“The thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy, but I came that you might all behave really really well until I come back”
Not Jesus
The above quote is a derivative of a real quote from Jesus in John Chapter 10. We would never use this language, but at some level, our new lenses, the knowledge of Good and Evil, leave us with this perception of the mission of Jesus and His expectations of how we should all respond.
Too often we think that Jesus came to solve the problem of rule breakers gone wild. We may not often put it in this language, but we think of Genesis 3 as a chapter about how sin entered the world. God issued a rule (“Don’t eat from that tree…”) and Adam and Eve broke the rule. Now the whole human race is composed of rule-breakers through the lineage of Adam.
If this is true, then Jesus came to pay the legal price for rule breaking, and buy our pardon for the rules that we have broken and will break. I hope He came to do much more than this. I am convinced that He came to do much more. This is why it is important to continue to examine the problem Jesus came to solve.
Genesis, the beginning of all things, can actually give us rich and deep understanding of human nature and the significant effects of the fall of man. The roots of truly impactful psychological understanding can all be found in these early chapters. The roots of the deepest needs of a man’s soul can also be found here. We simply have to read beyond our “rule-breaker” mentality.
The problem that Jesus came to solve can actually affect our understanding of the problem that Jesus came to solve.
Adam came into existence and had his nature established in a very unique way. God took non-living dirt, and injected it with His Living Breath. The Spirit of Life made inanimate dirt into a somebody. Adam went from nothingness to absolute identity and nature in a single breath.
Adam’s biology, as well as his nature, as well as the processes of his mind and body all came from the Source of his nature; the Breath of God. His heartbeat, and his perceptual mechanisms all came from the amazing fact that Adam was deeply connected to his Source.
The previous post indicates that Adam and his bride had a way of seeing that allowed them to see things growing on trees that you and I have no ability to see.
They saw by the Spirit, we see by our natural eyes. The Presence of the Breath of Life inside the human race gave them identity, nature, and their ability to perceive/interact with reality. Men strive for identity, nature and understanding through their natural senses; their knowledge of good and evil.
Though it is true that Adam and Eve broke a rule, that is the least of their worries. The rule had a reason. God’s prohibition against eating the fruit of that tree was designed to protect the essential spiritual nature of His offspring. The specific rule that they broke changed their source, and therefore changed their identity, their nature and their perceptual mechanisms.
As a result they changed us all. The essential source and nature of the human race moved from a vital connection to a Spiritual Source of Life, to an attempt to derive self-hood from our own knowledge!
Like unplugging the power cable from your laptop, and trying to draw power from your data source, Adam and Eve left us drawing on a our own knowledge. What we once received in uninterrupted flow from our vital connection to God, we now try to draw from a single source, our own soul. Like trying to plug an extension cord into itself, with no power source, power; life, was no more.
Adam has only one way to interpret and respond to this crisis of disrupted nature. He looked (through his own knowledge) at himself and saw that he was naked. He interpreted (through his own knowledge) and felt ashamed. He began to formulate solutions (through his own knowledge) and tried multiple ways to hide his nakedness. In this condition, what he did not do tells us as much as what he did do.
While we see him cover his nakedness with everything from foliage to finger-pointing, we do not see him approach God. Our knowledge always gives us inadequate solutions because it gives us inadequate definitions. Adam thought he was in trouble because of his nakedness, never realizing he was in trouble because he had separated from his source.
Today we think that we are in trouble because of our range of behaviors and soul-states, but seldom realize that we are truly in trouble because we are separate from our source of true life.
Listen to the real words of Jesus from John 10.
“The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I came that you might have life and life more abundantly”
Really Jesus
The problem that Jesus came to solve was that His children had tried to become their own source of life, and had no life within themselves. Jesus came to give back the very thing that Adam lost in Genesis 3.
In your thoughts, from what have you tried to draw life? When you think about making your circumstances better, what are the first things that come to your mind?
