21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
quote:
God did NOT remove the Tree of Life from the Garden, he expelled A&E because he feared they would eat from it.
If you caught that then how did you miss this?
"The man "has now become" (indicating that he "was not before") like one of us, "knowing" (having knowledge of) "good and evil."
Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin.
The entire theme of the Bible is that sin seperates us from God. One of the best illustations of this is the story of Samson and Delilah. When Samson sinned against God, God left him and Samson's great strength went with Him.
There is another example in Exodus, when God causes His people to wander in the wilderness because they 'grumbled' against Him.
Further more it is the common theme of the Bible that sin must be paid for by living sacrafice. Leviticus 17:11 "For the life of the flesh in in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the alter to make atonement for the soul, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."
But if it is scritures in Genesis that you seek I can preach the Gospel of Christ using just chapter 3. With some referances to chapter 2.
At the end of chapter 2 the Bible says that man and woman where naked and without shame. Chapter 3:1 enter the deciever who seeks to tempt man. We are not told here why he seeks to tempt man only that he does and that he succeeds. Verse 7 illustrates that once they ate of the fruit their eyes where opend and they saw (knew) that they where naked (and became ashamed) therefore they made clothing from fig leaves to cover their nakedness. Verse 8 says that when they heard [YHWH] the LORD coming they hid themselves. They knew that they had disobayed God and His very presence made them want to hide from His sight. (seperate themselves from Him) God already knew the answer to the question before He asked it, He asked it because the first step to redemption is confession by mouth. (and more importantly so others could read and know) "God, we disobayed your comand and ate the fruit which you told us not to eat."
Now look at what God does.
First He curses the serpent for tempting man. (verse 14) Why does He curse the serpent first? Because the serpent tempted man into disobaying God. God then says what will happen to the serpent because he has done this, when He makes a prophacy in verse 15. One will come, born of a woman Who will crush you though you bruise Him.
Then God tells the woman in verse 16 that she will now labor in pain and seek to please her husband. She ahd a choice. She could have said no, God said not to eat this friut but instead she said yes, gaining wisdom is desireable.
Then from verses 17-19 God speeks to the man and tells him that because he disobayed that he has cursed all the earth. And most important, "For dust you are and to dust you shall return." man also had a choice, he could have said no, God said not to eat it. But instead he said yes, and took and ate of the fruit which eve offered him.
Prior to verse 7 man was without shame, after verse 7 man became shameful and sought to seperate himself from God. This is the seperation from the Creator of all life, the Source of all life, to be seperated from that is death, as the end of an event or condition. There was no physical change in adam and eve, the change was spiritual and it happened (like God said it would) as soon as they ate the fruit. And once this spiritual change took place it could not be reversed. Gen. 2:7 gives man a living soul, not just a living body. It is this change in the soul that God refered to.
Then in verse 19 God says, "because you have done this, you shall toil all the days of your life (God is setting a limit on the life of man, numbering his days) untill you (return to dust) die, the end of life as a biological organism.
Then in verse 20 Adam finally names the woman, [Chava; life] Eve, mother of all living. He's saying that the decent of man can be traced back to one woman, one mother, that all who live are her offspring. He's also being quit positive here dispite having just been cursed by God to die for his transgression.
verse 21. The word Ohr; "garment of skin" There are a few interpritations of this sentance. One is that God mearly created some skins and fassioned garments for them out of it. Another is that Ohr is a homonym of the hebrew word for light, this intepretation says that God clothed them in light. And the last is that God slew, or sheed the blood of, an animal and from it made garments for adam and eve. (both of these last two interpritations preimanate from the promise of God in verse 15, that One would come Who would be a light to the people and Who would silence the deciever forever)
verse 22 Because Adam and Eve died, went from being shamless beings to shamful beings, God seperated them from the tree of life. Because if they had eaten of the friut of the tree of life they would have become exactly [equal to] like God. Having both knowledge of good and evil and (by eating the fruit of the tree of life thereby negating Gods curse) being imortal and eternal.
I can gauranty that few if any of you will see what I have just said here. There is a reason we (christians) call it (the Bible) the living Word. The Bible is a Masterpiece of liturary art. You cannot take a chapter or two out of one of the books of the Bible and from it alone glean what the author is really saying. The Bible must be read as a whole, and from that whole scripture that is written in one part of the Bible is used to illustrate, translate, and or interprite what is being said in another. For instance...
Romans [5:12,13] 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin.
Scripture interprets scripture. Furthermore there is a great deal of oral history that is passed down by believers, this goes for Jews, Christians, and almost any other religion. Most, if not all, of this oral history is gleaned from various parts (and other scriptures) of the Bible.
More referances on sin. (Ez. 18:1-32 ; Dt. 24:16 ; 2 K. 14:6 ; 2 Chr. 25:4 ; Ps. 32:1 ; Rom. 4:7 ; Ps. 51:3,4 ; Ps. 109:7 ; Pro. 10:12 ; Is. 30:1 ; Is. 38:17 ; Mic. 7:19 ; Mk. 4:12 ; Jn. 1:29 ; Jn. 9:24 ; Jn. 15:22-24 ; Rom. 3:9 ; Rom. 5:12 ; Rom. 7:13 ; Rom. 14:23 1 Cor. 15:17 ; 2 Cor. 5:21 ; Gal. 2:17 ; 2 Thes. 2:3 ; Heb. 9:28 ; Heb. 12:1 ; James 1:15 ; 1 Pet. 2:22 ; 1 Jn. 3:5 ; Nu. 5:6 ; 1 S. 2:17 ; 1 K. 17:18 ; Jn. 16:9 ; Ro. 6:17 ; Heb. 11:25 ; 1 Pet. 4:1 ; 1 Jn. 2.2 ; Ex. 9:27 ; Ex. 10:16 ; Nu. 16:22 ; 2 S. 12:13 ; 2 S. 24:10,17 ; 1 Chr. 21:8,17 ; 1 K. 8:46 ; 2 Chr. 6:36 ; Ecc. 7:20 ; Job 1:22 ; Lk. 15:18-24 ; Jn. 5:14 ; Jn. 8:11 ; Jn. 9:2 ; Rom. 6:15 ; 1 Jn. 3:6 ; 1 Jn. 5:16 ; Dt 9:16 ; 1 S. 2:25 ; Ps. 119:11 ; 1 Jn. 5:18) I'm fairly certqain I missed a few.
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