What If?

 

One morning, as my husband and I were reading our daily devotionals, he posed the interesting question, “What if, once Adam and Eve had sinned, they confessed their sin to God and asked for His forgiveness? Would that have eliminated the curse of sin and death?

As we know from Scripture, Adam and Eve’s first reaction was not to repent, ask for forgiveness, and seek restoration of their fellowship with God, even though they had known the blissful existence of perfect peace and joy, intimate fellowship with God in the garden, and every blessing one could ever imagine, all lovingly provided by God’s grace (Genesis 1-2).

Quite the contrary. Once they had eaten the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6), lost their innocence, and realized they were naked, they tried to hide from God’s presence and to cover up their sin by sewing aprons of fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). (If you’ve ever seen a dry fig leaf, which crumbles if you even look at it askance, you’ll know how futile that was!)

Once God confronted them (Genesis 3:8-11), things went from bad to worse. Rather than admitting their disobedience and begging God for His forgiveness, they played the blame game. Adam, whom God had designated as the spiritual head of his household (Genesis 2:18-25), should have taken responsibility for his wife’s transgression, and certainly should not have followed her in her rebellion. Instead, Adam blamed Eve for tasting the forbidden fruit, and even worse, he indirectly blamed God, as the One Who had given Eve to him as his wife (Genesis 3:12).

Not to be outmaneuvered, Eve blamed the serpent for having deceived her (Genesis 3:13), rather than owning up to her weakness as she yielded to the temptation of lust of the eyes (the tree was pleasant to look at), lust of the flesh (the fruit would surely taste good), and pride of life (the devil’s lie that eating the fruit would make them wise so that they would become gods themselves; Genesis 3:6; 1 John 2:16).

As far as we know in Scripture, Adam and Eve did not repent of their sin before God pronounced judgment. Eve and her successors would now experience great pain in childbirth and submission to their husbands (Genesis 3:16), while Adam and his offspring would have to labor intensely to provide their food from the sin-cursed ground (Genesis 3:17-19).

And yet, we later see some evidence that the hearts of Adam and Eve turned back to God, for Eve believed in God’s promise that her seed would one day defeat the devil (Genesis 3:15; 4:1,25). Once God had expelled Adam and Eve from the garden (Genesis 3:22-24), they must have taught their children what God had told them about the need for animal sacrifice to please Him. Abel brought such an offering to God, even though his brother Cain rebelled and pridefully offered crops he had worked hard to grow (Genesis 4:2-16).

So what if Adam and Eve had immediately repented of their sin and begged God for mercy? Would that have reversed all the dire consequences: expulsion from the garden, physical death and sin nature as the new destiny for all mankind, pain in childbirth, and sorrow in eking out a living?

We know that God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse from unrighteousness, if we confess them (1 John 1:9). There is no sin so heinous that it cannot be forgiven, thanks to Jesus Christ paying our sin debt in full (Hebrews 10:10-14). Whosoever, whether Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler, trusts in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6) will be saved to eternal life (John 3:16).

And yet we cannot escape the consequences of our sin. God gave us free will to choose to accept or reject His Son, and to obey or disobey His commandments. Either way, there are consequences – blessings or curses.

Imagine a saved man who flies into a jealous rage upon discovering his wife in another man’s bed. Without thinking, he picks up a heavy vase and bashes in her skull. Immediately he is filled with grief and genuine remorse, realizes how wrong his actions were, and pleads with God to forgive him and accept him back into fellowship with Him.

Surely God will forgive him. He will not lose his salvation, and God will restore their broken fellowship (John 10:29; Romans 8:35-39). Yet the consequences of his sin remain. His wife will not be resurrected from the dead, nor will he escape legal punishment for murder.

Sometimes the consequences of our sin are delayed, yet they relentlessly pursue us until they are fulfilled. Consider a long-time alcoholic who gets saved; realizes that he has been sinning by abusing his body, which is now God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17); and asks God to forgive him. From that day on he remains sober and glorifies God through his testimony and witness to others who struggle with addiction.

Yet one day, as he gazes into the mirror, he notices a sallow tint to his complexion. Tests and doctor’s visits soon reveal that he is dying from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Could he rightfully blame God for allowing this consequence of his former sin to finally catch up with him? I believe not, for God is holy and just, and there are inevitable consequences of breaking His laws.

Back to Adam and Eve. Had they asked God for forgiveness and sincerely repented, seeking His face instead of running away and blaming others, I believe He would have forgiven them and immediately restored their close relationship with Him and with one another. Yet He still would have had to address their disobedience by judging their sin. He had warned them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for if they ate it, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17).

God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and even if Adam and Eve had immediately confessed, the punishment of physical death could not be taken off the table. God in His infinite knowledge and wisdom (Psalm 139:1-6) knew from before the beginning of time that man would disobey Him, and He had the perfect plan to restore mankind by sending His Son to pay for our sins, so that all who trust Him would have eternal life (John 3:16).

Even if Adam and Eve repented, death still would have entered the garden and the world, starting with the animal God slew to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness (Genesis 3:21). Yet God showed the first instance of His repeated cycle of judgment and mercy. He softened the blow of physical death, pain and sorrow by expelling them from the garden before they could eat of the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). Had they done so, they would have been doomed to live forever in a sin-corrupted world in sin-corrupted bodies.

The second such recorded cycle was when Cain took out his anger at God, Who had not accepted his offering, by killing Abel, his brother. God judged Cain for his sin of fratricide by removing his farming prowess and making him a fugitive and vagabond. Yet in His mercy, God marked Cain to warn others not to slay him (Genesis 4:2-16).

I believe Adam and Eve were saved despite their transgression, for they knew and trusted God before the fall, and their words and actions after the fall showed their faith in His plan. So, like the rest of us who are saved, they would have to cope with sin’s consequences, but once their earthly life ended, they enjoyed eternal life in Heaven.

Praise God that in His mercy, He not only forgives our sins and restores our fellowship with Him, but He gives eternal, abundant life to all who trust Him!

© 2023 Laurie Collett

Edited and reposted from the archives

 

What If?

 

This morning, as my husband and I were reading our daily devotionals, he posed the interesting question, “What if, once Adam and Eve had sinned, they confessed their sin to God and asked for His forgiveness? Would that have eliminated the curse of sin and death?

As we know from Scripture, Adam and Eve’s first reaction was not to repent, ask for forgiveness, and seek restoration of their fellowship with God, even though they had known the blissful existence of perfect peace and joy, intimate fellowship with God in the garden, and every blessing one could ever imagine, all lovingly provided by God’s grace (Genesis 1-2).

Quite the contrary. Once they had eaten the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:6), lost their innocence, and realized they were naked, they tried to hide from God’s presence and to cover up their sin by sewing aprons of fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). (If you’ve ever seen a dry fig leaf, which crumbles if you even look at it askance, you’ll know how futile that was!)

Once God confronted them (Genesis 3:8-11), things went from bad to worse. Rather than admitting their disobedience and begging God for His forgiveness, they played the blame game. Adam, whom God had designated as the spiritual head of his household (Genesis 2:18-25), should have taken responsibility for his wife’s transgression, and certainly should not have followed her in her rebellion. Instead, Adam blamed Eve for tasting the forbidden fruit, and even worse, he indirectly blamed God, as the One Who had given Eve to him as his wife (Genesis 3:12).

Not to be outmaneuvered, Eve blamed the serpent for having deceived her (Genesis 3:13), rather than owning up to her weakness as she yielded to the temptation of lust of the eyes (the tree was pleasant to look at), lust of the flesh (the fruit would surely taste good), and pride of life (the devil’s lie that eating the fruit would make them wise so that they would become gods themselves; Genesis 3:6; 1 John 2:16).

As far as we know in Scripture, Adam and Eve did not repent of their sin before God pronounced judgment. Eve and her successors would now experience great pain in childbirth and submission to their husbands (Genesis 3:16), while Adam and his offspring would have to labor intensely to provide their food from the sin-cursed ground (Genesis 3:17-19).

And yet, we later see some evidence that the hearts of Adam and Eve turned back to God, for Eve believed in God’s promise that her seed would one day defeat the devil (Genesis 3:15; 4:1,25). Once God had expelled Adam and Eve from the garden (Genesis 3:22-24), they must have taught their children what God had told them about the need for animal sacrifice to please Him. Abel brought such an offering to God, even though his brother Cain rebelled and pridefully offered crops he had worked hard to grow (Genesis 4:2-16).

So what if Adam and Eve had immediately repented of their sin and begged God for mercy? Would that have reversed all the dire consequences: expulsion from the garden, physical death and sin nature as the new destiny for all mankind, pain in childbirth, and sorrow in eking out a living?

We know that God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse from unrighteousness, if we confess them (1 John 1:9). There is no sin so heinous that it cannot be forgiven, thanks to Jesus Christ paying our sin debt in full (Hebrews 10:10-14). Whosoever, whether Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler, trusts in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6) will be saved to eternal life (John 3:16).

And yet we cannot escape the consequences of our sin. God gave us free will to choose to accept or reject His Son, and to obey or disobey His commandments. Either way, there are consequences – blessings or curses.

Imagine a saved man who flies into a jealous rage upon discovering his wife in another man’s bed. Without thinking, he picks up a heavy vase and bashes in her skull. Immediately he is filled with grief and genuine remorse, realizes how wrong his actions were, and pleads with God to forgive him and accept him back into fellowship with Him.

Surely God will forgive him. He will not lose his salvation, and God will restore their broken fellowship (John 10:29; Romans 8:35-39). Yet the consequences of his sin remain. His wife will not be resurrected from the dead, nor will he escape legal punishment for murder.

Sometimes the consequences of our sin are delayed, yet they relentlessly pursue us until they are fulfilled. Consider a long-time alcoholic who gets saved; realizes that he has been sinning by abusing his body, which is now God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17); and asks God to forgive him. From that day on he remains sober and glorifies God through his testimony and witness to others who struggle with addiction.

Yet one day, as he gazes into the mirror, he notices a sallow tint to his complexion. Tests and doctor’s visits soon reveal that he is dying from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Could he rightfully blame God for allowing this consequence of his former sin to finally catch up with him? I believe not, for God is holy and just, and there are inevitable consequences of breaking His laws.

Back to Adam and Eve. Had they asked God for forgiveness and sincerely repented, seeking His face instead of running away and blaming others, I believe He would have forgiven them and immediately restored their close relationship with Him and with one another. Yet He still would have had to address their disobedience by judging their sin. He had warned them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for if they ate it, they would surely die (Genesis 2:17).

God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and even if Adam and Eve had immediately confessed, the punishment of physical death could not be taken off the table. God in His infinite knowledge and wisdom (Psalm 139:1-6) knew from before the beginning of time that man would disobey Him, and He had the perfect plan to restore mankind by sending His Son to pay for our sins, so that all who trust Him would have eternal life (John 3:16).

Even if Adam and Eve repented, death still would have entered the garden and the world, starting with the animal God slew to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness (Genesis 3:21). Yet God showed the first instance of His repeated cycle of judgment and mercy. He softened the blow of physical death, pain and sorrow by expelling them from the garden before they could eat of the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). Had they done so, they would have been doomed to live forever in a sin-corrupted world in sin-corrupted bodies.

The second such recorded cycle was when Cain took out his anger at God not accepting his offering by killing Abel, his brother. God judged Cain for his sin of fratricide by removing his farming prowess and making him a fugitive and vagabond. Yet in His mercy, God marked Cain to warn others not to slay him (Genesis 4:2-16).

I believe Adam and Eve were saved despite their transgression, for they knew and trusted God before the fall, and their words and actions after the fall showed their faith in His plan. So, like the rest of us who are saved, they would have to cope with sin’s consequences, but once their earthly life ended, they enjoyed eternal life in Heaven.

Praise God that in His mercy, He not only forgives our sins and restores our fellowship with Him, but He gives eternal, abundant life to all who trust Him!

© 2023 Laurie Collett

Golden Coins

I recently dreamed that my husband Richard and I were performing our dance ministry at a hotel in Las Vegas. On our way out of the hotel, Richard grabbed some loose change from his pocket and threw them into a slot machine before I could protest, as neither of us gamble. To our surprise, he not only hit the jackpot, but the payout was in gold coins. 

These appeared to be of several denominations, but on closer inspection, they looked more like subway tokens. A taxi would be picking us up in a few moments to go to the airport, and I was concerned about where to hide the coins so that no one would see them or attempt to steal them. I slid them inside my sock, where they made a painful lump under the ball of my foot, causing me to wince with every step. 

Once in line at airport security, I worried that they would not let us pass with the coins. But it would be even worse to try to hide them, so out from my sock they came. As I placed them in a small tray to go through the conveyor belt, I was relieved when the inspector just waved me through. 

Back in my sock they went, but after a long flight and finally arriving home, I realized that all the coins had vanished! 

I awoke in a panic and considered the symbolism of the dream. The world promises us an easy return on our investment – quick profit from a hot stock tip, winning the lottery, or even finding fame and fortune through a “lucky” break. The trouble with these get-rich-quick schemes is that often they attempt to circumvent hard work, playing by the rules, trusting God to provide for us, and honoring Christian ideals (Psalm 37:25, Matthew 6:8; Galatians 6:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Gambling is legal in some states and international waters, and seems to hurt no one. Yet by participating in gambling, we are indirectly supporting an industry that preys on the addiction of some to this compulsive behavior, often leading to their financial and emotional ruin. The gambler may at first seem to hit a lucky streak, but in the end, the house always wins. The callous soldiers gambling for Jesus’ garments at the foot of His cross, while He suffered and died, may be a poignant illustration of how God views this behavior (Matthew 27:35). 

Satan may dangle shiny objects before us to get our attention, appealing to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16), just as he did with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:6). He minimizes the risk of what seems to be a trivial act of disobedience, convinces us that we are strong enough to handle it, and maximizes the imagined gain, for he is the father of lies (John 8:44). 

In the dream, the impulsive act of gambling with a small amount of money led to a huge gain, but at what cost?  The sense of elation over the win quickly disappeared, just as we may enjoy the pleasures of sin, but only for a season (Hebrews 11:25), before we must face the consequences (Romans 6:23). First there was the constant irritation and physical pain involved in hiding the coins, then the anxiety that they would be stolen or cause us to be harmed, and finally the sense of loss and disappointment when they vanished. 

And was the profit even worth the risk in the first place? The coins appeared to be gold, but may have actually been mere subway tokens. These are of little monetary value, and have only one use. They work to get us from one station to another, but in the end, we are still underground and far from the light of day. We can’t use them to stay in a hotel, board a plane, or engage in any transactions in the “real” world above ground. 

Satan may deceive us into thinking we are getting ahead, but if we accept his rewards and follow his schemes, we are still trapped in an endless maze of tunnels that ultimately leads only to hell (Luke 12:5). Why do people gamble with their own soul? What reward of monetary gain, fame, or power could possibly be worth risking your eternal destiny? (Matthew 16:26) 

Satan may distract us from following God’s true purpose for our life (Hebrews 12:1). Even once we are saved by trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), we can lose out on eternal rewards by seeking earthly gain instead of eternal treasure (Luke 12:16-21). 

Job was a man of great material wealth who feared God and trusted Him in all circumstances. When his wealth disappeared in an instant, he realized that God is not only the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17), but the One Who can redistribute it according to His purposes (Job 1:21). 

Money is a gift that God entrusts to us to provide for our needs, the needs of our family and community, and especially to return to Him through our church and through supporting missions (Genesis 14:20; Malachi 3:8-10; Philippians 4:10-17). If we are poor stewards, no longer faithful to God’s plan, He will reapportion that money to better stewards (Luke 12:42; 1 Corinthians 4:2). Even worse, the love of money, meaning to desire wealth as an idol we hold dearer than God, is the root of all evil, causing some to wander from their faith and to pierce themselves with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10). 

How much better to store up our treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6:20), devoting our time, talents and treasure to serving God rather than to foolishly chase earthly gain! We know God rewards us richly through spiritual blessings on earth and watches carefully over our heavenly treasure. 

The worries attached to financial responsibilities, the anxiety over changes in fortune, and the sorrow of monetary loss can be replaced by the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), the joy in sharing God’s love with others, and the sure hope of eternal rewards (1 Corinthians 3:11-15) as Jesus says, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21)

© 2019 Laurie Collett