GENES - IF

What if…?

What if Adam’s bride hadn’t been co-erced by the serpent into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge? 

Would all of human history have changed?

Would we still be living in the Garden of Eden? 

Or would Satan have found some other way to trip up our ultimate ancestors? Before she ever agreed to taste the fruit, the serpent told the first lie in the Bible, in Genesis 3:4 - “You will not surely die.”  Would that sin by itself have been enough to poison God’s perfect world?

What if…?

What if God had chosen a much harsher punishment for the serpent/Satan?

And He had also decided that our human ancestors needed another chance?

Consider this alternate series of events, starting in Genesis 3:14 -

14The LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;

I shall destroy you, Lucifer,

And all of your followers,

Angels who fell from My grace.

I shall not let sin destroy My creation.”

What if God had made that choice instead? “Take two!”

After all, He essentially did the same thing three chapters later, when He wiped the face of the earth clean of sin (except for what Noah and his family brought with them onto the ark).

What if Genesis 4 began with something like,

1 And the LORD God said to Adam,

  “This land is now free from sin.

  Use it well. Care for it.

            Care for My creation,

            and Walk with Me, in the shade of My Garden.”

      Would the inherent fallibility of humanity have shown up regardless?

     Was it inevitable that at some point, we were going to screw up?

         

     What if…what if God wanted us to screw up?

     How could we over come sin if we never knew sin?

     If we walked with God continually, would we ever know what it was like to have to choose to walk with God? Where would the challenge, the test be in that? How could the Lord push us towards growth towards His holy standards without sin as an obstacle to overcome?

     What if…

     What if, in fact, there was a length of time between chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis? Nothing in the Bible defines the time period between “And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed” (2:25) and “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that God had made.” (3:1) It might have been years! Or centuries. It might very well have been that Adam and Eve had lived with God in the Garden, ‘naked and unashamed’, for an indefinably long period of time before the serpent found an in-road where he could force one of the two into betraying their Father’s trust. (I'd like to think that's true: that Adam and Eve had many, many years of paradise before the Fall.)

      So, was it inevitable that at SOME point, humans would sin?

     We know that God planned for Christ’s arrival in Bethlehem long before it happened – in fact, we know from Genesis 3:15 that He planned it from at least the moment He chose to punish the serpent:

15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring^e and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

The one referred to as “her offspring”, of course, is Christ.

Here’s the point: All of creation is planned. God knew before Adam was born that man would sin, that the earth would be dominated by the “prince of the earth”, and that Christ would come to give us an escape from sin and a chance at eternal life.

A chance, mind you – He could have guaranteed it, but that would have negated His purpose for us. 

Remember, He intentionally gave us fallible human flesh to live in – NOT the glorified bodies He could have given us – and will give us after death. The very fact that He will give us the glorified, “sin-free” bodies after death shows that it was His choice to give us these sinful, easily-damaged garments while on earth.  
He expected – He KNEW we would walk the path we would be walking.

Essentially, human history had to work out the way it did. God provided the starting point in such a way that there was no other option. Mankind was created in His image – but not out of the materials necessary to keep us free from sin, as He is. Therefore, we were destined to have sin as part of our lives…and therefore, we would be dominated by that sin.

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Was there a choice to be made along the way? Yes…but only by God.

When sin became so rampant that God seems to regret our creation, in Genesis 6:5-6 -

5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 

         

…then He had the option to “give up on us”…but, of course, He didn’t. Not entirely, anyway. He picked a new “starter kit” and tried again. It was still quite a mess, but He kept making adjustments: He left His people in Egyptian slavery for a while to teach them to appreciate Him… He ran them around the desert for forty years when they questioned Him… He let them try out other idols until He finally stopped protecting them and the Babylonians and Assyrians trampled all over them…

..until we get to Christ. Everything between creation and the New Testament was a means to an end.

And therefore, so is everything following the life and death of Christ:

A means to The End.