We can be sure that if Adam and Eve were alive and reporting the original conversation with God on the settlement of domicile for the couple, we would have considerably more detail than Scripture provides. For all we know there may have been a livable garden cave in the contract. It was a magnificent wedding present, impacting whatever fitted into the creation. The major point is registered in the truncated story of the days of creation leading up to this domestic moment. It has been claimed that the order of creation in the Bible and the order of the evolutionists tend to follow the same pattern. Theistic evolutionists feel they are on sound ground for argument when it comes to the emergence of life, graduating in creativity to the arrival of mankind. With that specialness of the human being, there was offered a home base within the creation for mankind’s benefit, control, work and artistic accomplishment. It is in the context of beginning something new, creating and directing the human family that God offered the garden, which may have included in some kind the rest of the earth, once the garden had been mastered and all that was necessary for survival of the human species would be advanced to the remaining global areas. It was clear that the first couple was to multiply. The earth was to be made mankind’s shell for living – if the rules were kept.
It is obvious from the biblical record that much appeared in the preparation before mankind arrived. Also obvious, mankind was seen, from the outset, as unique to all else in the creation. Here was the living jewel, in which something of the nature (image) of God was made a part. The image was a stamp of approval, an original source, and the relationship is appealing and promising unless marred in some way. It was marred by Adam and Eve, but greater tension arose in their sons, one dedicated to the fruit of earth life and one to the fruit of animals. The competition may have been like the tension of the sheep men of the American west, and the cattle men. The sheep men needed to fence for sheep, and assure pasture for animals eating grasses closely. The cattle men wanted open range for cattle more wide ranging and not eating so closely to the soil line. Human lives taken by the opposition were made the cost of the tension, as it did for the first brothers. The real problem came when Cain insisted on honoring God as he chose, not as God outlined. It was not that being a farmer was better than being a husbandman, but that mankind was early in rebellion, with a spontaneous ignition of his own assumed place in the creation. For Cain to have won would have distorted the meaning of redemption which culminated in the offering of Jesus Christ identified with blood. It was not that Cain felt his offering best. It was that Cain was telling God what he would do to acknowledge God, and God had obligation to regard him for whatever he did in sincerity. The story has a strangely modern cast to it, found in human pride. Pride (self-honor) has some cause, when rightly held in meekness, but not when it is in conflict with mankind’s relationship with God. Gifts call for gratitude, not pride. Truth is warped. Meaning is diminished. Love, hope, life value, and many additional factors are diluted when humble meaning to order is lost. With all our magnificent self-supporting features, mankind was first made to be obedient to God, so to fulfill the image of God in us – children to their father/creator.
Mankind is one to God, as God is one to mankind. This is a reason why God must be personal to each person, if he is to be lasting in the experience of the individual. Mankind is not divided by race, or gender, or age, or talents, or anything else in God. This is the meaning of the Church. There is one Church to which all Christians belong. The redemption to which all accepted of God belong. Recently a fellow tried to justify absence from church by saying: I know what I believe. I am busy in my work and need all the time I can get to do what I want. He misses the faith point. He has an imperfect understanding of who is God in priority, with an imperfect idea about submission in mankind. He may not be Christian. God is building one people, a lively temple, a holy bride, the acme of his creativity in nature. There are several analogies to aid understanding of the meaning and mystery of God’s relationship with us. There is an implication that no other created beings from God hold the status of human beings. There is a specialness represented primarily in the parable of Christ in marriage to the Church. (Ephesians 5) All those redeemed in Christ are identified in that one perception – the Church as the Bride of Christ. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020