Measure Upon Measure – Judgment And Condemnation – The Restoration Of God - Part 15 (Section 1) Series

MEASURE UPON MEASURE – JUDGMENT and CONDEMNATION – THE RESTORATION OF GOD - Part 15 (Section 1)

SPECIAL NOTE: The post before this one (Part 14) is an overall coverage of all Chapter 6 – the Judgement leading to Condemnation. The Lord restored all that and brought justification. I have expanded that whole chapter with a more detailed approach and it has resulted in two parts. I hope it gives a deeper understanding of what Jesus Christ did for us in His death.

CHAPTER 6 - THE SIXTH CONSEQUENCE - CONDEMNATION

ADAM AND EVE BEFORE AN AWESOME GOD

We come to the sixth consequence of Adam’s failure. It will be the last one we do. This time we are thinking about CONDEMNATION. Associated with condemnation is judgement and mixed in there is the word VERDICT. We will see what God’s verdict was.

Right at the start of God’s pronouncement we had a verdict that contained all the elements we have done prior to this. Just to refresh our minds we look at the relevant passage:-

{{Genesis 3:15-19 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.” To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground because from it you were taken - for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”}}

Adam and Eve had just heard the various pronouncements of God in response to their sin. They stood before their Creator without excuse, utterly exposed. He was merciful to them. They were not destroyed. They would have to battle a stubborn earth that was cursed, and come to know sorrow and separation. Death would be ever present for them.

As they stood there, racked with guilt and overshadowed by shame, they had listened to the judgments enumerated by God against them; ones we have been considering. These were the consequences of their sin, but they did not understand what the consequences involved, because they had no concept then, of what a curse would be in reality; what labour pains would be in childbirth; or what hard work and toil would involve in practice because the earth was cursed; or what separation from God would be like because they had never known that at any time.

I like to think about human nature. I suppose that comes from my years of teaching, but one of the foibles of human nature I do observe is the lack of comprehension in human beings to rationalise the outcomes of behaviour. When you lay out before people what will happen if they transgress or venture into an area that is forbidden, these people can’t understand the gravity of such a warning and a number of them still go ahead. I suppose they reason away the fact that it will affect them. For the criminals, often reality is missing until they are actually caught in their crime. The concept of what punishment really is, is not taken onboard. This is most noticeable in the incorrigible child.

Paradise for them was ending. They no longer deserved the Garden for the pair of them were revealed for what they were (or could we say, had become). They had been weighed in the balances of the righteousness of God and had been found wanting. They had come before the bench of the divine Judge and had been declared guilty. That was a whole new experience for them – a dreaded one. God had passed His verdict.

I can’t recall if I have mentioned this anywhere in these studies, but I firmly believe both Adam and Eve are with the Lord in heaven today. Unlike any of us today these two had known the deep seriousness of sin resulting in what they had become. They had come into condemnation. We have just been born that way. There is a marked difference. From the time of the fall in Eden I believe the pair followed what God set out to be acceptable in His sight.

Additionally, to be acceptable, God showed them the way when He sacrificed that sheep to make them garments of skin. We did that earlier if you remember. Why did Abel bring an animal sacrifice to the Lord? The answer is simple. He had been taught by his parents that it was the way God made for them to be acceptable and forgiven.