Light is never more beautiful or valuable than when it first appears against the gloomy background of total darkness. Then it serves fully its function. The contrast accentuates its vividness and enhances its worth. When primeval darkness mantled the globe, “Let there be light!” was Yahweh Elohim’s first command. Then followed those progressive stages in the great creative work whereby this planet was so skilfully renovated and so delightfully furnished as a habitation for man.
Yet the favoured creature, despite ample prior warning, chose to repudiate the authority of his benign Creator’ The sin was complete, the sentence just. Darkness again prevailed—not now the physical darkness of night, but the spiritual darkness of sin and of its dreadful consequences’ It was a darkness which “could be felt” by those whose transgression introduced it. It manifested itself in shame and fear.
Sinful Adam and his sinful partner were to be exiled from their magnificent paradise—with its high potential, including a tree of life—and to set their feet upon a path of labour and sorrow leading to “a land of darkness, as darkness itself”, for such death is (Job 10:21-22). Their eventual arrival at that destination was inevitable.
Moreover, apart from the intervention of mercy, the outlook was as hopeless for their progeny as for them. Death’s reign here began. It was to hold universal dominion’
“even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come” (Rom 5:14)
This one “that was to come” was promised at that early day. The fiat of divine love again went forth : “Let there be light !” And it was so. A brilliant gleam of hope flashed upon the sombre scene. It took the form of the somewhat enigmatical but pregnant declaration directed to the serpent :
“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15)
Implicit in this announcement was the assurance of ultimate and complete deliverance from sin and from the bondage it had brought. These were “glad tidings” indeed, representing the earliest promulgation of the Gospel message. The Edenic promise was the blueprint of the architecture of God’s redemptive work ; the synopsis of His plan of salvation through Christ Jesus, His Son.
Faith, Hope And Love
Subsequent promises God made to men served to amplify the first. Whether we consider the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic, or others (which we trust to consider separately in later articles of this series), each was in some direction a ramification or elaboration of the Edenic.
For instance, “the gospel preached unto Abraham” made clear the vital necessity of faith as a condition of the promised blessedness (Gal 3:8). By no other process could perishing man hope to participate in the final victory assured by “the voice that breathed o’er Eden”.
But love is the forerunner of faith, and continues its blessed ministrations long after faith has finished its course. When Paul compares the three abiding attributes—faith, hope and love—which adorn that “more excellent way” he set before his Corinthian brethren’s, his selection is prompt and forthright : “The greatest of these is love”‘
Love is greater than either faith or hope, not only because the whole is greater than the part, but because the Cause excels the effect ; the Producer is greater than the product’ Before man had any basis for the exercise of hope and faith, Divine love took the initiative’ It provided a foundation for the investment of these mental and moral assets by devising and announcing the rich promise of Gen. 3:15.
Love-God’s Iove-never fails and never finishes. When faith has been translated to sight, and hope has rejoiced in fulfilment, love will still remain the supreme and eternal reality.
The pertinent remarks of the author of Elpis Israel” deserve citation :
“The allegorical signification of the sentence upon the Serpent kindled the first scintillation of hope in the human heart of the appearance of One, who should deliver the world from all its ills, and advance it to a higher state. The promise of such a personage, and of such a consummation, was the nucleus of that ‘faith, which is the assured expectation of things hoped for, and the conviction of things unseen’. The belief, and spiritualizing influence, of this hope became the ground of acceptance with God in the earliest times. Faith in this promise was established as the principle of classification among the sons of Adam.” (p. 115).
Have you ever noticed the position of the Edenic promise in the Mosaic record? It is sandwiched between sin and its penalty. After the transgressors had confessed their guilt, and before the formal pronouncement of death upon them, there was heard the promise of a Deliverer to rescue the race from irreparable ruin. Truly,
“God Is Love”
“He first loved us” (1 John 4:8-19). Paul would have us not lose sight of either of the two sides of Yahweh’s character. “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God” (Rom 11:22). The sentence upon Adam speaks of His severity ; that upon the serpent tells of His goodness.
In wrath He “remembers mercy”(Hab 3:2) and “mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (Jas 2:13). Love takes the initiative in reconciliation. Paul cannot write of judgment even of that judgment which came “upon all men to condemnation” (Rom 5:16-18)—without dwelling on the love of God” manifested through the atoning sacrifice provided by “the death of His Son” (Rom 5:10).
“God commendeth His love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” But the Father’s love commenced its expression far in advance of the sacrifice, even while Adam himself was “yet a sinner”, in the allegorical and prophetical projection of the woman’s seed as the vanquisher of sin and death.
What leads sinners to repentance is not only a knowledge of the severity but an understanding and appreciation of “the goodness of God”. “The riches of His goodness and forbearance and Iongsuffering” are treasures not to be despised (Rom 2:4).
When sin marred His splendid handiwork, Yahweh, in the exercise of His sovereign and unchallengeable authority, could have obliterated man from the earth and produced a fresh creation’ His divine supremacy had been affronted, His righteous law despised, and His fatherly guidance rejected’ But Omnipotence does not fail, nor does Infinite Wisdom err. It brings order out of chaos and turns ugliness to beauty, without the compromise of truth and righteousness’
God vindicated His supremacy by upholding His law against sin, yet providing a “way” whereby repentant transgressors might regain His favour, and, through His condescending grace, attain at length to life everlasting.
This was the essence of the light which shone in the darkness of that distant day’ “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman” (Gal 4:4). In him the conflict implied in the Edenic promise found both its focus and its victory. He was “the true light”, which shone so brilliantly in the prevailing darkness of a sinful world, though, in the main, “the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5-9)
Yet some responded differently. Of them the prophet wrote : “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light : they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Is 9:2). Peter summoned those who had accepted the challenge which the Light had brought to “show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Pet 2:9). Gen. 3:15 provides the first intimation of Yahweh’s purpose to “take out” from the world “a people for His Name” (1 Pet 2:9)
Collectively, the divine promises are the expression of God’s pity for a world that had lost itself by departing from Him. They constitute the bridge connecting suffering with glory. They lead from death to life ; from “the bondage of corruption” to “the glorious liberty of the children of God”.
The particular promise now being considered is one which extends from that early tragedy of Genesis to the final glory of Revelation ; from the “first man”, Adam, “of the earth, earthy” to “the last Adam”, “the Lord from heaven”, “a quickening (life-giving) spirit (1 Cor 15:45-47) ; from that first man who sinned, died, and returned to dust, to the “man approved of God” (Acts 2:22) who was obedient unto death” (Phil 2:8) Yahweh’s “Holy One”, whom He suffered not to see corruption (Ps 16:11; Acts 2:27), and who finally could thus introduce himself to the lonely exile of Patmos: am he that liveth and was dead ; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of hell and of death.” (Rev 1:18).
The sweep of the promise stretches on beyond the “first-fruits” to the bountiful harvest, and still farther to that resplendent day when the great redemptive work will be complete and the effects of Eden’s tragedy swept for ever away. “There will be no more curse”
To every man and woman who recognise their helpless and hopeless position “in Adam” the provisions God has so mercifully made are “great and precious promises” indeed ; for “by them” (the understanding and belief of them) says the apostle, “ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Pet 1:4).
The transporting prospect overflows the heart with deep gratitude and praise. Yahweh is the Light-Giver and Life-Giver, and Jesus, His Christ, the Son of “His handmaid” (Ps 86:18; Lk 1:48), the vessel through whom He caused the light to shine and the Life to flow. “For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay