WEDNESDAY
Yesterday we saw a few of the common alternatives to the gospel story of Christian hope. Secularism places all of its hope (or lack of hope) in humanity. Eastern religions and spiritualism place our hope in achieving a deeper and deeper level of enlightenment. These pale in comparison to the hope of the gospel. In the gospel we find our sovereign, all-powerful God bringing about his will, directing the affairs of creation. The greatest assurance of this hope is the resurrection, as we saw on Monday. In the resurrection we find assurance that there is life after this (contra secularism) and this eternal life is sourced in Jesus and no one else (contra spiritualism).
The main theme that we can trace through the storyline of the Bible is the theme of humanity with God, in the presence of God.
- Creation - Humanity is created in the Garden of Eden in the unhindered presence of God.
- Fall - After humanity sins, they are cast from the presence of God.
- Redemption - God begins a rescue plan to bring his people back into his presence. First, through the people of Israel in the tabernacle, temple, and the holiness laws. Finally, this phase is fulfilled when Jesus makes a way for God’s people to be righteous before him and to be in his presence. He gives his people the Holy Spirit, who is the indwelling presence of God. So God’s people have been redeemed, brought back into God’s presence, but not yet in full. “Already but not yet,” as theologians often say.
- Restoration - Upon the return of Jesus humanity will be brought fully back into the presence of God—a return to Eden.
We’ve already spent some time in Genesis 1 in our origins sermon, but let’s return there to see the presence of God.
Genesis 1:26–31 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 2:7 7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Genesis 2:21–22 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Genesis 2:15 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Genesis 3:8–9 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
All of these verses imply closeness and intimacy with God. Especially note 3:8-9 above. God is walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Because of Adam and Eve’s sin they hide
Sin produces guilt and shame and causes the them to hide from God, whose presence they enjoyed in full. This is tragic.
Remember the quote I referenced on Monday from Curtis Chang, “Hope is seeing yourself in a story. A past that gives you longing. A future that promises to fulfill that longing and a present that energizes you to work towards that future fulfillment.” Eden is part of the past that gives us longing. It reveals the idyllic state of humanity—God’s people, in God’s place, ruling under God’s authority, fully in the presence of God. In this scene there is no suffering, no pain, no death.
This reminds us that the suffering, pain and death we experience today was not the original design. Eden is what creation once was. Because this is what it once was, we have hope that this is what it could be again. Tomorrow we will turn to the end of the story and see the picture of this prophetic hope fulfilled.