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Class-Book of Old Testament History

<hr class="sect_35" /> <h3> CHAPTER <abbr title="2">II.</abbr> THE FALL. <abbr title="Genesis">Gen.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr>   B.C. 4004.</h3> OF the life of the first human pair in Paradise we are told but little. We know, however, that it was not only a state of innocence, and therefore of happiness, but also, like all human life since, of probation. Besides the charge to dress and keep the fair enclosure in which they had been placed, our first parents received but one additional command. It was couched in negative terms, and forbade in the most distinct and solemn manner possible the eating of the fruit of a mysterious tree growing in the midst of the Garden, and called the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Of the fruit of every other tree they might eat freely, of the fruit of this tree the Almighty said to them, Ye shall not eat, for in the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die. In this single prohibition lay the test of their loyal obedience to their Creator, on it depended their innocence and their happiness temporal and eternal. How long they were faithful and obedient we are not told. But whether the period was long or short, certain it is that it came to a close. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, implies that Evil was already present in God’s world, and therefore in part prepares us for the dark shadow that now gathers round the sacred page. The creation of man had been watched by a supernatural Being of infinite subtilty and malignity, the Enemy of God and of all goodness. Respecting this mysterious Being, though the Sacred Narrative does not gratify our curiosity with any lengthened details, yet to his existence and his unceasing hostility to man, it bears direct and explicit testimony. The name under which the supernatural Tempter appears in the earliest and latest portions of the Bible is the same (<abbr title="Compare">comp.</abbr> <abbr title="Genesis">Gen.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr> 1, with <abbr title="Second Corinthians">2 Cor.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 11">xi.</abbr> 3; <abbr title="Revelation">Rev.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 12">xii.</abbr> 9, <abbr title="chapter 20">xx.</abbr> 2), and though but seldom mentioned in the Old Testament (Job <abbr title="chapters 1, 2">i., ii.</abbr>; <abbr title="First Chronicles">1 Chron.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 21">xxi.</abbr> 1; <abbr title="Zechariah">Zech.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr> 1, 2), the same attributes are uniformly ascribed to him. Created originally good, like all the works of God, he abode not in the truth (<abbr title="John">Jn.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 8">viii.</abbr> 44), but rebelled against his Maker and fell from his high estate (<abbr title="First Timothy">1 Tim.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr> 6), and henceforth, at the head of numerous other spirits (<abbr title="Matthew">Matt.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 25">xxv.</abbr> 41), whom he had dragged down with him in his fall (<abbr title="Second Peter">2 Pet.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 4; Jude 6), he arrayed himself in conscious hostility to the Supreme. This Being, then, here called the Serpent, in other places Satan, <abbr title="that is">i.e.</abbr> the Enemy, and the Devil, <abbr title="that is">i.e.</abbr> the Slanderer, approached the woman, as being the weaker vessel, for the purpose of seducing her, and so her husband, from their allegiance to their Creator. With affected solicitude he began by enquiring, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? To this the woman replied by repeating the Divine prohibition respecting the fruit of one particular tree. Thereupon the Tempter proceeded to declare that the penalty of death would not follow the eating of this fruit, nay that the Almighty knew that in the day they ate thereof, her eyes and those of her husband would be opened, and they would become as gods, knowing good and evil. A more subtle scheme for shaking her allegiance to the Almighty, and her confidence in His goodness and His love, could not have been devised. A prohibition hitherto regarded as a solemn but merciful warning was now invested with an arbitrary character, and a selfish motive. In mere envy, so the Tempter affirmed, the Almighty had denounced an impossible penalty; what she had been taught to observe as the condition of innocence and happiness was nothing more than the expedient of One, who grudged His creatures their rightful advancement, lest they should approach too nearly to Himself2. The idea of an envious God, of a hard taskmaster, was thus instilled into the mind of Eve, sapping the foundations of all real faith and trust, and rendering the more irresistible the temptation to disobey the command of Him, who had thus enviously set these bounds to her freewill. In an evil hour she believed the Tempter’s words, and seeing that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Thus the fell counsels of the Tempter were accomplished. Through want of faith in God’s word, through a longing for independence, through a vain desire to become gods unto themselves, our first parents were beguiled into sin, and when their eyes were opened, instead of greater happiness they now experienced the strange and hitherto unknown consciousness of shame, and degradation, and unmeetness for God’s presence (<abbr title="Genesis">Gen.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr> 1<abbr title="through">–</abbr>7). Brief and summary as is the information here given us respecting the enigma of enigmas, the origin of Evil, it is yet of unspeakable importance. For it teaches us that Sin is not a part of man’s nature, but the fault and corruption3 of it, that it did not spring from his nature by any inevitable necessity, but in consequence of his yielding to the seductions of a powerful and malignant Foe. He did not, like his Tempter, choose sin for its own sake, but was beguiled into it. Hence, though he became liable to all the penal consequences of his disobedience, though his being was poisoned with sin, yet it was not converted into sin. He did not lose all remembrance of his former state of purity and innocence; the shame which overwhelmed him and made him hide himself from the presence of God, testified to his consciousness of transgression, and in this sense of guilt lay the possibility of his restoration4. For now the Sacred Narrative, while it refuses to gratify our curiosity respecting a subject which doubtless passes our understanding, proceeds to do what is for us of far greater practical importance, namely, to place the inroad of sin in immediate connection with the Divine Counsels of Redemption. We learn that God in infinite mercy now intervened between His creatures and their Tempter. For them, indeed, it remained to taste the bitter fruits of their disobedience and mistrust. Eve was informed that sorrow and pain must henceforth be the condition of her existence; in sorrow should she bring forth children, her desire should be to her husband, and he should rule over her (<abbr title="Genesis">Gen.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 3">iii.</abbr> 16). Adam learnt that with himself henceforth nature too must undergo a change; thorns and thistles must grow upon the face of the earth, toil must be the price of his existence, and his end the silence of the grave, for dust he was, and unto dust he must return. Even thus, however, Justice was tempered with sweet Mercy, and Love mingled blessings with the bitterness of man’s cup. If pain and multiplied sorrow was to be woman’s lot, yet through pain she was to know a mysterious joy, and her anguish should be no more remembered, when she knew that a man was born into the world. And if grievous toil and irksome labour were to be the conditions of man’s existence, yet in the provision of these effectual antidotes to idleness and many other sins was truest mercy. But these gracious purposes extended only to man, they tempered not the judgment denounced on his Seducer. Utterly cursed was he above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. The very creature, over whom he had seemed to triumph, should prove his ultimate Conqueror. I will put enmity, said the Almighty to the Tempter, between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. In these words we trace the first distinct Promise of man’s ultimate Redemption. The state of degradation, into which he had suffered himself to be seduced, was not to last for ever. “In conformity with the Divine Equity, the deceiver was to be judged by the deceived, the Conqueror was to be overcome by the conquered5.” Man need not give himself up to despair; there was still room for hope; in infinite mercy the Almighty had espoused his cause, and He would Himself provide a remedy for his fall. We need not venture on any profitless speculations touching the precise amount of hope the early generations of the human family were likely to have derived from this first Gospel, this “first Promise” of a Saviour. In terms it was undoubtedly indefinite. Neither the time, nor the method, nor the precise mediating cause of man’s deliverance was made known. It was not revealed whether the promised “Seed” should be one or many, the collective Race, or a single Deliverer. On these points greater light was to be shed as time rolled on, and many things were to be revealed, which now man could not comprehend. But of the final Victory, and of its certainty, direct and explicit assurance was given. “Since religion cannot so much as exist without hope, the earliest intimation of Prophecy was adapted to the support of that essential feeling in the heart of man. It was clearly a promise of relief, an antidote to perfect despair. It contained the prediction that some one should be born of the Seed of the Woman, who ‘should bruise the head of the Tempter,’ by whom, therefore, the penal effect of man’s transgression should be in some way reversed. With all its uncertainty as to the mode in which this End should be effected, the Promise had within it a principle of Hope and Encouragement, and the materials of a religious trust fitted to keep man still looking to his Maker6.” In the encouraging assurance thus given to Adam, in this first Promise of a Saviour, Sacred History finds its definite starting-point, and the Old Testament becomes a true introduction to the New, because it reveals the several steps whereby the Divine Wisdom provided for its fulfilment. From first to last Sacred History is “instinct with life and hope;” it ever points onward to the future; its key-note is ever preparation for the Coming of Him, who was to be the true “Seed of the Woman,” in whom the Father counselled before the worlds to gather together in one all things, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth (<abbr title="Ephesians">Eph.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 10; <abbr title="Philippians">Phil.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 9, 10). <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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