1727. The Bible Story of God and Man
The Bible Story of God and Man
"So He drove oat the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life" (Gen_3:24).
There are certain things taught in the Bible about God and man that we need to weigh with due thought.
1. God created man. "Let us make man," is the word of Genesis 1, we have no time now to discuss the folly of evolution, and its foolish effort to rule God out of man's sudden appearance upon the earth. We accept the Bible story, and there is no reason to doubt it. Man is here, and he is here because God put him here. Man is not an accident, nor a sequential development. God created man because He wanted man, that He might love him and be loved by him; and that man might become an heir to His glory.
2. God beheld man's rebellion against Him. "They are revolted and gone," is the way Jeremiah puts it in his fifth chapter.
Satan entered the Garden to steal man's heart-allegiance away from God, and to center man's servitude under his own iron hand.
Man fell into satan's snare, and succumbed to satan's wiles.
God said: "What is this that thou hast done?" (Gen_3:13).
The supreme question is this: Did God, when man sinned, forever cast him off? We know Adam was placed under a curse–the sinful pair were driven from the Garden under sentence of death; but, did God cast Adam and Eve, and all of us, forever away from His love?
Impossible!
God had compassion upon the man whom he had made.
"He saw him ruined by the fall;
Yet loved him notwithstanding all."
3. God was shut up to a substitute when He sought to save man. "With His stripes we are healed," are Isaiah's words in chapter 53. God could not overlook man's sin. God could not accept man, unwashed, and unforgiven, into His presence. God could not "feel sorry" and forget man's rebellion.
Man had sinned, and yet God loved him.
Man had sinned, and yet God wished to save him.
Man had sinned, yet the God who loved him and wished to save him, could not justify the guilty.
What was God to do? The only thing God could do was to provide a substitute.
Who could be that substitute?
Could man substitute for man? Impossible! A sinner could not satisfy the guilt of sinners.
Could Christ, as son of Joseph, substitute? Impossible! For Christ, as son of Joseph, even though He had been made perfect man, could have atoned for only the sins of one imperfect and fallen man.
Could Christ the Son of God, substitute? Assuredly! For Christ was very God. He was not only God but He was God manifest in flesh–the sinless and impeccable Christ. He was before all things, and in Him all things consist; He was the creator of man, and as such, as God the Son, He possessed a value that made it possible for Him, and for Him alone to die a substitutionary death.
No marvel that this death, this substitution, this Blood of Christ, the Son of God, is the great predominant note of the Word of God.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR