Here at the Journey there has been a profound sense of those who have shared this teaching space, a reality that Jesus is the one that speaks to your heart. The words that come out of a mouth here carry life but it is Jesus that gives them life. It is Jesus that reveals himself to me and you and we call that Grace which is call “God’s riches at Christ’s expense.” We study the scriptures because as Jesus Says, “They testify of me” and for that reason we search the scriptures like a person who searches for treasures. We simply don’t want to put a lid on this treasure hunt. We believe that truth not only brings freedom but is also brings great joy and this truth is all about only one, THE ONE, Jesus. And the amazing thing about this is that Jesus is easily, easily found and has been with you since you took your first breath. The reason for any teaching should be for those listening now would become the ones speaking afterwards. Just hearing truth does not set anyone free. Trusting in the truth, Jesus, becomes the pavement, the confidence and the course where the Kingdom of God intersects with everything we do and, we are changed. This to is called Grace.
In Finding Beauty in Redemption part 2. By the way, all of these “beauty” discussions are but snippets in the discovery in and unveiling of our Messiah. I see them as my way encouraging you to open the scriptures yourself. To see way beyond anything I say and to become so enamored with the Captain of you salvation and with the Scriptures that you deem the things of this world are nothing compared to the things in the Kingdom of God. So what if in finding beauty, we find meaning and in finding meaning, we find joy and in finding joy, we find the source of it all. Jesus. In Redemption, God made A Way when there was no way for you, to reveal The Truth to you when you did not believe there was any such thing and, to give you life when you had no life to give.
In every redemption story, there is a Who, a What… a Theme and a Why. What we saw last week is Jesus is the Who, the subject of all scripture. Redemption is the Theme – God pursuing his creation and redeeming it with his son. The Why He did this is Love. Love! God so Loved because God is Love.
Are you aware there is a Great Mystery in the scriptures? Something that has been guarded by the LORD and that no person or angel has ever known about until it was revealed? A mystery so fantastic that early believers in the first century became identified with it and wanted to be known by it. But to understand this mystery, like all good thrillers, we must go back to the beginning. We must go back to the garden. Until we have at least some understanding of what happened when Adam and Eve “blew it”, we might miss the meaning of it all.
Thousands of books and theologies have sprung up all around the topic of, “the fall” and I for one can not endure another lecture on that topic. What I am very sure of is this. God was never “undone” from the “fall” of Adam and Eve. Humanity was. His love has never changed. Something happed to the creation which we can read about, other things that were affected, we just don’t know about. For the most part, we have no idea what life looked like before the fall but I am very sure it was something very different that was our life looks like now. Let’s do a quick review…
Gen 2:7 says that The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Man was Body (formed), Soul (breath life, who you are), Spirit which is Life.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
There is not enough time to recount this entire story. But we do know that the wonder and mystery which man knew before the “fall” was lost. There was something about that life that was very, very important to the LORD. As such, I have recently been struggling with the notion concerning how we define what happened in the Garden. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Whatever that was) I learned from my early years as a Christian that this event is kindly referred to as, “the fall”. Adam and Eve, well they disobeyed, and they fell. It seems rather innocent or perhaps a nice way to say they “blew” it. Or perhaps as if one slipped off the curb and fell to the ground. Nothing to serious, maybe just a little road rash.
However, I think something sinister has played into this “Christian” speak, this event dubbed “the fall” and winked at by professional Christians and others. There is nothing about defining this event as “the fall” in the garden that comes close to what really happened that day. In trying to understand it, there isn’t a person alive that could come close to describing what happened. If you enjoy C.S. Lewis, referring to this event, as the Cataclysmic earthquake that created the Grand Canyon. (Pilgrims Regress) even as big as the Grand Canyon is, it is but a speck of dust compared to the chasm created when Adam and Eve died. A huge chasm that no man could cross. No man that is until the only man that could, would do so at his own expense, at the cross.
And now for the revealing of a great secret – NEXT WEEK!
Jack Salter
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