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After the Fruit
Rev. James Young Lee
Mankind, Adam and Eve, ate the forbidden Fruit (Gen. 3:6).
Having what they wanted, they got punished and land being cursed (Gen. 3:16-19, Rom. 8:22).
So, they had to labor to get food and to bear children; toil to survive.
However, I think the consequences of disobedience are not the "paying-back actions" that we usually consider punishments of God, but rather, the ultimate result of leaving abundant love and grace of God. (Jn. 3:18, Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.)
(Some people make big deal about who ate first. However, this point is important. We have to think about, or be responsible for, "myself" other than any other person or people. but neither "yourself" nor "himself/herself." If we become entangled with these thoughts, we will end up blaming others for what we have done. Blaming others is not right.)
God created for us all-balanced, all-prepared, and all-regulated perfect world, the Cosmos.
Escaping from His Cosmos (the orderly world) is to go back to the Chaos which was the condition of pre-Creation.
When people are pursuing after their own pleasure, possession, and position more than what they need, more than what they are supposed to have, they eventually get into the situation in which everybody fights and inflicts pain on each other.
That's what happened to Adam and Eve and to all of us.
Some parts of the world and nature still look good but we have to know that we now are living in a deteriorating world because of our total and communal sin. (Rom. 8:22, For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.)
As the result of eating the Fruit, one more thing happened to Adam and Eve.
Actually it was foretold by the tempter. (Gen. 3:5, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.")
They were now able to know good and evil and found themselves to be naked.
And they made garments with the leaves of a fig tree. (Gen. 3:7)
It is so amazing for me to see what happened to them and what they had done for themselves.
They became to know good and evil, realized that they were naked, and made clothes for themselves with fig leaves.
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION.
The Sin brings human out from the Nature of God and into the Culture of their own.
(Ecc. 7:29, This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.)
Is it good or bad?
We call what God did or does Nature; His original creation.
Culture is, instead, what mankind make to make their lives better.
Isn't it amazing to see the sin, desire to have more pleasures, more possessions, and higher positions, is what drives the culture and civilization?
Adam and Eve were the ones who began to culturize and civilize themselves out of their action of sin.
Now we should be able to see the true picture of our cultures and civilizations.
Nature by God was good and perfect. (Gen. 1:31, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.)
Culture, on the other hand, is a result of sinning of mankind.
Aren't you enjoying the cultures and civilizations we live in?
What's wrong with the man-made Culture then?
Yes. It is true that all kinds of brilliant and excellent modern cultures and civilizations began with very simple and humble assemblies of fig leaves to cover their shame.
Did they succeed to cover their shame then?
They covered themselves, still being ashamed, and hid from God (Gen. 3:7-8).
They knew they were naked but were not able to cover their shame with their culture.
In Nature, they were naked but not ashamed (Gen. 2:25).
To whom were they not ashamed; to each other who all were naked or to God who was with no shame?
Certainly they were in shame to God for not being the same with God.
We know that by seeing that they hid themselves from God, but not from each other.
God did not ask them to be the same with God for not being ashamed.
God just wanted them to remain, to stay within His "Shame-Covering" grace and love.
That's why they were not ashamed toward God before the sin, because they were clothed with His grace (Gen. 2:25).
We make culture to make our lives better.
But we do not have ability to attain what we want to have.
That's the root of our problems; want but not being ABLE to have.
Does all our unhappiness, conflicts, sufferings, and pains not come from this; unfulfilled desire?
While we could satisfy everything we need in His love and grace, we tried to provide ourselves more than we need, fighting each other, and caused conflicts, casualties, pains, sufferings, and eventually death.
God is still good and faithful in spite of our own disobediences and mistakes.
We deserve the consequences of our own stupid actions of disobeying His loving instructions.
But God foretold that the Child of woman will crush the head of the tempter, Satan later. (Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.")
This is the first promise of the Savior for sinned mankind.
Not only promised but also God covered them with leather coats.
What a luxury they were enjoying in spite of their sin!
Providing skin clothes involves killing animals, and shedding atoning blood.
(Atoning is making amends or giving satisfaction for wrong done)
This is the picture of Jesus on the Cross which will happen later.
So we may call this "the Original Gospel."
What are we going to do then?
We disobeyed God by pursuing after our own pleasure, possession, and position.
Now we found that we are naked and ashamed.
Now what?
Continue to cover yourself with your own culture and civilization?
Or, return back to His grace and love?
We've been creating our own cultures and civilizations, stayed there, and tried to satisfy ourselves there.
But we have to know and acknowledge that our efforts can not solve the problems we caused.
Only He is, His Son Jesus is the only solution because God only is the Author of everything.
He creates, saves, maintains, and will judge all at His own time.
We still make our own culture.
That's a part of our normal life.
But if we knew what happened to us, we'd better be careful as if what kind of culture we are making and living in, worldly or godly.
(1Jn. 2:15-16, 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man (or flesh), the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.)
(Eph. 4:22-24, 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.)
We have to remember God's life-giving grace and love, Jesus Himself, and stay there.
(Jn. 15:4, Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.)
(2Co. 12:9, But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.)
Later on His time, the land will be restored, and we will also be prefectly freed from the bondage of what we have done; the sin (Isa. 11:1-10, Jn. 8:31-32, Rom. 8:21).