God’s Reaction to Adam’s and Eve’s Disobedience.

          There is one thing we know about God and that is, He is a God full of love. His love is everlasting.  Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The LORD has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.” God will do everything to save us because of His great love. Here is what the Bible tells us: “Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11.

        God is also a God of justice. Justice means that a person has to stand the consequences of his actions and a good judge must see that this takes place. Here is what we read in the Bible: “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, O King of saints.” Revelation 15:3

        God is also a God of mercy. Only God knows how to shows mercy and justice at the same time and be just. In Psalms 89:14 we read: “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.”

        Because God is a God of Love, mercy and Justice He knew exactly how to pardon Adam and Eve who chose death rather than life. This is how it went: because of His great love, he pardoned the erring couple. And in order to preserve His law, and the law of cause and effect, and without which the universe and all life could not exist, God did justice to the broken law by allowing its penalty of death to fall not on the guilty pair, but upon Himself!  Here is what we read in the Scriptures: “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. And in Romans 5:10 it says: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

        So, what was God’s approach to Adam and Eve after they rejected his command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and became subject to death? He displayed His great love by showing mercy and justice. First, in showing mercy in pardoning them and all humanity and secondly, by preserving the justice of the law by accepting its penalty on Himself and not allowing it to fall on guilty human beings. No wonder the Psalmist could write: Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other, Psalms 85:10. Oh what a loving and kind God we have to not perpetuate lawlessness by removing the penalty for disobeying the law but at the same time pardoning those guilty of breaking the law!  What matchless love!  Who can afford to reject this love?  This, my friends, is what the gospel is all about.

        From the beginning of time, even before God began his creation of humanity, He had already planned to pick up the pieces when humans messed up! Can you believe that my friends?  It sounds illogical that God would create beings that would cause Him to humiliate Himself to the point of dying of, in Jesus Christ, for them!  Here is what we read in God’s love letter to us, the Bible, “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” 2 Timothy 1:9.  All who accept this wonderful proposition stand “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;” Titus 1:2.

        The more I, and I am sure many others, study the reasons why God would resort to such damage control to salvage the plight of human, the more I become angry, frustrated, and forlorn towards God until I read in His letter to me, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:8-9. 

        Then I contemplated the lot of Job.  If Job can pledge to serve the God that had His children and all his property destroyed, if he can say “even though He slay me yet will I serve Him” Job 15:13.   And if Jeremiah who lived to see his people ravaged, slain, conquered, and carried away into exile and yet could write, “The LORD has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you” Jeremiah 31:3, and if again he can accept these words of God, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,” Jeremiah 29:11.  Then how can I, can we, not reciprocate that Love that will not let me, us, go?

        This, my friends, is our raison d’être.  Because He formed us with His hands, and placed the breath of life within us, and gave us every good thing more than we can ever desire we cannot let Him down, and I cannot be silent about this unfathomable demonstration of His great condescension to restore me to His image and to the commonwealth of the universe.

        Here is how one author put it: “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “With His stripes we are healed.”” (Isa. 53:5).  Ellen White, Desire of Ages, 25.2.  Are these not gracious words my friends? My desire for each one of us is that we will completely give Him our all that we might be in His wonderful new world that he is preparing for us all.  May God continue to guide you to Him-only you can determine this.  He can do all things for you but not without your consent.

Here is the Gospel Presentation in PowerPoint. It is in English.

The Gospel Presentation (Click to view)