Genesis 3_23-24 - Understanding the Tree of Life
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Summary
In this sermon, we continue our discussion of the third chapter of Genesis, "The Tree of Life." In this episode, we cover the second half of the sentence "Now shall he reach out his hand and take the tree of life and eat it forever." (Genesis 3:22)
Transcript
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Today, by God's grace, we get to complete this third chapter of Genesis.
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And if you were here with us last week, you know that we are now are in part two of this
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kind of post judgment or post fall section of the chapter.
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Now, as you know, Genesis three is one of the most consequential chapters of the entire
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One theologian even said that the rest of Scripture turns on the hinges of this chapter.
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You can't understand the whole Bible if you don't understand chapter 3 of the book of Genesis.
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So Genesis 3, 1 through 7 recorded the serpent's temptation of Eve and the fall of mankind into sin.
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Verses 8 through 19 recorded God's curse upon the serpent and his judgment upon the man and the woman.
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And then verses 20 through 22 is what we talked about last week.
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Recorded Adam's incredible act of faith that we see even here in Genesis 3.
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That basically in the midst of a death sentence that God gives to Adam.
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He calls his wife Eve, the mother of the living.
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That is, that he trusted God's promise of a redeemer that would come from him and his wife.
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And we also saw God's provision of animal skins to cover their shame,
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which was really a foreshadowing of the penal substitutionary atonement doctrine
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that we see throughout the New Testament and the Old Testament.
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And finally, we looked at what theologians called the Augustinian Matrix.
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Very important doctrine for where we're about to go.
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So you have the context here of where we left off last week.
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And it was another word for it is the fourfold state of man.
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And Augustine identified these four distinct conditions of humanity that we see in the Bible.
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We spent the last several weeks in the garden, and there in the garden, man was able to sin
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and able not to sin. He was able to sin and able not to sin. It's the closest concept that you can
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get of free will, though I would not call it free will. Number two is after the fall.
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that is the place that we're about to enter into next week post fall well i guess even this week
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now but man was only able to sin man was only able to sin that is that he was bound to sin or
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he was a slave to sin after the fall number three is after redemption in christ
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that the Christian is essentially freed from the bondage of sin
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and is once again able to sin and able not to sin.
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The believer will not be able to sin after he enters glory.
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because it helps you have the theological, contextual understanding
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and the longing and aching anticipation for the promised Redeemer
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There will be a serpent crusher that comes from you, Eve,
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which is fitting for our advent season so today we're going to be covering the second half of
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verse 22 to the end of the chapter verse 24 and this sermon i'm going to title understanding the
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tree of life now for the sake of clarity i'm going to read all of verse 22 and also be prepared this
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sermon will stretch you. It stretched me. It's theological. It's a bit heady. I'm going to try
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to make it as consumable as possible. It says in verse 22, then the Lord God said, behold,
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the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.
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if you remember last week it's it's not sinful to know good and evil that's not the point that
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is being made here in this passage it's sinful how adam and eve came to know good and evil
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in other words they came to know evil by doing evil by disobeying god and eating of the tree
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in which they were not to eat of but today we're looking at the second sentence or the
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second half of this sentence, which had, again, significantly more theological depth than I had
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expected. It says, now lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat
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and live forever. Now, this is an interesting line because in the Hebrew and even in the English,
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You just look at it and you go, it just kind of stops in midair.
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You want the sentence to conclude with something like, therefore, let us remove him from the garden.
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It just says, lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.
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And so Hebrew scholars suggest that this is some form of a literary device that the writer is using.
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and it's meant to communicate some form of urgency or immediacy.
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When I'm studying this, I'm going, what's the urgency?
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and then run over to the tree of life and grab the fruit and eat of it
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To understand God's purpose, we have to turn to the doctrine of sacramentology.
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Now, sacramentology is the biblical doctrine of signs and seals, right?
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It's manna, the bronze serpent, baptism, the Lord's Supper.
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They're sacraments that we see in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
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We only have two in the New Covenant, but this is what we see here.
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Now, the tree of life fits into this sacramentology.
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Now, this is a real tree bearing real fruit, just as all the other trees in the garden were bearing real fruit.
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now what makes this tree unique is that god had assigned to this particular tree
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to serve as a sacramental means by which he conveyed christ to which he conveyed christ
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again much like now he uses baptism and the lord's supper to convey christ
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in other words the tree of life is not a magical tree it's not a medicinal tree it's not like
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oh i ate of it and it just gave me the right amount of nutrients to let me live forever
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that that's not what it is it's a real tree endowed with sacramental power
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by god's own appointment to convey christ that's that's what it is
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is. John Calvin says, For there never was any intrinsic efficacy in the tree, but God
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made it life-giving, so far as he had sealed his grace to man in the use of it. Okay, so
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the tree of life conveyed the life of Christ sacramentally. It conveyed Christ sacramentally.
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In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
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In other words, God attached the promise of life to the obedient use of the tree.
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You need to catch this. It'll make sense in a second.
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God promised life sacramentally that would come through this tree,
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but only attached this promise to life to the obedient use of the tree.
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Now remember, prior to the fall, prior to the fall, we are in, we're not in the covenant of grace yet.
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There is no need for the covenant of grace yet.
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God granted life for obedience and death for disobedience.
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Because the tree did not give life to anyone who merely just ate it.
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Again, now you're starting to get the answer to the question, right?
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Was God afraid that Adam was going to run back and grab it?
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It wouldn't have conveyed eternal life, blessed eternal life, because it wasn't the obedient use of it.
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Because the tree did not give anyone life who merely ate it.
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It gave what God promised only under the conditions that God established in that covenant.
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Once Adam violated the conditions of the covenant of works, he disobeyed and broke the covenant.
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The tree could no longer convey blessed eternal life to him according to the covenant of works.
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Now, again, see why the need to quickly bar Adam from the tree.
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Okay, why do you have to get him out of there so quick?
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in hebrew the phrase live forever do you see in verse 22 the phrase live forever
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here in verse 22 it means forever in that state forever in that state it really means
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so given Adam's condition what is he now well he's not righteous he has fallen he has fallen
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and so to live forever would not mean eternal blessedness but the eternalization of his
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corrupted state. If Adam would have ate of that tree, he would have been forever fallen.
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Matthew Henry says, Adam must not take of it and eat and so perpetuate his fallen life,
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which would have been a perpetual mystery or misery. Calvin says, God therefore casts him out
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lest he should perpetually remain in the same miserable condition forever.
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How does the tree that was meant to give life now become a means of sustaining death?
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These are the questions that I'm asking while I'm studying.
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Well, because in Scripture, sacraments, in Scripture, sacraments always confirm the covenantal state of the one who partakes of them.
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Always confirms the covenantal state of those who partake of them.
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okay what God appointed to seal life under obedience would after the fall seal corruption
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under sin I'm going to say that again I really want you to grasp it again we're not going to be
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the theologically shallow American Christians that don't understand the fundamentals of the faith
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even though we're 20 years deep grasp this
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what god appointed to seal life under obedience
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paul actually makes this explicit in a sense first corinthians 11 27 through 30 about the
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Lord's Supper, he says, whoever eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment
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on himself. For this reason, many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. I've always wondered,
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whoa, that is a very intense passage of scripture.
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Gives you a bit of a fear and trembling when you're taking the Lord's Supper.
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Now again, I'm not saying that if you've ever taken communion in an unworthy manner,
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I'm saying that the sacraments, by God's design,
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in other words the sacrament never becomes this empty
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We've just squashed it all in our egalitarian society that says everything's the same.
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I can't explain it, therefore it must just be, you know,
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if it's not logically making sense, there's no mystery there.
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There's a reason why, historically, the church has fenced the table.
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it wants to make sure that those who are receiving the sacraments
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are in the covenant through baptism they're not walking in open rebellion
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they're not under church discipline and now taking this supper
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because the supper seals grace to the faithful and judgment to the defiant that's a point
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So, the question is never, does a sacrament do something?
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Rather, it is, what does it do, given the covenantal condition of the one receiving it?
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And that principle is key to understanding God's action here in Eden.
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all of that needed to be taught in order for you to understand what is happening here
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if adam now a covenant breaker fallen dead had eaten of the tree of life it would not
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have restored him but would have sealed to him his fallen state forever
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However, he would have no possibility of death and therefore no possibility of resurrection and redemption.
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And you might be wondering, why is the tree of life so conclusive and permanent in its kind of sacramental effect while baptism in the Lord's Supper doesn't seem as permanent?
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Again, this is because the tree of life belongs to the covenant of works.
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The tree of life belongs to the covenant of works, not the covenant of grace.
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Under the covenant of works, the sacrament is confirming, it's a confirming seal.
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They operate differently under two different covenants.
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It seals a person to whatever covenantal condition they currently occupy.
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Obedience unto life and disobedience unto death.
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But under the covenant of grace, the covenant that we're in, we're in the covenant of grace.
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Our sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, they do not function conclusively.
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But if you want to go play the game under the covenant of works,
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then things start to get stiff and rigid and ruthless.
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And scripture says that fallen man must die to be saved.
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so here is how i want you to understand this passage of scripture all of that being said
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god expelled adam quickly both as an act of judgment
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he was removing him from his presence that's kind of a form of spiritual death we'll talk
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by that in a second. And as an act of mercy, as an act of mercy, preserving the possibility
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for redemption through the promised seed. One theologian said this, he says, if they
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stay in Eden and eat from the tree of life, they will live forever in their sins, separated
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from God. What do you call a place where you live forever in sin, always separated from
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God. Hell, he says. For them, Eden would have been
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like hell itself. Paradise is not only lost, it is now
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transformed into a prison. It is for their own good that
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they are cast out. As humiliating as it was, it was also a severe
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It was actually quite shocking to me. I actually had to check with like
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I was like, how have I not worked through this?
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flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
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This perishable body must put on the imperishable.
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In other words, this body has to die because it has been corrupted by sin.
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It's an important part of the process of salvation.
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We must essentially die in order that we might live.
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We must die in order that we might be resurrected.
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It is, in a sense, a severe mercy that we get a chance to die.
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And this matters because it helps us shape our understanding of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
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Scripture actually speaks of them with real potency.
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I'm going to read a passage of Scripture that stumbles a lot of us.
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For example, 1 Peter 3.21, it says, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.
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John 6.53-59 says, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
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For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
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Jesus speaks, the scripture speaks of the sacraments far higher than we do in America, in the West.
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Christ is, in a sense, in the waters of baptism.
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I'm not going to try to bring clarity to a mystery.
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The scriptures don't tell us how Christ is in the supper.
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I'm not going to try to create some sort of paragraph that tells you why.
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It's like the people that try to explain the Trinity.
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But every time you try to talk about the Trinity, it's like ants talking about calculus.
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No matter what you say, you're going to be a heretic.
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the text goes on to say in verse 23 it says therefore the lord god sent him out
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from the garden of eden to work the ground from which he was taken
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and so here we see the word therefore so you have this kind of concluding
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word here it's a word of conclusion or a term of conclusion we see that god sent him out well he
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sent him out because it's clear that he doesn't want to leave okay he had to be sent out and
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He's sent out to work the cursed ground in which he came from.
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We know that Adam is from the Adamah, the dirt.
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And then in verse 24, the text doubles down for a more emphatic tone.
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The first one, it says, therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden.
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But here in verse 24, he says, he drove out the man.
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that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
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So again, the first phrasing is kind of like allowed this possibility.
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It's maybe like there's a possibility of return.
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But the phrasing here clarifies the force of his expulsion.
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Now, it's easy to reduce this passage to kind of narrative without catching the theological implications here.
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So, if we discussed in earlier sermons, in the scriptures, we know that death is separation.
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Okay, when your body separates from your soul, that is physical death.
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Okay, Ecclesiastes says that your body returns to the ground and your soul goes up to the Lord who gave it.
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that's physical death spiritual death is the separation of your soul from god so when adam
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is removed from the garden he is physically on his way toward physical death and he is spiritually
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dying in the moment he is being separated from god and everybody that comes from him will be
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like him. They are born spiritually dead, separated like Adam, and needing to be born again in Christ.
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And so at this point, Adam's only hope for reconciliation and reunion is that promised
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seed to Eve. In fact, if you look to Genesis chapter 4, it says Eve is waiting. She's hoping.
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She's hoping, oh, is it Seth? Is he going to be the one? And pretty clearly, he becomes not the
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Messiah. And it says at that point, for the first time ever, people start praying and they start
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No matter what you do, you cannot get away from it.
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Complementarianism was America's 1980s, let's play in the middle, version of egalitarianism and patriarchy.
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Okay, there were some great men that came in that movement, but the reality is it is not the biblical position.
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I want you to capture the extent of God's view of patriarchy.
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If you look at these verses here, God has been talking to Adam.
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He didn't call Eve, even though Eve initiated this whole thing under the failure of Adam's
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headship. He calls Adam. He calls Adam. And so to God, when God looks at your marriage,
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he sees your marriage. He doesn't dismiss the wife, but he sees the marriage as a covenantal
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union with a head and representative who is the husband. And he speaks to that husband.
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And again, I gave many, many sermons on this. God gave Adam the rules of morality,
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not Eve. God created Adam and Eve, not simultaneously, but chronologically. Eve comes
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from Adam. Eve is made for Adam. Eve is the helper of Adam. Adam names Eve twice. It is patriarchy
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It is also the model that we see in the second Adam
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where Christ comes and the church comes out of his side
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You can see the cover of our liturgy right here.
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It's where our first parents, they're driven out of the garden.
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They're assigned to protect and guard the holy presence of God.
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Scripture presents them actually as terrifying throne guardians
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who stand between God and His holiness and man's sinfulness.
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After the fall, their placement at the east of Eden
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In fact, the scene is kind of a visual representation of the gospel.
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And we're waiting in the anticipation of Advent.
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Man cannot reenter God's presence without what?
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Without passing through the flaming sword of death.
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it's a symbolic fire of divine judgment no sinner can endure it
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and this again makes clear the absolute necessity necessity of a mediator we need somebody to get
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us back in who can pass through the judgment on our behalf it's also interesting that the tree
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of life is guarded and not removed i was asking myself why like why is it guarded
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But the perfect work of Christ, we always talk about, oh, Jesus came and died for us.
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You forget the other half, that Jesus came and also lived for you.
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He fulfilled the righteous works that you can't keep, that you weren't able to accomplish, the perfect obedience.
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Now, because the covenant of works is how we will have salvation through Christ,
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the sacraments of that covenant are still existing.
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he fulfills the stipulations that the first Adam failed to accomplish.
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and he restores access to the tree of life that Adam forfeited.
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So that same tree, that same tree that mediated life in Eden
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To the one who overcomes, I will give to eat the tree of life,
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revelation 22 14 says blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have right to the tree
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of life you know what's wild is that if you trust in christ one day you will eat of the tree of life
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the rest of the bible is about the restoration of eden the whole bible
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it's all about us getting back to eden somehow how do we get back to eden
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the atheist is trying to get back to eden the muslim is trying to get back to eden
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the feminist is trying to get back to eden the liberal is trying to get back to eden
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every religion is has its own version of paradise regained
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in fact i was recently reflecting on this with another pastor and i was noting about how liberals
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seem to find the most beautiful geographic places in America
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They basically go, oh, this is a beautiful place.
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And his insightful response was really, really helpful.
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And that's what makes the gospel so incredibly powerful
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because Jesus declares that he's the only way back.
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the life. And nobody gets through that flaming sword. Nobody gets to that tree of life. Nobody
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gets back to reconciliation with the Father, except through Christ. It's amazing. Amazing.
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And we ought not to forget it. And we ought to look forward to the beautiful day that we will all
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Lord, we ask that you'd help us to our minds and our souls and our hearts to just grasp this little bit here,
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Lord, that we would be more grateful for the cross, that we would be more grateful for the narrative of the Bible,
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that we would be more grateful as we anticipate Christmas for this beautiful story of redemption that we get to be a part of.