Life and Death

Introduction

Turn your bibles to Genesis 2:15-17

As I have been meditating on this text the past couple of weeks, I have been pondering what the main theme of this passage was. We see the Kingdom of God. We see the Covenant of Works. We see God’s rule. And of all of these things could be talked about in a lot of detail.

But the more that I have read and meditated on this text, the more I have seen how this text is pointing to the Life that God gives versus the death that is experienced apart from Him.

This morning I have titled this sermonette “Life and Death”

When I was teaching in China, one thing that I did at the beginning of the year was to make a contract for my students. In this contract I laid out exactly what I expected from them. Some of the stipulations to the contract were:

That the students would respect myself and their other classmates

That they would use appropriate language

That they would do their work and come to me when they needed help

And that they would follow all of the safety guidelines that I laid out for them when we were doing experiments in the lab.

This wasn’t all there was to the contract. There was also another side. On the flip side, I laid out what they could expect from me.

I would teach them to the best of my ability

I would help them in any way that I could

I would provide a safe space for them to learn in and feel comfortable asking questions

and that I would be there for them even past the curriculum when they needed me.

With this contract, my students knew what I expected from them and they knew what to expect from me. And whenever we didn’t abide by the contract we had made, either myself or my students, we all had the responsibility to point each other back to what we had agreed upon.

This example breaks down, but it is similar to what God is doing with Adam in the Garden in our texts. Let’s read.

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Pause

God has laid out His contract here before Adam. To use a more biblical and theological term, this is God’s Covenant with Adam.

A covenant is more significant than a contract. For example, think about marriage.

Is marriage a legal binding contract between two people? Yes.

But doesn’t it go much deeper than that?

Doesn’t it signify that they are one flesh that is now meant to last a lifetime? Yes.

So this is not merely a contract between Adam and God, but a spiritually binding covenant.

It is what we refer to as the Covenant of Works.

Pause

In the same way that I laid out what I expected of my students and what my students could expect of me, God has done the same with Adam.

In verse 15, God took the man and placed him in the Garden. He provided him a home that was already cultivated and planted and had everything that he could ever need.

In verse 16 we see that God provided Adam with all of the food that Adam could have ever wanted. Every tree was good for eating. God is providing everything for Adam.

In return, Adam was to work the Garden and to keep the Garden.

He was to serve God and worship him through watching over and taking care of God’s creation.

This was to be a joyous work that was fueled by worship of the one who created it. And Adam was to expand it so that the whole earth would worship and glorify God.

I also want to point out here that God didn’t need Adam to keep the Garden. God could have kept the Garden in perfect and pristine condition from the moment of it’s creation. But that’s not the point.

Pause

The point is that God is inviting Adam into the work in which He has started and bringing Adam alongside Him to help and to continue His work.

This would not have been tedious and strenuous work for Adam like work is for us today but it would have been the great joy of his life to serve his creator in this way and to do that which he was intended for.

Part of the covenant that God instituted was also a command.

That Adam would submit to God’s authority. God commanded Adam that he should not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and if he did, then he would surely die.

So not only has God provided everything that Adam could need, God also wants Adam to choose to obey Him as his King.

Make this a questioning tone

The question is then asked, well why would God even put this tree in the Garden if there was even a possibility that Adam would choose to disobey God. Why even give him the opportunity to sin?

Pause

First, God did it for His own glory.

Second, Eternal Life must be earned by obedience to God.

So this was a test for Adam. He was given the choice whether to submit to God or to pursue his own kingdom and understanding of Good and Evil. He could obey God and come under His kingship thereby earning the right to live forever with God. If Adam would have chosen to obey, this would have given God the ultimate glory and given Adam eternal life, however, without the choice, there is no room for willful obedience, only forced servitude.

Pause

The choice for Adam was between life and death. He could either eat of the Tree that God provided with Life. To not only be content with all that God had provided but filled completely.

Pause

He would never have any want. He could trust that God knew what was best or he could put his trust in his own wisdom. The trust in himself is inevitably what led him to his death. It was the sin of pride. Seeking after his own understanding of Good and Evil. Believing the life that God had provided wasn’t enough. And this death was not merely a physical death. It was deeper than that. It was a spiritual death. It was a separation from the Giver of Life.

Pause

This death brought about the death of everything in the universe. The animals, the plants, the sun, the stars.

At the point that Adam bit the fruit, the entire structure of creation was fractured.

Adam didn’t just bring death upon himself but upon the entirety of creation.

Israel

The choice between life and death was not only given to Adam, but to God’s people throughout the Old Testament. One example of this choice was given to Israel as they were about to enter the promised Land, the Law was renewed and God put before Israel the choice of Life and Death. This is a longer passage, but I want you to see how this choice parallels to our text in Genesis. He says in Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Deuteronomy 30:15–20 ESV

15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Breath. Drink Water

For Israel, to follow the Law was to choose life. To disobey was to choose death.

But Moses knew the people wouldn’t obey. He called them stiffnecked and he knew that they would run astray.

Moses knew the deeper condition of their hearts was that of evil. He knew they had inherited the sin problem from Adam.

However, he also knew the love of the Father. And he told Joshua that God would never leave them nor forsake them. Regardless of the multitudes of their sin, God would continuously come back and redeem them time and time again.

And this redemption was not only needed for Israel but for every man who has ever lived after Adam. We are all evil and will always choose evil.

And just as Israel was in need of redeeming, so are we.

This redemption was culminated in Christ. As Jesus was on the cross, he is not saying like he did before the Israelites that I put before you life and death, he is saying that I put before you life by my death.

Pause

You are dead. There’s nothing you can do to become alive. So in your place, I will die for you, so that you might receive my life and live.

So to everyone who believes, this life is given. It is revived.

It is the same source of Life that was given to Adam through the Tree of Life.

We have seen how The Covenant of Works was established with Adam and now let us look at how Christ’s perfect life and sacrificial death has fulfilled this Covenant.

Adam had the choice to choose God and he chose himself.

Christ had the same choice.

Adam had one command to obey and failed.

Christ had 613 laws to obey and he did it perfectly.

Adam had the choice to submit to God but tried to seize his throne instead.

Christ submitted to God in every way, even to sacrificing himself on a cross that he might redeem those whom he loved.

The life that Adam forfeited by his DIS-OBEDIENCE, Christ has restored to us with by his O-BEDIENCE. This spiritual life has been paid for.

Not by our own good works but by the works of our good saviour.

The Covenant of Works that was broken by Adam has been fulfilled in Christ and behold the Covenant of Grace is here.

This is not a covenant like the old one where we work for our salvation and have to obey perfectly in order to earn it. This covenant says you don’t deserve it. You could never earn it.

But Jesus says “I did. And I give it to you freely.”

The penalty for sin has been paid.

Your salvation and eternal life has been earned, not by you, but by Christ. And, He, by His good grace and mercy, gives it to everyone who repents and believes and submits to the kingship of Christ.

Now all those who are in Christ are called back to obedience to this God who not only created us, but who has made us new.

We are not called to obey as Adam was in his own strength.

And not like the Israelites who were hopelessly called to obey in their sinful and fallen state

No. We are enabled to obey by the power of the Holy Spirit through the work of Christ. He has given us the same call as he did to Adam and to Israel. He has called us to obedience. But the difference now is that God has given us Himself in order that we could obey.

This obedience that we have been called to is a glorious thing.

And this part is key.

Now through our obedience that is enabled by the Holy Spirit, we don’t work to build our own kingdoms but we work to build the Kingdom of God. We are called back to the work of God. It is a similar work to that which Adam was commanded. Adam was told to work and keep the garden. To fill the earth with God’s image.

We are not commanded to the work of tending and cultivating the earth, but the better work of tending and the cultivating of souls.

And in the same way that God did not need Adam to fill the earth with worshippers, so God does not need us. But God has chosen to bring us alongside Him in his good work of redeeming His creation back to Himself.

He allows us to take part in His work for the worship of his glorious praise.

Our work is defined by the command that Jesus gives us in the Great Commission.

As Adam was commissioned to care for the Garden and to tend and multiply physical life on the earth, we are commissioned for a similar work. To multiply spiritual life.

Spiritual death was the only thing we had ever known until Christ opened our eyes. This is all that the rest of creation that is outside of Christ knows.

They are blind to their sin. They’re blind to the joy of worshiping and serving the only good God.

They are still partnering with the enemy trying to take the place of the almighty creator.

Building their own kingdoms that are weak and futile and will be burned to nothing and they know nothing of the everlasting Kingdom of God.

But this is where we all were.

Until we heard the good news of the gospel of Christ. And the work that God has given us is now to take this good news and share it with the rest of the world. That is what we are called to in Acts 1:8. Jesus tells His disciples that “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

This is the same mandate that was given to Adam.

To fill the world with worshippers.

Now, we have the Spirit of God going before us and we get the joy of witnessing to God’s creation about the good work that He has done on our behalf.

So let us look to Christ who has not only promised us life in this world, but eternal life with him. Let us cling to his promise that we shall never perish and let that be the Kingdom we work for.

Let us pray.