Reading: Genesis 3:1-24
Adam feared when he heard the sound of God in the garden. Adam was right to fear his creator. He had sinned against Him and was deserving of the just wrath of God. If God had cast him out of paradise with no hope, Adam would have had no recourse. The grace that God showed to Adam was undeserved and clearly unexpected.
In Genesis chapter three we search in vain to find a reason why God would offer salvation to Adam. There is nothing in Adam’s initial reaction to the awareness of sin; there is nothing in his response to the approach of God in the garden. Indeed, both the initial reaction and the response are contrary to any move toward God. Adam’s sin had left him running from God and blaming his wife. He was chained to self-will and incapable of extricating himself.
The entire story condemns Adam’s self-will and commends God’s grace. If Adam is to be saved out of this condition it must be by the choice of God. Adam has not the will to choose God (John 5:40). Adam is delivered because God chose him and Eve also. If any man will be saved, it will be by God’s intervention.
This is the message that Moses preached to Israel (Deuteronomy 7:7) and the same message Paul preached to the Ephesians (2:1–4). I was spiritually dead, disobedient, and defiled in the flesh and mind and with no inclination to seek God. “But God,” Paul says, “is rich in mercy” and “by grace are ye saved.” Lord, help me to see the fullness of God’s grace, to understand that my life “is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3) and that “by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
“Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed his precious blood.”Robert Robinson
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