For many years, when I used to live in a church without being fully converted, I had a very wrong view of Adam. I confess.
At that time, I saw him as one totally blamed for all the sins of human race. So I refused to go any deeper into some study of this biblical character for so long.
On the night of last Tuesday I was praying and I asked for a direction to God regarding this post. I felt like writing about the intimate relationship between God and the first man in the world. Along with a few other thoughts that were put into my mind, I came to some personal conclusions.
Why was man created?
I began by reflection on why the Lord created man. So first, even though it was impossible, I struggled to understand what God wanted to do.
I even want to paraphrase an excerpt from a great preaching from brother Douglas Gonçalves. Through Paul’s final salutation in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, he defines the name of Jesus as “Grace.” The name of God as “Love.” And that of the Holy Spirit as “Fellowship”.
2 Cor 13:14 “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”.
In my silly mentality and without any wisdom, I went to the dictionary once more to see the meaning of the word “love.” What I found was: “strong affection for another person, born of consanguinity or social relations”.
So, thinking of God the Father as the most pure and inexhaustible source of possible love. What He is indeed. I understood that God Himself is the most perfect definition of a relationship of affection with someone. And if He is represented in a trinity, it is simple to think that there was between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit an exchange of pure love, together with perfect and constant grace and fellowship.
Gen. 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness …”
The love between the trinity is so great, that it bears fruit. In this case, the man, made in the likeness of the Most High God.
I began to pray about it and think about how the Father created us to have a perfect fellowship of love with Him. After all, we know that we are only capable of loving Him because His love has been first deposited with us. Thinking like a man, I find it impossible to retain love. Whenever we are full of this feeling we want to overflow it and channel it to other people or things. I think God did it the same way. In his endless love, he overflowed and channeled to a being created to live in a perfect relationship of intimacy with Him.
1Jo 4:19 “We love because he first loved us…”
How was the intimacy between God and Adam?
Gen 3: 6 “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
(8) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LordGod as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LordGod among the trees of the garden. (9) But the LordGod called to the man, “Where are you?”
(10) He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
(11) And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Maybe the text gets a bit confusing. But I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit will touch you and convince you of what was placed in my heart to write here. I will strive to make it as clear as possible:
1 – Adam and Eve were in Eden, in Hebrew ēdhen. Which means “place of delight”. Knowing that there the contact between God and man was face-to-face, it is easy to understand that there was a place of fellowship and delight among all the saints (the Lord and man). Eden is the most perfect representation of the love of God, which removes all fear (1Jo 4:18), was a place of full freedom and communion between Creator and creation.
2 – Being holy, the place where the presence of the Lord dwelt was pure and free from sin, so that nakedness was absolutely normal, since there was no malicious gaze there;
3. When man fell into his will to obtain discernment between good and evil, he had his purity broken and began to see nakedness with evil eyes;
4- In verse 10, Adam says he felt fear only by hearing the footsteps of God. Someone with whom he had a face-to-face contact.
How to be intimate with God?
I am not saying here that it is necessary to be with the body naked to draw near to God. My intention is to show that our intimacy with Him is increased through the purity that we have in our heart and in our eyes. It is to have our heart naked and clear of all shame caused by sin.
Of course, the seed of sin still lives in our flesh. And this is exactly why day after day the old man from the flesh must be killed, so that only the man who comes from the spirit, who is pure and created to be holy, as God did, lives.
Acts 13: 38 “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses”.
The Sacrifice of Jesus cleanses us from all error and sin so that we have face-to-face contact with God. But for this, we must become aware that our shame has already been abolished.
If you sin, brother, do not be ashamed to draw near to the Lord your God. For that is exactly what He wants you to do since today, through Jesus, you have a call to be holy, as Adam before the fall. The following passage, written by the apostle Paul, explains this:
1 Cor 1: 2 “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours. (3) Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”
May the great love of God be with every reader and brother in Christ Jesus, amen!
