Part 1: 
The Gospel of Adam, Abel, Abraham and JesusIn Genesis, we find this beautiful marriage between Adam and Eve. And in Revelation, we find the marriage supper of the Lamb, celebrating the mystical union between Christ and the Church.
II. Forbidden Fruit
For the sake of love, God blessed Adam and Eve with hundreds of beautiful trees, bearing an abundance of delicious fruit.
And also for the sake of love, in the midst of the garden, God planted the tree of knowledge of good and evil, a special tree with a special purpose. Even before creating Eve, God had carefully warned Adam:
Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.[1]
This was a gentle warning of necessary cause-and-effect, not a threat of punishment,[2] for God did not make death.[3] God is Life, and is the Source of all life,[4] so if Adam turned away from God and broke His commandment, he would be turning away from Life itself. This would inevitably result in death, and God wanted him to avoid such a fate.
This good tree provided Adam and Eve with a blessed opportunity to show their love for God. By trusting Him, patiently waiting, and obeying His simple command, they could demonstrate their love for the One who had created them. This gentle arrangement ensured that their relationship with God would be based on genuine love and freedom, not necessity.[5] If they loved Him, they would keep His commandment.[6]
Adam and Eve were created in the Image of God,[7] and their life in Eden was a happy one.
But a crafty serpent was lurking in the garden, jealous and envious of the blessings mankind had received. With no opportunity to attack God directly, he determined to attack God’s image, and to destroy it by any means possible. As the father of deception, he planted seeds of doubt, tempting Eve to question the good character of God, suggesting that the One who had given her life and love was actually cruel and stingy, denying her access to greater heights of power and pleasure she thought she rightfully deserved.
Disobeying the command of God, Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Then she gave the fruit to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.[8]
Their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked. They received no new powers or pleasures as a result of their sin. Shame and fear were their only discoveries. As a covering, to hide from God and from each other, they sewed fig leaves together, fashioning rudimentary clothes for themselves, vainly trying to cover their nakedness.[9]
They hid from the face of God, but God did not hide His face from them. He walked in the garden, in the cool of the day, seeking fellowship with His people. But sadly, His people were no longer seeking fellowship with Him.
“What have you done?”, asked the Lord.
Instead of humbly repenting of his sin, Adam blamed his wife for giving him the forbidden fruit. And instead of humbly admitting her wrongdoing, Eve blamed the serpent for tempting her.
So the Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.[10]
In this second prophecy of the Second Adam, the great war of the ages had materialized:
God had created Man from the dust, and now the serpent was to eat dust all the days of his life.
Ravenous like a prowling lion, the bloodthirsty serpent sought to consume mankind. His ultimate target would be a Man born of a Virgin, where the seed of the serpent would strike the Seed of the Woman. But just as the First Adam rose from sleep, the Second Adam would rise from death, and in glorious victory, the Seed of the Woman would crush the serpent’s head. Both Adams bore a wounded side, a foreshadowing not of destruction but of a royal union.
For the sake of His love for humanity, God had decreed judgment on the serpent, foretold his ultimate demise, and promised the arrival of a Savior. Adam and Eve had all their physical needs met, lacking nothing for sustaining physical life. They turned away from the Source of Life, inviting death into their souls. Their souls needed healing, and they could not heal themselves. What they lacked were humility, gratitude, and love for God.
To restore their relationship with God, they needed to be humbled and recognize their dependence on Him. God, out of love, provided trials and tribulations to lead them to repentance and teach them humility, gratitude, and love. Through pain and toil, women and men would learn self-sacrifice and the true meaning of love. Only through self-sacrifice could the First and Second Adams find a bride, and only through self-sacrifice could God’s people regain their relationship with their Creator.
Until their hearts were healed and their relationship restored, living forever would be disastrous due to sin and selfishness. Mercifully, God expelled them from the garden and restricted access to the Tree of Life as a means to prevent hell on earth. After driving out the man, God placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, along with a flaming sword that guarded the way to the tree of life. Death was not a punishment from an angry god, but rather a challenge permitted by a loving Father to aid in the quest for humility, repentance, and spiritual healing.
Eventually, at the right time, God would raise them from the dead and restore access to the Tree of Life. After the marriage supper of the Lamb, its leaves would be provided for the healing of the nations. But for now, Adam and his children had to embark on the journey of repentance.
Source link