Reconciled

by Keith Gardner

Genesis 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Have you ever asked yourself the question; why did God choose the method He chose to reconcile man to Himself? You know what I mean! Why did God do things the way He did? He removed Adam and Eve from the garden, but gave them another chance. He removed Cain from his family, but gave him another chance. He destroyed the earth in a flood, but gave man (through Noah) another chance. He made a people of His own (the Israelites), and they failed Him, but He gave them another chance. He sent His son Jesus, to live and die as a man to give us another chance. Why?

I think the answer can be understood by comparing Genesis 3:8 to Revelation 3:20: (“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”) In Genesis, it is evident that God took pleasure in having a close relationship with His creation. It seems apparent that on a regular basis, during the cool of the day, God would enjoy a walk in the garden. It also seems evidential that His intention was to spend time with His created friends; Adam and Eve. Now compare this to Revelation 3:20; Jesus is knocking at our spiritual door trying to get our attention. His stated goal is relationship; “to eat with him, and he with me”. Still today, the creator God wants to spend time with created man. What drives this desire for relationship between omnipotent God and impotent man?

God is Love (1 John 4). God cannot deny who He is. God did not create man because He was lonely, but because His is love. And in His love, He at the original fall devised a plan to restore the broken relationship with man by using a devise that the created could understand. John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” We all understand the bonds of self-sacrifice, born out of a heart of love. We get it, and whether we have ever personally experienced it or not, the desire for such a deep love is real and felt in each of us. Here’s the greatest news of all. That love has been presented to each one of us in the form of God’s own love sacrifice – sending Jesus to live as a man and to die on the cross. His death on the cross was a substitute punishment for you and me. He died a physical death so you and I would not die a spiritual death. And in doing so God redeemed or reconciled the relationship that was lost long ago in the original garden.

Romans 5:8-13 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”