Walking With Christ

Chapter three of Genesis has just so much in it. I read it and a hundred threads spring forth and beg to be chased to find the nugget of wisdom to be had.

For example, God made man, Adam, before He made the garden. He made man, planted the garden, moved the man there, and then made Eve. God made light and dark on the first day. He made the heavens and earth on the second day. He made dry land and started growing all of the plants on the third day. He created the day and night cycle on the fourth day. Then He made the sea creatures and birds on the fifth day. Then He made all of the other living creatures ever made, including Adam and Eve, on the sixth day.

When He made Adam, He gave mankind dominion over the entire earth and everything in it. Then came the serpent or Satan. How did Satan take dominion over the world?

The short answer is that we fell from grace. The correct answer takes a bit more to explain. God set one tree apart from all of the rest in the garden. That tree was reserved for God Himself. It was the tithe, in essence, because it was only for God and entirely devoted to God. It was the one thing on the earth that we had been given and told not to touch. The thing is that God gave us dominion over every living creature. He also gave us any plant that yielded seeds for food. It’s just my guess that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil did not produce a fruit that had seeds.

Let’s take a short detour here to overlay another theme in the bible. Jesus is the good shepherd. We are His flock, His sheep.

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.(ESV)

The thing that most people do not realize about a massive flock of sheep is that the shepherd only has to control one or two of the sheep to direct the entire flock. Just like He did when Moses was leading the children through the desert, the pillar of fire wasn’t for all of them, it was for Moses. The children followed Moses as he was following the pillar of fire. If the shepherd has control over the lead sheep or bellwether sheep then they have a pretty solid control over most of the herd. Yes, there will be one goofy sheep who wanders, gets distracted, or even refuses to follow, but for the most part the bulk of the herd simply follows the one in front. Here is the dynamic that gets missed. The last sheep in line is not following the lead sheep. They are following the one in front of them. The one in front of them is following the one in front of them. So on and so on until you reach the lead sheep.

How does this concept apply to the fall in the garden?

Adam is the first sheep. He was following God in the garden. When Eve ate the proverbial apple, he decided to follow her instead of God. She had been distracted by the words of the serpent who promised her something that was not his to give. Still, Eve did not follow the sheep in front of her which caused that sheep to turn from the path that the shepherd, God, had set. In deciding to follow a different shepherd, the sheep had given everything they had to their new master. We, mankind, could only give dominion over that which we had been given dominion over. In following a different shepherd, we, through Adam, became marked by the brand of our new shepherd. This mark, we call it the sin nature, is passed down through the blood from one generation to the next. We always hear the call of our master and we must answer.

The problem is that we have a choice between which master to obey. We can only obey one master.

Jesus did not come into this world to start a new religion. He came to restore the connection between heaven and earth that was lost when Adam and Eve tried to claim that which was not theirs in service to a master who had no claim over any part of the kingdom. Jesus came to show the world the true shepherd and give us the choice to return to the true flock. This flock does not have dominion over the world since that was given to the sham shepherd who can only lead to death, and so, the true flock not only faces the consequences of the cursed earth, but also the weight of the world opposed to the voice of the one true shepherd.

The enemy fights to keep us from hearing the voice of our real shepherd because he knows his dominion over this world is predicated on us following him into oblivion. The temporary nature of this lease he has on this world frightens him because he has seen the true glory of the face of the one true God and knows that he will never be able to claim that as his home ever again.

Jesus did not come to return dominion over this world to those who gave it away for a quick meal. No, He came to offer us something so much better than that. He came to offer us the eternity with Him that Satan threw away our of prideful arrogance. It certainly isn’t the easy path in life, but the reward is far greater than anything we can comprehend.