God-Ordained Bliss
Notes
Transcript
Genesis 2:10-17 ESV
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
In our message last week, we spoke of the gracious character of God, and as we continue in our series of sermons from Genesis, chapters 2 and 3 this week, we continue to see the gracious character of God magnified in our text.
Now, as we continue studying this portion of scripture concerning God’s creation, we are all the more sure to stress His gracious character, because in it, we are reminded of the fact that God did not have to create anything.
Creating does not add to God’s being, it does not add to His perfections, it does not in any way whatsoever give Him what you may call “a purpose”. And furthermore, if God would have chosen to never create anything at all, it most certainly would not have made Him “less God”.
Thus, we are ever reminded of the gracious character of God in creating in that He done so only because it pleased Him to do so.
Now, last week, we spoke of how it pleased God to separate a certain area on earth from the rest of the world, and to plant a garden there. And in the garden, God placed everything that could be pleasing to man, both in enjoyment and in utility, and willing that this garden be the dwelling place for man.
Now, as we look at our text for today, we read more about the particulars of this garden and that which man was to do in it.
We look first at verse ten of our reading, which says:
Genesis 2:10 ESV
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
So, we see another interesting aspect of this superb garden that God had placed man in when we see in this verse the way in which God sustained the growth in it.
It is written that there was a river found in the garden, and this river watered the garden. This river, as it is written, flowed out of Eden, and then divided into four rivers outside of the garden, but the river flowing through Eden was the main branch.
Verses eleven through fourteen then speak of the four rivers which branch off from the one river which flowed through the garden where it speaks of the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
Now, because of the geographic descriptions found in those verses, many have claimed that they can pinpoint exactly where Eden was located, but as we said last week, there was a great disruption in the earth’s formations when the Great Flood in the days of Noah occurred. Because of this, the formations of the earth most certainly shifted, thus finding the precise location of where God was pleased to plant this garden isn’t possible.
But when we skip ahead to the first part of verse 15, we are reminded once again that God placed man in the garden, where we read:
Genesis 2:15a ESV
15a The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden
Now, we talked about this some last week, in Genesis 2:8, of how God had willed to place the man whom He had formed in the garden in Eden. But while we are here, let’s talk a little bit about some of the lesser-known details surrounding God placing man in the garden.
The text says that God took the man and “put” him in the garden of Eden. This would seem to reveal to us that prior to this point, God had already formed man. Therefore, it would seem as though God had formed man outside of paradise.
This means that the dust which God formed man out of, was not paradise dust, but common dust. Now, this might not seem like too big a deal to some of us, but the theological implications surrounding it are remarkable.
You see, what this communicated to Adam, the first man, and what it communicates to us today is that all of the comforts of the paradise-state which God placed man in were owing to nothing but God’s free grace.
Adam was not a paradise-born creature, just as we are not heaven-born creatures. Adam had no natural right to paradise and was placed there only because it pleased God to place him there.
And in like manner, for those who are among the elect people of God, we were certainly not heaven-born, and thus we have no natural right to heavenly things, we have no natural right to an eternal inheritance from God. But that is what we as God’s elect people receive, simply because it pleases God for us to receive it, which ultimately signifies that God is the Author of man’s bliss.
Now, what bliss is indicative of is not just happiness, but perfect, complete happiness. And as God was pleased to place man in a state of bliss, in a state of perpetual happiness and perfection, we thus know that such perfect happiness comes only from God.
And thus, we must know that the bliss, the perpetual, perfect happiness that God is pleased to give to those whom He saves and then calls out of this world is not owing to anything that any of us have done here on earth, that it is not owing to us at all for that matter, but that it is owing only to good will and pleasure of God Almighty.
Then after Moses speaks of God graciously putting man in the garden, we see that which man was to do in the garden in the second part of verse 15, where we read that God put man in the garden:
Genesis 2:15b ESV
15b to work it and keep it.
Thus, in the same sentence we read that God places man in the garden, in this state of perpetual, perfect happiness and also that he places man there that he may work…
Now, there wasn’t a typo here, it’s not as though Moses said that God placed man in paradise, in a state of perfect happiness… but he also had to work. No, work was an aspect of that perpetual, perfect happiness.
You see, contrary to what our sin nature or our society tells us today, work is not a bad thing. In fact, it is so far from being a bad thing that we clearly see here that work was one of the aspects of Adam’s bliss.
Another aspect of this bliss is the command given to man by God. We read of this command in the last two verses of our reading, where it says:
Genesis 2:16-17 ESV
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Now, this command of God toward man we are all very familiar with. But how many of us have looked at this command of God and the obedience to this command as an inclusion of the bliss that God blessed man with?
Actually, a lot of times we probably look at this command as if it is a bad thing. Almost as though we say, “Well, God told man that he could do whatever he wanted except for this one thing! That’s kind of cruel of God!” But the fact that we think that way only reveals our natural tendency towards sin.
You see, when we look at this command, we most certainly see a continuation of man’s God-induced bliss. For while this command has a positive and a negative aspect, that is, while it says, “do this” and “don’t do that” the result of obeying this command most certainly results in bliss.
Thus, in verse 16 there is the positive aspect of the command, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden”. And remember what our text said last week, the trees in the garden were “good for food”. Indeed, they were very good for food, better than anything that we have ever tasted. And here God is saying, “You can have it all, it’s all there for you to enjoy!”
Thus, when we view obeying the positive aspect of this command, we can easily see how this would contribute to man’s bliss in the garden.
And then we see the negative aspect of the command, that is, the prohibition; “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,”.
You may eat from every tree in the garden, and they are all good for food. They never stop growing and they never stop being good. But you cannot eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
God then reveals to Adam what will happen to him if he does eat of this tree when He tells him that “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”.
What this means is that if Adam ate of this tree, he would be barred from the Tree of Life and would be thus capable of dying. But worst of all, if Adam ate of this tree, he would that very day die spiritually, be cut off from fellowship with God. A frightful prospect indeed!
And because this is a frightful prospect, we almost look at this command in an extremely negative light, as if it were cruel, unkind, unfair. But the exact opposite is true. What this was meant to teach man is that obedience to the command of God resulted in continued bliss.
One sure mark of extreme foolishness is when you hear someone say something like, “If God hates evil so much then He shouldn’t have put that tree in the garden!”.
It is extremely foolish because the fault most certainly does not lie with God. The fault lies with man when he chose to disobey God even after experiencing true bliss. Indeed, the presence of that tree reminded man that so long as he stayed away from it, he would continue to experience an uninterrupted state of bliss.
Beloved, we all know what happened at that tree. We all know that man foolishly partook of that tree, bringing immediate spiritual death to man and to his progeny. Because of that singular disobedience, all are naturally dead in sin.
Beloved, what should shock us is not that God placed that tree in the garden, what should shock us is that God wills to save anyone in light of the fact that man foolishly disobeyed Him.
Thus, when we today who are saved look within ourselves and behold the wretched depravity dwelling there, we should be most shocked that despite our exceeding wickedness, God willed to save you, that He willed to save me.
May we, beloved, with the utmost fear and reverence worship God that though He is Who He is, and though I am who I am, He willed to save me.
Amen?