God's intent was to build a world in which to place His image bearer. He made a world the first three days and filled it with living creatures on days four through six. The seventh day He rested.
Mankind is given the task of doing, in a limited capacity, what God has already done on a grand scale. God has been creative, fruitful, working and resting. Now man is to work creatively, be fruitful, rule wisely and rest. In all of his activities man is to image God.
The garden that God plants is full of abundance and mankind is given the run of the place. He is assigned his task "tend and keep" and he is given a menu "of all these trees you may freely eat." He is prohibited from eating of one tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is forbidden. I take this to mean that the one thing man is forbidden, is the right to determine good and evil for himself. The determination of right and wrong, of what is and isn't lawful, is a matter in which the man was to depend entirely upon God to decide. As long as Adam respected this by obeying the prohibition against eating of this particular tree, he demonstrated his willingness to let God be God and to recognize his place as being one of subjection to his Creator.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
