Creation, the Curtain, and the Cross Bullets

God’s Plan to be with Us

In Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost

after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit

the Apostle Peter got up to preach the first sermon of the Church Age.

And in this sermon, Peter made this point to the Jewish audience gathered around the Spirit annointed saints in Jerusalem,

Acts 2:22-23, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene,

a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—

this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,

you nailed to a cross by the hands of lawless men and put Him to death.”

Peter told them that that man Jesus,

whom the Jewish authorities and chief priests arrested and tried,

who was handed over by them to Pilate,

who was condemned to death by the Jerusalem mob,

who was nailed to a cross by the hands of the Romans…

Peter said that this man, this Jesus

was ultimately delivered over by the predetermined plan of God.

It was the Father’s plan for His Son to die.

It was God’s plan to deliver up His Son, and, this is what we will see tonight,

it was His plan to deliver up His Son so that He might dwell with us again.

This is what we call the plan of redemption.

God in His infinite wisdom and power

has decreed and orchestrated all of history to accomplish

His plan to redeem a people to dwell with Him and fully glorify Him by enjoying life with Him forever.

Stated more succinctly, and again this is the main idea for tonight,

God’s plan is to perfectly dwell with His people (repeat)

And this is a message you can trace throughout the whole of scripture,

from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.

And that is actually what I will attempt to do with you in this message

Creation: God with Them in the Garden

Let’s begin with Creation

It is at the beginning of our Bibles

where we will see the genesis of God’s plan

to dwell with man and woman in the Garden.

If you have a Bible, please open with me to Genesis 2:7-9

“Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;

and so the man became a living being.

And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.

And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food;

the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,

and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

You see here in Genesis 2 we have a zoomed in view of the 6th day of Creation.

And what we see in that chapter is God making the crown of His creation, the man Adam and the Woman, Eve.

After Adam’s creation, God places him in a garden, the garden of Eden,

where he had every desirable fruit to eat from,

and the tree of life to sustain him.

It was in the Garden that God also made Adam’s bride Eve,

and it was there that they enjoyed perfect marital bliss

and perfectly accomplished the work of tending the garden that God had given them.

But the best reality of all was that God was there.

The garden was where they enjoyed deep, unhindered, glorious fellowship with God

when He would walk with them in the cool of the day.

Think of that. A perfect day of work beside the love of your life, no conflicts, no problems, no difficulties

And then to culminate each day, in the afternoon, they got walk and talk with God.

He was there dwelling perfectly with them in the Garden.

And this is just as He had planned.

For at the end of the 6th day, Moses tells us that Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”

When all was complete, God judged the work of His hands to be very Good.

Every creature and every creation He had made

was perfectly experiencing the perfect existence for which they were made.

And the pinnacle of the perfect existence of the man and woman was this:

they dwelled perfectly together with God.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament

that the apostles and Jesus used

had a word for the garden in Genesis 2 -

paradeisos - paradise - it was truly paradise.

Until, one day, it was not.

Back in Genesis 2, after placing Adam in the Garden, God gave him this command, Genesis 2:15-17,

“Then Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying,

“From any tree of the garden you may surely eat;

but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it;

for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Notice that God begins his command with an act of love and freedom,

He told Adam, everything you see, every tree, every fruit, it’s your gift from me to enjoy.

Except the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

From the beginning we can see that God’s commands are always for our good

I want you to know this

His law is given to us out of love.

God gave Adam abundant freedom in the abundance of the garden, surely eat, He said

and He also gave the opportunity for obedience

with the pro-hi-bition of partaking of the fruit of one plant.

And sadly, tempted by the Devil, they believed his lies instead of the Word of God,

and they rebelled against His command,

taking and eating that which they lusted after - the fruit of the tree that God pro-hib-ited.

The perfect experience of a perfect existence of those made in the image of God

was marred that day by the stain of their sin.

Dear friends, learn here of the tragedy of transgressing the holy God.

His law is given for our good, and He blesses our lives with good things that we can righteously enjoy.

The greatest blessing of all being a relationship with Him

And all sin is, is a lie.

A a lie, which when we believe it,

we exchange the infinitely valuable for the mere fleeting taste of the forbidden.

Which is exactly what Adam and Eve did when they believed the devil’s lies and disobeyed God’s loving law.

Now I have this sweet memory of when we were kids.

Almost every evening, my siblings and I would wait with such anticipation it was visible in our little eyes…

we would wait for a special sound…

the sound of the garage door opening.

That sound meant something.

And I can still hear the sweet sound of my sister’s little voice,

screaming the reality that that sound signified:

“daddy’s home!”

But on the day Adam and evil fell,

on the second worst day in all of history,

instead of running with excitement at the sound of their Heavenly Father coming to walk with them,

Adam and Eve hid. Genesis 3:8

“Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,

and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God in the midst of the trees of the garden.”

And they hid because of the guilt of their sin.

They hid for they had disobeyed God’s command.

They hid for once they sinned they had the clarity of mind to believe God’s word to be true - that they would surely die for eating the fruit.

But no tree in the garden was big enough to hide them from the God who created the red woods.

We can not hide from God. He sees all and He knows all.

Adam and Eve learned this lesson, and we must realize it too.

God knows every secret deed we do and every hidden thought we think.

We can not hide from Him.

The consequence of their sin was death. God did not lie to them,

because of their sin they were condemned to no longer live forever, but one day, to die.

No longer would they be able to partake of the tree of life.

No longer would their bodies be perfect, free from disease and the effects of aging.

They, like every human after them suffered and died because of sin.

But the greatest tragedy of their transgression was this:

they could no longer live in the garden paradise of Eden with God.

They could no longer enjoy it’s fruits,

no longer enjoy it’s bliss,

And they could no longer experience unhindered fellowship with God in the garden.

Because of their sinful imperfection they could no longer perfectly dwell with God.

And the reason for this is because God is Holy.

Uncleanliness cannot exist in His glorious and perfect presence.

Because He is perfectly righteous and just,

Sin and transgression cannot go unpunished

And as they hid Adam and Eve tried their best to cover over their sin with fig leaves.

But there is no amount of covering one can do,

no amount of work one can accomplish or no amount of good one can perform

to remove the stain and the condemnation of sin.

They did the crime, and they had to pay the time.

And for this reason at the end of the account of the fall in Genesis 3 we see this striking scene, Genesis 3:24,

“So He drove the man out;

and at the east of the garden of Eden

He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction

to guard the way to the tree of life.”

This detail is important. It is crucial that we remember these cherubim, these angelic beings,

who guarded the access to God’s sanctuary, to God’s garden.

As one author put it, their presence at the entrance to Eden was like a giant keep out sign

signifying to Adam and Eve that because of their sin, they can’t come back in.

So then, in the beginning of our Bibles we see

God’s glorious plan to create a people for Himself

to dwell with Him in His garden paradise,

but because of their sin, his people were expelled from the garden,

and they could not go back in to be with Him and perfectly enjoy His presence.

But the beautiful reality that the rest of the Old Testament shows us is this,

God did not abandon His plan to dwell with His people.

No, He redeemed a nation of people to himself and would continue to dwell with them in His Tent and in His Temple.

The Curtain: God with Them in His Tent and in His Temple

After 400 years of slavery in Egypt,

God delivered the covenant descendants of Abraham, the nation of Israel

with awful plagues and miraculous protection from Pharaoh and his army.

God led this people up out of Egypt,

going before them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of cloud by night.

He led them through the Red Sea and then up to Mount Sinai

where He appeared at the top of the mountain.

When He descended down to the mountain top

His presence cause the ground to smoke and shake

and the sky to be filled with flashes of lightening and roaring thunder.

It was there that he covenanted with His nation, giving them His law.

But the Ten Commandments weren’t the only instructions handed down at Sinai

God also taught HIs people how to build a tabernacle - or a tent.

But not for them to live in, but for him.

You see, in the days before trains, planes, and cars,

people travelled by foot and by animal and then they slept and camped in these large tents throughout their journey.

And as Israel was traveling from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan, they moved about in tabernacles, or tents.

So when God gave the instructions for the His tabernacle,

He was telling them, “I am on this journey with you. I am here to dwell with you.”

We see this in Leviticus, where God makes this glorious declaration, Leviticus 26:11-12,

“I will make My dwelling among you,

and My soul will not loathe you.

‘I will also walk among you and be your God,

and you shall be My people.”

He was going to live with them, He was going to walk with them again.

They were to be His people, His most treasured possession,

and He was to be their God.

And that language isn’t the only thing that should be reminding us of Eden

When you take the time to read through the building instructions for God’s tent,

starting in Exodus 25, you see that there is wood everywhere,

that there are these ornate designs of plants, and flowers, and trees, and fruit everywhere.

And the reason for these features was that God’s tent was supposed to remind people of God’s garden,

where His people dwelled with Him and with Him and experienced His presence.

But there was something different about this dwelling of God.

In the inner-most room of the tent there was the Holy of Holies.

This is where the ark of the Lord would be placed, with the mercy seat on top of it.

It was in this room that the presence of God would be.

And dividing this Holy of Holies, this sanctuary, from the rest of the tent was a veil or a curtain,

guarding the entrance into the presence of God.

And in Exodus 26:31, we see the specific instructions for this curtain

“You shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen;

and it shall be made with cherubim”

Cherubim. Cherubim on a curtain guarding the access to the presence of God.

Like the guardians of the garden,

this curtain belayed with cherubim served as a giant keep out sign,

signifying that even though God is dwelling with you in this tent,

because of your sin you can’t go in.

And when Israel finally arrived and conquered the Promised Land

when Solomon, the third king of Israel, builds the house of God, the Temple.

We see the same garden imagery.

We have the same layout of rooms.

And in 2 Chron 3:14 we see that guarding access to the Holy of Holies,

Solomon made that same curtain, the same

“veil of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and he ornamented cherubim on it.”

Because of your sin you can not go in. It was clear with this curtain and with the sacrifices that went on in the Tent and the Temple

Sin separated man from God.

That sweet, unhindered, pure, enjoyment of the perfect fellowship with God was lost

In summary God dwelled perfectly with mankind in the Garden at Creation,

until their sin led to their banishment east of Eden.

But then God saw fit to dwell with His people in His tent and in His Temple.

However, because of their sin they could not fully experience Him behind the Curtain.

Which brings us to our third and final section tonight —

The Cross: Where we will see God accomplish HIs plan to perfectly dwell perfectly with us in Christ and through the Cross.

First, Creation, then Curtain, and now Christ and the Cross.

The Cross: God with us in Christ and Through the Cross

For hundreds of years that curtain remained in the House of God

as a reminder that because of your sin you can not go in.

Until one day, God’s plan to perfectly dwell with us took the shape of a baby born in the manger.

A baby born of a virgin, conceived by the Spirit,

the very Son of God, born in flesh.

And His name was infinitely appropriate - as the angel said to Mary, Matthew 1:23,

“AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,”

which translated means, “GOD WITH US.””

And as that baby grew into a man, never once did He sin, though He was tempted in every way.

Never once did He break God’s law, but instead fulfilled it in every way.

And not only did He live the perfect life we could have never lived

He perfectly revealed the nature and character of God on a level we could never have known.

He was and is the perfect representation of His Father.

He was and is God incarnate.

And although He demonstrated His divine power and might through sings and wonders and miracles,

by feeding the hungry, giving sight to the blind, causing the deaf to hear, making the lame to walk, and cleansing the unclean

He also lived on this earth with the attitude and action of that befitting a common servant.

He dwelled amongst the lowliest of society,

and stooped to the lowliest of stature,

bending even to wash the dirt and the grime off of His disciples feet.

God walked with man once more, but this time as a man himself.

And He came not to be served, as we would safely assume,

but He came to serve.

And it yet, we did not walk with Him as Adam and Eve did in the Garden.

For when Christ walked among us,

He walked as the sinless God-man amongst a world full of sinners.

His own family rejected him,

His hometown tried to throw him off a cliff,

His enemies plotted and schemed against him constantly,

everywhere He went people clamored to His side only to see a supernatural show or get a free meal,

His closest friends constantly quaraled and bickered,

one of them betrayed him for a handful of silver,

and the rest of them deserted him in His time of need.

And when he was put before the nation He came to save by the Roman governor Pontious Pilate,

His own people condemned Him to crucifixion on a Roman cross.

God with Us on the Cross

That day, that Friday, was the worst day in all of history.

The Maker of Heaven and Earth bent under the weight of the cross He carried on His back.

The King of Kings was mocked with a crown of thorns and hung between two thieves.

The Son of God stricken and smitten, crushed and condemned, as He hung forsaken by His Father.

Immanuel, God with Us, was crucified on a cross by the ones He came to be with, the ones He came to save.

But remember, what Peter said in Acts 2,

it was the predetermined plan of God that Christ be delivered over to death.

And Jesus Himself said this in John 10,

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep...

For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.

“No one takes it away from Me, but from Myself, I lay it down.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

He had the authority to lay down His life,

and He did the very thing for which He came to do - to lay down His life as a ransom for many.

Why did He plan to die?

To take the place of His people,

to sacrifice Himself in their stead,

as a shepherd lays down His own life for His sheep.

It was on that Roman cross that Jesus took all of our sins upon His shoulders.

As Christ was suspended above the grown on a tree He made

The Sun He spoke into existance, hid it’s face,

Turning the sky black

as the Light of the World took on all of the darkness of our wrongdoings.

As He hung from those bitter nails,

He did not drink in the sweet smile of His Father’s approval

but the bitter cup of His Father’s wrath against our sin.

As the apostle Paul writes in 2 Cor 5:21

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,”

And as the hymn that we just heard goes,

“His robes for mine: such anguish none can know.

Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe.

He, as though I, accursed and left alone;”

Why?

“So that I, as though He, am embraced and welcomed home”

Again, 2 Cor 5:21

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,”

Why?

“so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

This is the reality of what Christ accomplished that Friday afternoon

He became sin for us so that we might exchange our sin for His perfect righteousness.

He died for us so that the price of the death, the punishment for our sin might be paid.

The Just and Righteous judge looked upon His Son on the Cross that day and saw our sin

so that when He looks upon us who believe in the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurection,

when He looks upon us, He sees His perfect and beloved Son.

As the song writer penned,

“Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free.

For God the Just

is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me.”

And when Christ the Beloved of God breathed His last,

when He proclaimed the world shattering words that His work was finished

something amazing, something astonishing, something astounding happened.

The curtain that had stood in the temple for hundreds of years

as a sign of the reality that stood since Adam first sinned,

that curtain tore in two as Matthew records from top to bottom.

It was as if the invisible hand of God Himself tore that keep out sign between us and Him in half.

Because of our sin we could not go in.

We could not re-enter the garden

We could not go behind the curtain.

We could not dwell with God perfectly.

But because of Christ,

because He died on the cross to take our sin,

we can go in.

And we can be with Him unhindered by our wrongdoings,

we can experience His love uninhibited by our guilt

we can walk with Him unrestrained by our sins.

Because of His death we can dwell with Him in paradise once more.

And this is exactly what Jesus said to the thief on the cross. Do you remember that story.

Christ was crucified between two robbers.

And one of the,joined the throng that gathered around the cross in mocking Jesus.

But the other thief silenced him saying, Luke 23:40-42

“Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

“And we indeed are suffering justly,

for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done;

but this man has done nothing wrong.”

You see He understood why Jesus was hanging there with him that day.

He understood that Jesus was dying as an innocent man so that the guilty might be saved.

And so before he ran out of breaths to breeeth,

he asked His savior one thing, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!””

And what did Jesus say to Him? Luke 23:43

“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me”

where?- “in Paradise.””

That sinner would walk with Savior in Paradise just as Adam did with His Maker in the Garden.

Conclusion

I wish to end tonight with one more scene.

Before He died, on the night of the Last Supper

Jesus prepared his closest friends for what was about to happen the next day on Calvary.

He said to them John 14:1-3

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you;

for I go to prepare a place for you.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again and receive you to Myself,

that where I am, there you may be also.”

This thing mystified his followers.

They didn’t get it. He’s going to prepare a place for us?

Why? He’s with us right now.

Why does He have to go.

They didn’t understand that He had to die on that cross

so that they could be with Him in His Father’s house,

so that where He is, there we might be also.

And that place that He is preparing for us in paradise is a place even better than the first garden.

This is what John saw at the end of His revelation from God, Revelation 21:1-5

Revelation 21:1–5 (ESV)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,

for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them,

and they will be his people,

and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

and death shall be no more,

neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,

for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

God will dwell among us. We will be His people.

And God will be our God and live with us,

walk with us,

and wipe every tear from our eyes so that we will only know the sweet joy of His salvation

It will truly be an unending paradise.

But when we go back to that scene of Jesus preparing His disciples the night before His death.

We hear fromthe Apostle Thomas, ever the doubting one in the group, voicing his concern, John 14:5,

“Lord, we do not know where You are going.

How can we know the way?”

And this is what Jesus said to Thomas and what He says to us tongiht John 14:6 ,

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through Me.”

This is God’s plan.

He sent His Son to be way back to the paradise of God,

where we can dwell perfectly with Him forever.

We can come to the Father once more, but only through Jesus.

Only through turning from our sins and trusting in Him alone

believe that He paid the penalty of our sins on the cross,

that He died our death, and that after three days in the tomb He rose to eternal life

so that we might live forever with Him.

Dear friends, if you have not yet believed that Jesus is truly Christ, come to Him!

Come to the cross and see your Savior.

Leave the pleasures of the sins of this world behind and follow after Jesus,

the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for you

so that He would make us lie down in the green pastures and still waters of His paradise.

Come to Jesus, for through Him,

the curtain has been torn in two

that we might go in and perfectly dwell with Him forever.

Let’s pray