Clothed in servanthood.

Also for Adam and his wife

the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.  

Then the LORD God said,

"Behold, the man has become like one of Us,

    to know good and evil.

And now, lest he put out his hand

   and take also of the tree of life,

   and eat,  

   and live forever" --   Genesis 3:21-22 NKJV

After the Lord cursed the serpent, He left the newly dead/living couple and found the sheep where they were grazing.  The ram saw Him approach and wondered what the sorrowful look on the Lord’s face could mean.  Later, as He adjusted the fleece on Adam’s shoulder, the Lord saw the man gazing thoughtfully at the Tree of Life behind Him.

The man and woman were first established in the Garden of Eden under the authority of direct fellowship with the Lord.  Death within the humans shattered this authoritative protection and left all of mankind subject to angelic authority (Luke 4:10, Hebrews 2:7-9).  To offset the evil authority of the fallen angel(s), the Lord provided the protection of servant/sacrificial authority for mankind.  The ram that gave his shed blood for the first couple paved the way for God’s use of sacrifice/servanthood to hold satan at bay until the coming of Jesus.

By default, Jesus (Jesus is God) affirmed the servant role of government as a protection against satanic power.  Jesus did not interfere with any 1^st century governing body on earth.  Ultimately, all government behaves to maintain order within a nation and works because of its spiritual link to sacrifice/servant authority (Romans 13:4).  Jesus affirmed the power of and fulfilled the position of servant/sacrifice by His death on the cross.  Jesus opened the door of enlistment to humble hearts who wish to join Him in warfare against satanic evil.  Our choice of work clothes points to the quality of our faith.  Jesus offers to dress us so that the cross is in full view over His shoulder.

Come to Jesus.

Come to the Cross.

Murdered! she was!

And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it (the fig tree = tree of knowledge of good and evil Matthew 21:19) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4-5   

My plan for this week's blog was to move on to the book of Exodus... that was my plan.  Then I read some things that made me angry.  So back to Genesis 3 and the temptation of Eve.

Jesus is God.  In John 8, Jesus is in a verbal battle with Pharisees.  According to John's way of framing the narrative, the verbal battle is based on the outrageously merciful way that Jesus (God) has treated a woman caught in adultery.  Pharisees want her stoned and they want Jesus to lead the charge in establishing their bent ideas of lawful justice.  Here is His opportunity to throw in with them and show that their agenda and His is the same.  Jesus' strange idea of justice is that He becomes the champion of the woman and drives away her accusers.  In reading this account of the heart of Jesus, I was reminded of the things discussed last week...Adam freely gives himself over to the sinful condition of Eve and is identified with her - no matter what.  Jesus freely gives Himself over to the sinful condition of mankind and is identified with us - sin and all (Isaiah 53:12).

The thing that made me angry was in reading certain modern day Doctors of the Church who seem to reverse engineer the sort of sinful condition and flavor of death that is found in the adulterous woman into Eve before she ate the fruit.  Think about it for a minute... God made the first couple innocent and their approach to anything and everything was from the perspective of innocence.  Innocence.  Granted, it is very difficult for those of us that have fig juice in our veins to step into Eden and comprehend the story from this point of view.  If we don't, then we must accept the alternative.  The alternative is to continue teaching the bad idea that Eve was filled with sinful pride and ate the fruit in defiance of God.  From this approach, Eve has sin built into her and the fruit eating is incidental.  But surely this is nonsense.  Innocence is innocent until the deed is done that is sin.  If she drops it on the ground before taking a bite, she remains innocent.  Guilt and intent are not linked together until the law expands the offense.

Jesus claims that Eve was murdered.  Back to the debate in John 8.  Jesus knows that the Pharisees want to murder Him.  He reminds them that they are working from an old sense of family loyalty... "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. John 8:44.  The devil murdered an innocent woman in the beginning by talking to her as the slick trickster he was.  The murdered human took a new approach to the issue of the fruit of a tree God had expressly forbidden her husband to avoid.  When her teeth touched the skin of the fig, she sinned.  Not before.
At the beginning of John 8, Jesus encounters the children of the devil who have conspired together to trap a woman in adultery.  Jesus covers her in the same way as He covered the first couple.  He makes available His own saving blood from the cross.  He defends her and provides a picture of unfailing love toward her.  He reminds unfaithful Israel and humanity that easily departs from the love of the Living God that the Cross is available to any and all.

Come to Jesus.
Come to the Cross.