Adam to excuse himself, daringly throws the blame upon God, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Eve throws the blame on Satan, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Oh! These vain and deceitful excuses. Alas! which of us has not made them, and thereby added to our sins, and hardened our hearts all the more. “But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared,” says the Psalmist. Before God pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve, He curses their destroyer, and lets them hear of a Saviour, to be born of woman, who should bruise the Serpent’s head. Sin came into the world through the woman, the weaker vessel, and salvation, God declares, should come to ruined sinners through the seed of the woman. This is the germ of the Gospel, which appeared in Eden, directly man had fallen, from which all the blessed truths of salvation have in due time come. Then we are told of two races, that should ever contend, the one against the other―the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed―and God put enmity between them.
The Bible is the history of these two families, as you will see if you read carefully 1 John 3:7-10. Until we are born again, we belong to the serpent’s seed, as the Lord said to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him,” John 8:44, and again, “If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God,” John 8:42. But what a man sows, that shall he also reap, and God pronounced a sentence of sorrow upon Eve, and of toil and death upon Adam, and then God drove them out of His beautiful garden, and placed at the gate Cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Sorrow, toil and death were now before them, and the happiness and delights of Paradise cut off from them forever. Such is the end of sin.
Dear children, you have been born outside Paradise, you have come from the man that God drove out from His garden, you were born with the seeds of sin and of death in you, you have already brought forth some of the sad fruits of these seeds, both by naughty feelings, naughty ways and naughty words on the one hand, and by pain and trouble, and perhaps illness on the other.
May God bring you into His presence, and show you yourselves, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and then, as He clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skin, the product of death inflicted on innocent animals, for the covering of the shame of our first parents, may He clothe you with Christ, who knew no sin, but was made sin for His people, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Cor. 5:21.
I am, dear children,
Your affectionate friend,
UNCLE R.