COUNT THE STARS

                                                                COUNT THE STARS 

“Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” Genesis 15:5.

Introduction

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            The general gist of what we are looking at in the following is: Every Christian is a star, but only God can count us!

The Lord has already told Abram of His plan to make Abram “a great nation” in Genesis 12:2. “You shall be a blessing … And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:2b-3b). So, what’s the problem? Well Abram’s wondering where his descendants are going to come from. He has no children. He’s not getting any younger and neither is his wife, Sarah. And to complicate matters we’re told in Genesis 11:30, “Sarai is barren.” Yet the LORD has stated that through his descendants, not only will Abram be blessed, but so will all the families of the earth.

We see then that the Lord has already promised Abram a future blessing. He already knows something of the magnitude of this blessing. He already knows that this promised blessing has to do with making restitution for his sins. He already knows this because he’s been building altars of sacrifice around the place, (see e.g. Gen. 12:7, 8; 13:4, 18). He already knows his sin needed to be paid for. The sacrificial animal was a picture of that. He already knows that the animal he places on the altar is merely a substitute for himself. He already knows that the promised blessing has everything to do with the removal of his sin. And he already knows because the Lord has already revealed it to him. So, what then is the problem?

The Problem

Can’t Abram just believe the promise and get on with it? Isn’t that how the Old Testament saints were saved, i.e. through believing the promise of salvation? So here we meet the problem face to face. It’s subtle, so pay attention. I put it to you that there’s a difference between believing in the things a person says and actually believing in that person. It’s the difference between believing in a promise or believing in the one who makes the promise. I said it was subtle, didn’t I?

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        Let me see if I can explain this further. New cars come with a manual, don’t they? – an instruction book. If you follow the instructions in that manual your car should run great. Follow the manual or instructions for anything, washing machine, video-player, TV, automobile, whatever, and you have a money back guarantee, you’ll have no problem. In other words, the instruction manual is a sort of promise, isn’t it? It’s promising that if you put the nuts and bolts on the right way and press the proper switches, the thing will work.

Now, I don’t have to tell you that the Bible is a manual of sorts. And I don’t have to tell you lots of people use the Bible as a manual. They get results, from a well-ordered family to a well-ordered society. You only have to trust in the promises of Scripture and put them into practice to see that they work. But here’s my point: Do you know the person who wrote the manual for your car? Do you know the person who wrote the manual for your washing machine, toaster, video-player? Maybe you trust in the Bible as your manual. Maybe you’re just trusting in the promises the Bible makes. Do this or that and you’ll be all right. But are you trusting in the One who wrote the Bible?

If you’re still having a problem seeing how you can separate the promise from the promise-maker, then consider the Mormons. You’d hardly meet a nicer bunch of people than the Mormons. Some of you will remember the Osmond family who were big in the 70s and 80s. They were a musical band of pop singers (if you don’t know!). The Mormons exemplify a great deal of what the Bible teaches, don’t they? But who would dare say that the Mormons know the One who wrote the Bible? Jesus addresses this very thing where He says to the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40). The Mormons, (unlike Christians who are Trinitarian and therefore worship one God), are tri-theists and thus worship three gods. Therefore, the Mormons have another Jesus, i.e., a Jesus different to the One revealed in the Bible.

So, what does all of this have to do with Abram? Well, up till now he’s been trusting in the promises of the LORD. The LORD has promised him land, and He has promised him descendants. And the LORD has promised that all the families of the earth shall be blessed in Abram. So, here’s Abram’s problem then: How is this promised blessing supposed to come to pass without an heir, i.e., without a son from his own loins? His redemption, his forgiveness of sins, his eternal life, his blessing depends upon this heir. That’s what the promises are all about. That is how Abram understood them.

Abram’s problem then is this: Where is the substance of the promise? Where or who is the One in whom I’ve to put my trust? “I know he’s to be somewhere in among my descendants. But how can this be since I personally don’t have any?” So Abram starts going on to God about his servant Eliezer having to be his heir. And that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. It’s like when the angel Gabriel told Mary the mother of Jesus that she was going to conceive. “How can this be?” she asked, “Since I do not know a man.” Mary was also reminded that Elizabeth her relative who was called barren conceived a son in her old age. “For with God nothing will be impossible” is what she was told. Abram, in our text, is suffering something of the same problem as Mary. He knows what God’s planning to do because God has already told him. However, he’s struggling to understand how God is going to execute His plan. So the issue of offspring is weighing heavily on Abram’s mind (e.g., Gen. 15:2-3).

So, let’s look a bit closer at what’s going on and see if we can find the solution to the problem.

The Promise

We’re going to see, in the words of a couple of the commentators, that, “Abraham’s faith was faith in the God who had promised, [and] not merely in what had been promised.” The Lord has come to Abram in a vision. The whole of Genesis 15 records what happened in that vision. I’m not going to digress too long to talk about the nature of visions in the Bible. We’re more interested in the contents of the vision than the actual nature of the vision itself. However, we do need to make a couple of general comments on the nature of this vision because it does have an effect on the way we are to understand its content.

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Before His Church had His completed written revelation, i.e., the Bible, the Lord used other ways to reveal Himself and His Plan of Redemption to His people. The Plan of Redemption as it is revealed is called the Covenant of Grace by theologians. God reveals Himself in His Covenant of Grace. The Bible, i.e., the Scriptures, is the record of this. Jesus, as stated earlier, says, “These are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). And as the Apostle Paul says about Jesus, “All the promises of God are in Him Yes and Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20). And he also says, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). We should keep in mind that Christ is the go between between God and men. Christ is the One who represents God before men. And He also is the One who represents men before God. He alone is the Mediator.

So then, in the Old Testament Christ the Mediator mediated between God and men in various ways. God was making Himself known to Abram by that method of revelation known as vision. Let’s look at a portion of Scripture which might help us. Then we’ll get into the more important content of the vision. The Book of Numbers 12:6-8, “Then He said, ‘Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision, And I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the LORD...’”  So, we see then, Abram is a prophet of God because the Lord has made Himself known to him in a vision, (see Gen. 15:1).

The curious thing about this passage is that the Lord seems to be making Himself known to Abram in a vision and in a dream. In Genesis 15:12 we’re told, “a deep sleep fell upon Abram.” However, there’s something we need to remember from the Numbers 12 passage: When the Lord made Himself known face to face, (literally, mouth to mouth in the Hebrew), the revelation was clearer than in a vision or dream. Face to face revelation is plain as opposed to dark sayings or riddles in vision or dream. It’s the difference between truth by parable and truth by verbal proposition. However, the LORD is revealing Himself to Abram in a vision and also a dream.

Abram’s mental faculties would be heightened and intensified by a power-surge from the LORD. Yet because of the nature of the revelation, Abram would still be straining his eyes to see. The Apostle Paul says what I’m trying to say in these words, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12a). The element of mystery is gone when the LORD makes Himself known face to face. We see then in Genesis 15 that the LORD is making Himself known to Abram, as it were, in the dark. “Oh for a match to strike for a glimpse of my Lord’s face!” Alas Scripture says, “The just [i.e., the justified, the righteous] shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17).

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        If you were to think about it, one might get the impression that Abram’s more interested in what the LORD has promised than in the LORD Himself. We’ve already noted Abram’s concern about not having any offspring of his own, i.e., descendants whom the LORD has promised him. Therefore, we might be forgiven for being all the more suspicious of this in light of what the Word of the LORD says to him in Genesis 15:1 “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

We noted above that some wish to translate this: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.” And we must admit that it is possible to translate the Hebrew that way. But surely context has everything to do with it? The question before us is this: Was it the LORD Himself that Abram wanted or was it the LORD’s reward? Was Abram trusting in a promise or was he trusting in the LORD? Did he believe the things of God or does he believe in God? Does he have faith in the manual, or does he have faith in the one who wrote it? We’ve already seen that this is not the same thing. It’s the difference between believing God because He gives you things and believing in Him because of who He is. It can be the difference between following the teaching but not the teacher. This is why I don’t like the translation, “I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.” Because translated thus, look at what it makes Abram to be saying in the next verse, “Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless?” It makes Abram (whom the New Testament calls the “Father of the Faithful” out to be interested mainly in what the LORD has promised him and not so much in the LORD Himself! “Abram, your reward shall be very great” “O goody! What am I going to get? Let me see, I wouldn’t mind some of those descendants You promised me, seeing I’m childless.”

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        There are people who treat God like the great ATM in the sky. They punch in their secret code while they make sure no-one’s looking over their shoulder. They make the impersonal transaction and they’re off to spend their inheritance. However, like wanting the personal touch in talking to a bank teller face to face, so real Christians want to talk to God face to face. They’re interested in Him. They want to talk to Him, and God in turn, is interested in the real Christian.

Notice in our passage that the Word of the LORD is conversing with Abram. He’s concerned about Abram, “Abram, do not be afraid.” Does this sound like someone you know? The One who says to His disciples, “Fear not!” The One who says, “Lo, I am with you always. I am your shield.” The One who is called Immanuel “God with us.” It is He who is talking to Abram. It is He who is Abram’s exceedingly great reward. He is the Word who would become flesh and walk on this earth for some thirty-three years. He is the One who would one day say to Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” He is the One talking with Abram in this vision. He is the One who makes known God. He is the One in whom Abram is trusting. He’s the One who is making Himself known in this vision and speaking to Abram in a dream as God.

So, how do we know positively and absolutely Abram’s trust is in the writer of the manual rather than the manual itself? “And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Your Bible might have decided to leave out that little insignificant word. But believe me, the word “in” is in the Hebrew without dispute. And as we’ve seen, it makes the whole difference between Abram believing in the promises, and believing in the One who makes the promises. Abram, as we’ve seen before, didn’t put his faith in riches, even when those blessings and riches came from, or were to come from, the LORD. No, Genesis 15:6, “Abram believed in the LORD.” Here is that great doctrine taken up in the New Testament, i.e., the doctrine of Justification. The great doctrine which was rediscovered at the time of the Reformation. It’s the doctrine which is the very heart of the Gospel of Salvation.

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            But just one last “kick at the cat” as they say in Canada, before we begin to tie things in a nice bow. And you’ll probably want to take me outside and clobber me for saying this! But what we’ve looked at is the difference between clinging to the old rugged cross and clinging to Jesus. I love that old hymn. It’s one of my favorites. However, if you’re clinging to a lump of wood, then let go.

Lots of people the world over know what Jesus did. But the question is not: Do you know what Jesus did? But rather do you know Jesus Himself? And of course, we learn more about Him through the things He did while on earth. We learn things about God through the things that He has made, which is to say that we can know something of the Creator by studying His creation. However, Paul in Romans 1:25 speaks of those who worship the creature or creation rather than the Creator. So, subtle as it is, using the same line of reasoning, I believe we need to be careful to believe in the One who makes the Promises, and not just the promises themselves. It’s not “Whosoever believes Him’ but rather it’s “Whosoever believes IN Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Abram believed IN Him and the LORD accounted it to him for righteousness.” He believed because the LORD had made Himself known to him, which is to say that the One who wrote the Book appeared to him, albeit in a vision and a dream.

The Profusion

We have a question left unanswered. Why was Abram so concerned that he was childless, i.e., that the LORD had given him no offspring? Well, I put it to you that Abram was keen as mustard to share his reward. He wanted EVERY family on earth to be blessed with his blessing. Abram loved God and he loved his neighbor as himself. But he needed a son in order for the blessings to flow to all the nations. Because that’s the way the LORD had already promised to him that it would happen.

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        “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b). The blessings on the families or nations would come through Abram and his offspring. As the Apostle says, “Those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Gal. 3:9). Abram’s champing at the bit to see the promised blessings poured out on the whole world. As Jesus said, “Your father Abram rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Keep in mind that father Abraham was a non-Jew. The Day being spoken of was when Jew and non-Jew, (i.e., the ethnoi, meaning all the nations including the Gentiles), yes, ALL the nations, would know his God, the God in whom he was presently trusting.

And Abram along with all the saints in heaven long for the day, “When the earth shall be covered with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). Had Abram been interested more in the promises than the LORD Himself, surely the LORD would have rebuked him? But instead, look at what our gracious LORD did for our father Abram. In Genesis 12:4 the LORD reassured Abram that Abram would produce a son from his own body. And in the very next verse says, “Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” And you thought heaven was practically empty, didn’t you? You thought that most people were going to hell? Well, all I can say is what the LORD says, “Count the stars if you are able to number them.”

Well, in Abram’s eyes you are a star! How does it feel to be a star? Every time Abram looked at the starry skies he’d see you in heaven. I’m sure if you read Psalm 19 right about now it would begin to make a great deal of sense. Let me try you with the first couple of verses, “The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.”

Whether you’re in Scotland or upside down in Australia, look now to heaven. As Abram looked at his descendants (including even you and me) in the stars, do you think he knew our names? No, but the One in whom he put his trust knows our names. The Psalmist says of the LORD, “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name” (Psa. 147:4). The LORD says, “Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing” (Isa. 40:26). Jesus Christ says to His Father, “Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12b).

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        Oh yes, if you look at the night sky, you’ll see that by far the majority stay put. However, you will see one or two moving about the place. Jude speaks of them where he says, “[They are] wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 13). But what about the vast majority? Well, the prophet Daniel says, “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3). So, count the stars – if you are able to number them.

Conclusion

Arithmetic was never one of my strong points. But I don’t think all Abram’s children (i.e., all who will believe) have been called into the LORD’s Church yet. In fact, I don’t think we’re anywhere near the number of stars in heaven. So, we can see that we’ve still got lots of work to do. So, keep on telling your neighbours about Christ. And if they say to you that the church is just about dead, you tell them what the Lord told Abram. “Count the stars if you are able to number them.” But keep your eye on the One Scripture calls “...The Bright and Morning Star.” Make sure, like our father Abram, you are believing in the LORD.

SEEING JESUS IN THE COVENANT

Seeing Jesus in the Covenant

            “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’” (Gen. 2:16-17). This is one of the simplest yet profoundest couple of verses found anywhere in the Bible. For it contains the Law and the Gospel in seminal form. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood portions of Scripture.

When one mentions the word covenant regarding these verses, all the trees begin to shake in the garden. We tremble once more at the blood curdling roars of our old master, the devil. Here, he can be heard as he walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He devoured Adam and Eve. We must not let him devour us. We must keep our eyes on Jesus our protector. For if you miss what is going on here, you will be left only with, at best, a superficial understanding of the meaning of the life and death of the last Adam.

            There was a band in the 70s called Supertramp. They brought out an album titled Crisis? What Crisis? One is reminded of this title when one hears what some Christians have to say about these crucial verses. Covenant? What Covenant? The word covenant is not found in the Bible till you get to Genesis 6:18, “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” We see clearly that God covenants with people, in this case, with Noah. But what about the pre-Fall Adam? Did the LORD God covenant with him?

Notice that it says that “the LORD God commanded the man.” The LORD God is the Word who would become flesh and dwell among us. Christians nowadays seem to prefer Yahweh Elohim over Jehovah Elohim as a Hebrew transliteration of LORD God found in many English Bibles. The point here is that Jehovah or Yahweh is accepted to be God’s covenant name. E.g., “LORD God, ‘LORD’ (Hebrew YHWH, ‘Yahweh’) is the personal and covenant name of God.”[1] Says John Frame, “Yahweh, Lord, is the name by which God wishes his people to know him. The Lord is the One who controls all things, speaks with absolute authority, and enters creation to draw creatures into covenant relation to him.”[2]

The LORD God or Jehovah is already God’s covenant name when He covenants with Noah. He is the God who has already covenanted. And notice that He says, “I will establish My covenant with you.” The words “My covenant” means that God is going to reveal His covenant to Noah and establish that covenant with him. Now, back to Adam. “And the LORD God commanded the man.” Who commanded Adam? The One who already has a covenant name, by which we mean the One who has already covenanted. As He did when He established His covenant with Noah, so He did with Adam. He revealed to Adam an aspect of His covenant and another aspect to Noah. For identification purposes, the former is what is generally referred to as the Covenant of Works and the latter as the Covenant of Grace. Works pre-Fall and grace post-Fall. When viewed through the eyes of Jesus, we shall easily see that these are simply two aspects or administrations of the same covenant which is commonly identified as the Covenant of Redemption.

Westminster Confession of Faith 7, Of God’s Covenant with Man,

 

1.The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which He hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

2. The first covenant made with man was a Covenant of Works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

            Before a building is built, a lot of preplanning takes place; the building’s purpose, materials needed, costs, workers, design, etc. A plan is drawn up, a “blueprint”. Then the building is constructed. Things need to happen on the worksite and every problem possible of occurring should have been anticipated and remedies to these possible problems should have been worked out already. Creation has been planned. Creation has been created. Adam has gone strike and has to be fired from the job. A new or replacement for Adam needs to be found and all damage caused by Adam needs to be fixed. Are you getting the general idea? Eternal counsel of the Triune God. Creation, Fall, Redemption, Final Restoration etc.

Some would gasp at this idea, “Wow! You get all of that from just these two verses where God commands Adam not to eat a piece of fruit?!” Well, yes, I do! However, you won’t see even the half of this if you are still saying to yourself, “Covenant? What covenant?” J.V. Fesko says,

 

Genesis is an organic part of the Pentateuch and … no one book was supposed to be isolated from the four other books. In other words, critics … read Genesis 1-3 as if the rest of the Pentateuch did not exist, which is ironically similar to higher-text critical readings. They bypass the literary context of the first three chapters and read it in chronological succession as if the reader was not supposed to peer over the wall of the third chapter to see what follows. Hence, if the term covenant does not appear in the first three chapters, then the idea must not exist.[3]

We are using Jesus, the Word who became also flesh, to help us to see Himself in Genesis. He is the LORD God, the One with God’s covenant name. Would it help the reader if we stated it like this: Jesus is our covenant (Isa. 42:6, 49:8). Adam used to be our federal representative before God. But he blew it! Now it is Jesus for all who will believe.

So, once you see Jesus in this interaction between the LORD God and Adam, you will begin to understand more fully the importance of the life and death of Jesus Christ as our representative, i.e., as our substitute. “Pact, treaty, agreement, testament, bargain, confederation, contract, compact, alliance, oath, and promise etc., are all features of covenants. Therefore, why let simple semantics risk your missing out on the order and cohesiveness that covenant theology brings to the whole of Scripture, to the inner workings of the triune God, and to His relationship with humanity? Let us agree that, in its simplest form, a covenant at the very least is a bond.”[4]

Let us briefly talk about the Covenant of Redemption of which the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace are revelatory. Though still lengthy, the following has been abbreviated and is found in the Sum of Saving Knowledge under HEAD 2. The Remedy Provided in Jesus Christ for the Elect by the Covenant of Grace.

 

God … has revealed in His word a way to save sinners, viz. by faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, by virtue of, and according to the tenor of the Covenant of Redemption, made and agreed upon between God the Father and God the Son, in the council of the Trinity, before the world began.

1.     The sum of the Covenant of Redemption is this: God having freely chosen unto life a certain number of lost mankind … did give them, before the world began, unto God the Son, appointed Redeemer, that, upon condition He would humble himself so far as to assume the human nature … and submit Himself to the Law, as surety for them, and satisfy justice for them, by giving obedience in their name, even unto the suffering of the cursed death of the cross, He should ransom and redeem them all from sin and death, and purchase unto them righteousness and eternal life … This condition the Son of God (who is Jesus Christ our Lord) did accept before the world began, and in the fulness of time came into the world, was born of the Virgin Mary, subjected Himself to the Law, and completely paid the ransom on the cross … He is in all ages, since the fall of Adam, still upon the work of applying actually the purchased benefits unto the elect; and that He doth by way of entertaining a covenant of free grace and reconciliation with them, through faith in Himself; by which covenant, He makes over to every believer a right and interest to Himself, and to all His blessings.

2.     For the accomplishment of this Covenant of Redemption, and making the elect partakers of the benefits thereof in the Covenant of Grace, Christ Jesus was clad with the threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King: made a Prophet, to reveal all saving knowledge to His people, and to persuade them to believe and obey the same; made a Priest, to offer up Himself a sacrifice once for them all, and to intercede continually with the Father, for making their persons and services acceptable to Him; and made a King, to subdue them to Himself, to feed and rule them by His own appointed ordinances, and to defend them from their enemies.[5]

Therefore, when the LORD God says, “My covenant” He is referring to the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son made in eternity past and witnessed by the Holy Spirit of which He, by His written Word, testifies to the world.

        Now, here’s the thing that the short-sighted Mr Magoo misses. This is what the prooftexter hermeneutic misses. This is what those semantics players miss about the covenant. It’s a biggy! It has to do with the new covenant promised by the LORD God in Jeremiah 31 and in Ezekiel 36 etc., you know, the bit where the LORD God is going to write His Law in their hearts and on their minds, you know, by putting His Spirit within them. Long story short: In the new covenant the LORD God renews and restores what the old Adam lost in the Fall. Yes, true knowledge, holiness, and righteousness.

 

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Yes, “they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” True knowledge of God indeed! The indwelling of the poured out Spirit will guarantee this. “Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38-39). Wow! Men, women, and even children knowing God through His gift of the Holy Spirit.

 

The nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the LORD God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:23b-28.

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Yes, cleansed by the Holy Spirit as pictured by being sprinkled with clean water in baptism. The Church, the ekklesia, is the called out ones, called out from among the nations. The Law and the Gospel of God working together bring to God’s elect that which Adam lost when he broke the covenant, i.e., true knowledge, holiness, and righteousness.

Adam is about to name the animals (Gen. 2:19). The LORD God is going to sacrifice one of them soon to cover the fallen Adam and Eve. Animals are going to be used in the sacrificial system under the Mosaic covenant as substitutes pointing to Jesus. The new covenant is new because instead of animals shedding their blood, Jesus would shed His. The poured out Holy Spirit would, as it were, sprinkle Christ’s cleansing blood of atonement on believers and their children as pictured in covenant baptism. But let us not get too far ahead of ourselves. Adam hasn’t even fallen yet.

Meanwhile back in the garden. God was ascribing Adam’s diet while entering into a covenant with him as humanity’s representative. “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). The fruit of the tree of life was included in “every tree in the garden” that Adam could freely eat from. Only the fruit of one tree was forbidden him, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” Why? “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

This is the same LORD God that had created everything, planted a garden of delight, put Adam in it to glorify and enjoy God in it by tending and keeping it for Him. Trees, rivers, fruit, birds, fish, and animals, God’s Law in his mind and on his heart, true knowledge, holiness, and righteousness. But best of all, fellowship, communion, with the LORD God. The Word came with His Word to Adam and covenanted with him.

In any covenant, generally, there is a preamble stating who the covenanting party is with a bit of history, then the covenant stipulations, which, of course, have certain penalties attached or implied for breaking any of them. Kenneth Gentry summarizes the usual covenant structure,

 

1.     Transcendence: Usually a preamble offering an introductory statement identifying the sovereignty of the covenant-making king.

2.     Hierarchy: An historical prologue summarizing the king’s authority and the mediation of his rule, by reminding of the historical circumstances of it.

3.     Ethics: A detail of the legal stipulations defining the ethics of faithful living under the covenant bond.

4.     Oath: The setting forth of the sanctions of the covenant, specifying the promises and the warnings of the covenant by the taking of a formal oath.

5.     Succession: An explanation of the arrangement transferring the covenant to future generations.[6]

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                The first instance where Adam speaks is recorded in his words to the LORD God at his marriage to Eve, “And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen. 2:23). Marriage, as we shall see when we get to it, is a picture of the LORD God’s covenant with His bride, the Church. Even Mr Magoo can see surely the LORD God and Adam is Jesus and His bride in seminal form. His character, yes, His Law, is in Adam’s mind and is written on his heart (Rom. 2:14-15). The LORD God ought to be Adam’s first love.

Adam’s prescribed diet is a window through which we can glimpse the future wedding feast of the Lamb and His bride. It was at Adam and Eve’s wedding feast that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit. The rest is, as they say, history.

So, we see Jesus in the LORD God’s covenant with Adam. The Covenant of Works speaks of what Jesus was coming to do. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-18).

Jesus kept God’s Law perfectly as representative of all who will believe, and for them He also paid the penalty of death as their substitute. The new covenant is that Jesus has become our covenant. “Thus says the LORD: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard You, and in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people, to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages; that You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’” (Isa. 49:8-9b).

Thus, Jesus has been given to us as a covenant. Jesus is one Divine Person with two natures, fully God and fully human forever. When Adam broke the Covenant of Works humanity became separated from God, i.e., spiritually dead. To break this new covenant, Christ’s two natures would need to become separated. If this happened, Jesus would cease to exist being the Word in the flesh, the God-Man. However, He is going to attend the great wedding feast and be married to His bride forever. “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Heb. 13:5b).  

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[1] NIV Study Bible, (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1985), 8, footnote on Genesis 2:4.

[2] John M. Frame, Systematic Theology – An Introduction to Christian Belief, (P&R, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 2013), 450.

[3] J.V. Fesko, Adam and the Covenant of Works, Mentor Imprint by Christian Focus Publications Ltd., Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, 2021, 197.

[4] Neil Cullan McKinlay, The Covenant: Simple yet Profound, (Weemac Publishing, Brisbane, Queensland, 2022), 10.

[5] The Confession of Faith, The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, with the Scripture Proofs at Large: together with The Sum of saving Knowledge, (Free Presbyterian Publication, Glasgow, Fourth reprint 1985), 324.

[6] Kenneth L. Gentry, The Greatness of the Great Commission, (Institute for Christian Economics, Tyler, Texas, 1993), 18. See also Ray R, Sutton’s, That You May Prosper for more detailed information on the covenant structure.

SEEING JESUS IN THE GARDENER

Seeing Jesus in the Gardener

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            In the following verse there are certain unmistakable calls from the first Adam in the garden that echo from the last Adam in another garden. “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden … Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ She, supposing Him to be the gardener…” (John 19:41a, 20:15a). Therefore, Adam before the fall was a picture of the Jesus to come. From garden to garden. From gardener to Gardener.

The preincarnate Jesus is the One who put His own image in the paradise of God. “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Just as there is a foreshadowing of the fall in the LORD God’s threatening Adam with death as the penalty for eating the fruit that He had forbidden him, so there is a foreshadowing of redemption in the LORD God putting Adam in the garden. Adam being taken from outside the garden and put in it foreshadows our transference into Jesus’s kingdom.Where’s the connection? “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).

We read the following in Genesis 2:8, “The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed”, and the following in 2:15, “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” The Hebrew word for ‘put’ in the former is different from the latter. Whereas the former has more to do with conveying, the latter has more to do with depositing. We talk about transferring money from one account to deposit it in another. Whereas transference is the process, deposit is the result of the transference process. When a spiritually bankrupt human being is converted by God’s grace, he or she has the righteousness of Christ transferred to and then deposited in their account. Thus, Adam was transferred from outside if the garden and deposited in the garden.  

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        Before he became spiritually bankrupt, what was Adam the gardener commissioned by the LORD God to do? He was to tend and keep His garden. Notice how the Lexam English Bible renders it, “And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15, LEB). The use of the word cultivate alerts us that Adam’s work in the garden was an extension of and obedience to the Cultural Mandate of Genesis 1:26-28. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1:28). Thus, beginning in the garden, man was commissioned to cultivate God’s creation. 

The last Adam’s Great Commission is His post-Fall fulfilling of the Cultural Mandate by the power of His Spirit on earth working through the people He has redeemed. Those who have been redeemed by Christ are to be about the business of redeeming every sphere of society, be it family, church, state, nation, school, college, university, stamp club, sports club, coffee club, or whatever. Abraham Kuyper’s famous statement sums up the Cultural Mandate/Great Commission,

 

Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry ‘Mine.’[1] 

The connection between the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission becomes clearer when one begins to see Jesus in Adam the gardener. As was the first Adam, so was the last Adam. The former prefigures the latter. If we remember that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), then even Mr Magoo without his spectacles should be able to see that Adam was created in Jesus’s image and likeness. Adam was commissioned to do what Jesus was coming to do, i.e., tend and keep the garden of God. Jesus will tend and keep it forever! “Whereas the first Adam failed miserably to tend and keep the garden, i.e., cultivate it, the second Adam succeeds spectacularly in tending and keeping the garden city.”[2]

 

“And Yahweh God took the man   and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15 LEB). The word cultivate as used here by the LEB lends itself to the whole pre-fall covenant of works with Adam as mankind’s representative head. With Eve he was commissioned by God to “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). He was to expand the garden, yes, God’s Kingdom, throughout the earth. Other versions of the Bible translate the Hebrew word עָבַד as dress KJV, tend NKJV, care for NET, work it HCSB, ESV, NIV. The idea, then, was for Adam to serve God by cultivating His garden. The other word is שָׁמַר, which means to keep, to attend to, to hedge about, guard, to protect. Thus, Adam was to serve and protect God’s Kingdom on earth, i.e., the expanding garden.

“To serve and protect”, and variations of it, is the motto of many police forces in Western nations. This essentially is the motto for what Adam was to do in the garden. It’s ancient history that he didn’t do a very good job of this. He produced only thorns and thistles and he failed to protect his wife from an unwanted intruder. So much for “to serve and protect”![3]

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         "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1a, KJV). If we understand that the subtle serpent launched an attack on Adam and Eve, then we should have no trouble understanding the sword and the trowel image of Nehemiah rebuilding and defending the wall. For it illustrates what the LORD God employed Adam to do in the garden. “Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon” (Neh. 4:17). Therefore, in this “to serve and protect”, even pre-Fall, one can see a foreshadowing of Adam beating his ploughshare into a sword and his pruning hook into a spear! “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears…” (Joel 3:10a). Of course, the last Adam is in the process of reversing this, “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isa. 2:4; cf. Micah 4:3).

Why did the Word become flesh? He came “to serve and protect”. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He came to serve, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28) and to protect, “I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15, CSB).

Having seen then that the LORD God put the man in His garden to cultivate it as well as guard it from intruders, and that this foreshadows what God was putting Adam’s replacement, i.e., the Man Christ Jesus, into the world to do, let us now briefly consider what Adam was like before the fall. Westminster Confession of Faith summarises this for us,

 

After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it; and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.[4]

Let us note that Adam had God’s Law written on his heart and that he was created and endued with holiness, righteousness, and true knowledge. We won’t go too far wrong if we keep in mind that we are talking about God’s Moral Law here, i.e., the Decalogue a.k.a. the Ten Commandments, and not the Mosaic Law which obviously came later during the time of Moses.

So, Adam had inward commands, i.e., the Ten Commandments, and an outward command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is what is meant by “true knowledge”. It has to do with man being made in God’s image and likeness. God’s Ten Commandments are an internal revelation (to the conscience) of God’s character. All of this is summarised in Jesus’s command, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31). This is what Adam was mandated to do. In the Triune Godhead each Person loves God and loves His Neighbour as Himself. Therefore, Adam was commissioned to reflect this character of God on planet Earth.

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            This is an area where people stumble around tripping over things like the shortsighted Mr Magoo without his spectacles. Some think that the only commandment Adam had was the command to refrain from eating the forbidden fruit! What if Adam had murdered his wife, Eve? Would God excuse him because he didn’t know that murder was wrong? What about stealing? Would God let Adam off for pinching someone else’s apples like some mischievous kid?  What about Adam killing himself and Eve by eating God's fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Therefore, God’s Law was written on pre-Fall Adam’s heart.

What was God’s pre-Fall Law like? The Ten Commandments, as we know them, presuppose sin. However, Adam, before the Fall, was without sin. Adam, the image and likeness of God, was created to expressly image the character of God in creation. In short, he too was to love God and His neighbour as himself. The Ten Commandments add more detail to the summary, the first four of which express how we are to love God, and the last six how we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. What are the Ten Commandments in positive form?

 

1.              Worship God exclusively.

2.              Worship God spiritually.

3.        Worship God sincerely.

4.       Worship God as He will be worshipped.

5.        Respect authority.

6.        Respect the life and rights of others.

7.        Be pure and loyal.

8.       Be honest.

9.        Be truthful.

10.     Be happy and content.[5]

These are the Ten Commandments before the fall that were written on Adam’s moist ‘clay’ heart. After the fall, God wrote the same Commandments in negative form on tablets of hardened clay, (i.e., stone, metaphorically like Adam’s heart after he had fallen). So, true knowledge has much to do with knowing God, of which His Ten Commandments is very much a part of.

The difference between the Ten Commandments put in positive form before the Fall and put negatively post-Fall is the difference between, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31, NIV) and whatever you do not want others to do to you, do not do to them. Whereas in the former, one needs to be actively engaged in doing good things to keep the commandments, in the latter one can stay at home sitting on one’s couch watching television and be keeping them simply by not doing anything.

For the purpose of illustration, please pay particular attention to number 4 in the following as found in Westminster Larger Catechism Q 99,

 

Q. 99. What rules are to be observed for the right understanding of the Ten Commandments?

A.    For the right understanding of the Ten Commandments, these rules are to be observed:

1.     The law is perfect, binding everyone to full conformity in the whole person to its righteousness, and to entire obedience forever; requiring the utmost perfection of every duty and forbidding the least degree of every sin.

2. The law is spiritual, reaching the understanding, will, affections, and all powers of the soul, as well as words, works, and gestures.
3. One and the same thing may be required or forbidden in several commandments, in different respects.
4. Where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden; where a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded. Likewise, promises imply threats, and threats imply promises. 

Thus, we see that Christianity, as it was for Adam before the Fall, is not only about refraining from sin but actively doing good works. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10).

It doesn’t take a theological genius to see that holiness and righteousness are inward and outward expressions of God’s Moral Law. Adam was to serve God by setting Him apart in his heart inwardly (holiness) which would be expressed outwardly by his works (righteousness). No, to be sure, Adam was not trying to earn salvation before the Fall, as he had not yet fallen. However, his commandment keeping was through doing righteous works, S.G. de Graaf is helpful here,

 

There is a distinction to be made between a favor that originally proceeded from God to His entire creation and a favor forfeited by man’s fall but now given on the basis of Christ’s reconciling work. The latter favor is called grace. In Dutch the distinction is between “gunst” and “genade,” the latter being “verbeurende gunst.” – Trans.

Let us return to the Westminster Larger Catechism to illustrate Adam doing righteous works,

Q. 98. Where is the moral law summarily comprehended?

A. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments, which were delivered by the voice of God upon mount Sinai, and written by Him in two tables of stone; and are recorded in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The four first commandments containing our duty to God, and the other six our duty to man.

Notice that the first table contains our duty to God and the second, our duty to our neighbour. Though you cannot have the one without the other, the former table has much to do with holiness and the latter with righteousness. 

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            Notice where we are to set apart, i.e., keep holy as in sanctify, the LORD God, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” (1 Pet. 3:15a). The heart is to be like the holy of holies in the temple – set apart. Our duty towards God is to worship God exclusively, spiritually, sincerely, and as He will be worshipped. This is what holiness means and this is what it means when we say that Adam was created in holiness. Thus, holiness has to do with worshipping God. It pertains to the first four commandments of the Decalogue. In negative terms and in abbreviated form they are: 1. You shall have no other gods before Me, 2. You shall not make idols, 3. You shall not take the name of God in vain, 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Whereas these Commands have to do with loving God, the last six show us how to love our neighbour. Here they are abbreviated: 5. Honor your father and your mother, 6. You shall not murder, 7. You shall not commit adultery, 8. You shall not steal, 9. You shall not bear false witness, 10. You shall not covet.

            Whereas holiness has to do with worshipping God, righteousness has to do with serving Him through good works. Notice the words worship and serve in the following verse showing what Adam should’ve said to Satan in the garden, “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”’” (Matt. 4:10). The Mosaic Law illustrates this by making a demarcation between what priests got to look after and what kings got to look after.

            Though both priests and kings were to keep the whole of God’s Moral Law, the former operated primarily in the sphere of the first table of the law (worship) and kings primarily in accordance with the second table (service). It was the job of the prophet to keep both priests and kings honest and to make sure both spheres were kept distinct. The prophet did this by reminding priest and kings of God’s overarching Moral Law. Because his role involved receiving direct revelation from the LORD God, the prophet worked primarily in the sphere of true knowledge, with the priest functioning in the sphere of holiness, and the king was primarily to operate in the sphere of service. To be sure, as are the three Persons in the Godhead, so prophet, priest, and king are interconnected. Adam the gardener was to mirror all three of these roles in God’s garden.

            Adam, therefore, was created with true knowledge, holiness, and righteousness. This is what he lost when he failed to repel his attack but instead sided with Satan against the LORD God by eating the forbidden fruit and thereby broke all the commandments.

True knowledge, holiness, and righteousness is what is recovered for us by the last Adam, Jesus Christ, our Prophet, Priest, and King. He does this by writing His Law on our hearts, “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Heb. 8:10b). We are to “put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Col. 3:10) and we are to “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24b).

What Adam the gardener lost for us in the garden is regained for us by the new Gardener, viz., true knowledge of God, holiness, and righteousness. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned … For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:12, 17-19).

Who does the better job of tending and keeping the paradise of God? Gardener Adam or Gardener Jesus? Here’s some of gardener Adam’s work,

 

The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. Isaiah 24:4-6. 

And here’s some of the work of Gardener Jesus,

 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.  Revelation 22:1-3a.  

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[1] James D Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, (Eerdmans Publishing, 1998), 488.

[2] Neil Cullan McKinlay and D. Rudi Schwartz, The Kingdom: Every Square Inch, (Weemac Publishing, Brisbane, Queensland, 2024), 480. See also Neil Cullan McKinlay and D. Rudi Schwartz, Gods Kingdom: What! On Earth?, (Weemac Publishing, Brisbane, Queensland, 2026), 283.

[3] Ibid., The Kingdom, 250-251, God’s Kingdom, 162.

[4] Book of Forms, Reformed Churches of Australia, (Reformed Churches Publishing House, Geelong, Victoria,1991), 154.

[5] Francis Nigel Lee, (quoting Yost), The Covenantal Sabbath, (The Lord’s Day Observance Society, London, 1966), 24.