In fact, God is right here - not a million miles away at all - trying to get through to this race gone astray. Next week we will be thinking about Jesus, who he is and why he came. But today we must think about the importance of redemption if revelation is to be complete.
The Genesis account describes the human race as the pinnacle of creation - made in the image of God and with authority over the other creatures (1.26), responsible to "work and take care of" the garden (2.15). The Psalmist is impressed by the same point (8.3-6) - "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet…"
People were created "with a strong creative urge, with the responsibility of oversight and (most importantly) with the possibility of and need for relationship with God", as we said last week.
But something serious has happened! We don't exactly live in the Garden of Eden any more! Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit! Just exactly what was "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2.17)? We aren't told. But there was another tree right alongside it - "the tree of life" (v. 9). They had a choice - they could choose life, but if they chose to know "good and evil" the choice of absolute life would no longer be open to them.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), a well-known scholar of Oxford and Cambridge, became a Christian in 1931. He wrote over forty books, the majority of which were designed to point unbelievers to Christ, to explain Christianity to seekers and to instruct those who were young in the faith towards spiritual maturity. Among his writings is a science fiction trilogy - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra (Voyage to Venus) and That Hideous Strength.
Perelandra imagines that life has just been created on Venus. Two human beings appear on the planet, one a representative of evil, the other a representative of the Lord. Here the Lord has prohibited something quite different from the forbidden fruit of Genesis. The temptation takes the form of a long debate in which the representative of evil presses hard that this rule is given to be disobeyed, so that they can grow in independence and maturity.
Ransom, God's representative, says, "I think that He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are His will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?" (p. 107)
Lewis is suggesting that the key is relationship with God and that the chief element in the temptation is the choice of autonomy. Separation from God is death. We are meant to know and love him, and to live responsible to him.
Adam and Eve were made innocent. They hadn't faced a moral test. But under test, they didn't become wise by eating the forbidden fruit. Knowing good and evil, they experienced guilt and fear (Gen. 3.10). They heard the judgment of God and began to find the world itself a less friendly place. Their choice affected their offspring as well as themselves - all suffered exclusion from Eden and separation from God, all faced the pain and penalty of alienation from God as well as the tendency to do things wrongly.
All of these consequences are part of what has traditionally been called "original sin". That term can be misunderstood by failing to see that we are sinners because we commit sin. We can't just sheet the blame onto our first ancestors. "Passing the buck" is a very early game. It went like this -
ADAM: Look, Lord, it was this woman you gave me. She's to blame!
EVE: Lord, it was this serpent's fault. He tempted me!
And if a third voice had been given permission to speak -
SERPENT: Look, Lord, you made me!
People put God in the dock. "If there really is a God of love, why did he let this or that happen?" "Where were you, God, when I needed you?" God allows us to face moral testing. But with temptation there is always a way out, always the possibility of choosing God's will (1 Cor. 10.12-13).
The Bible speaks about sin in a number of different ways. Basically it is helpful to realise that is may be a positive and deliberate act of aggression against God - lawlessness (1 Jn 3.4), wilful breaking of God's law. Zacchaeus (Lk. 19.1-9) had deliberately chosen to collect taxes for the Roman oppressors. For this he was unpopular. But worse still, he used his position to cheat people. He had deliberately broken God's law.
But sin may also be negative. The archer has good intentions, but doesn't hit the target. The earnest person striving after good still can't make it. As Paul put it, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3.23). Nicodemus (Jn 3.1-16), the earnest Pharisee still couldn't see or enter the Kingdom of God - he needed to be "born again"! Paul was speaking from his own experience when he said, "as for legalistic righteousness, [I was] faultless" (Phil. 3.6b), and yet "when I want to do good, evil is right there with me…" (Rom. 7.21). As the Henry Twells puts it in AHB169 -
The Bible concludes that everyone is a sinner - not only the non-Jew (the Gentile), but the Jew as well, not only those who try to break every rule in the book, but those who try to keep every rule in the book! The Jews - and especially the Pharisees - liked to think that they were superior to everyone else, but, Paul says, "Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin" (Rom. 3.9b).
The seriousness of our human condition is that "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6.23a). "Hell" is pictured as a grim reality, the destiny of sinners. Heaven is no place for sinners - "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful…" (Rev. 21.27a).
We need to understand the seriousness of sin (all sin is worthy of the death penalty) and the holiness of God.
So God's plan of Revelation had to include a plan for the Redemption of the human race. In the account of the Fall we hear the Lord say to the snake that the offspring of the woman "will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Gen. 3.15). Offspring" is literally "seed" (singular) in the original Hebrew, and this has been seen as a first pointer to redemption in Christ.
The record goes on to say, "And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them" (v. 21). An animal was killed - the first atoning sacrifice for human sin. Henceforth, the human approach to God must be the basis of an atonement. The alternative is judgment. And God approaches humankind in revelation on the basis of atonement - or in judgment.
Later, the whole layout of tabernacle and temple and the system of sacrifices highlighted this need for atonement. But they didn't just represent separation from God, but God's desire to reveal himself to his sinful people.
This work of redemption focuses on the person and work of Jesus Christ our theme for next week. But here are a few of the key words used for this part of God's revelation of himself.
Where sin is likened to slavery, a captivity which man cannot himself break, Redemption represents the intervention of an outside Person who pays the price we cannot pay. Mark 10.45 is one of the passages that refer to redemption.
The word Covenant refers to a special mutual agreement God established with the people of Israel, sealed with a sacrifice (Gen. 24.1-8). Jeremiah looks forward to a new covenant (31.31-34). The New Testament declares that this has been established through the death of Jesus Christ (Lk. 22.19-20; Heb. 9.1-15).
Reconciliation brings together two parties whose relationship has been broken. It is closely related to the word Atonement (the English word comes from at-one-ment). The day of atonement was the only time the high priest entered the Most Holy Place in the temple, and then only with the blood of the sin-offering (Lev. 16.1-19). This pointed to the reconciliation Christ would bring (Rom. 5.1-11).
Sin has broken the relationship between humankind and God. So in each case there must be an acceptable sacrifice. But these measures in Old Testament times were only partial and temporary. They were preparing the way for the perfect sacrifice which would open the possibility of complete restoration.
God has made himself known to us. But, to get through us, it took Redemption as well as Revelation! Isn't that wonderful? How do you respond to the God who is like that?
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