Question 20. What was God's providence regarding man's status after creation and before the fall?

 

Question 20. What was God's providence regarding man's status after creation and before the fall?

Answer. God's providence regarding man's status after creation and before the fall was to place man in paradise and let him cultivate it, to eat the fruits of the earth freely, to place other creatures under his rule, and to marry a companion to help him. He also gave man the opportunity to have communion with God Himself, instituted the Sabbath, and made a covenant of life with man on condition of perfect personal and eternal obedience, the pledge of which was the fruit of the tree of life, and to forbid eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the penalty of death.

 

In Genesis (chapters 1-3), it is said that God created the heavens and the earth, and then created man, and created the Garden of Eden and placed him there. Genesis 2:7-8 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed."

Chapters 2-3 of Genesis contain the words about the tree of life in Eden, the command not to eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, the four rivers and the command to guard and cultivate them, the name of the beasts and birds and to rule over them, and the story of Bephil.

There are two forms of man before the fall after God created him. The first is the form of man created in the world. In Genesis 2:7, “Man became a living being,” nephesh hai means a living being. It is a limited life. A limited life becomes a being that must die.

The second is the image of man in Eden. In the image of eating the fruit of the tree of life, the tree of life means the tree of eternal life, and the tree of eternal life is not in the world, but can be seen as a story about the kingdom of God that does not die spiritually. Therefore, the world becomes a place of spiritual death. Eden means the kingdom of God in the human heart.

God created humans on earth with a limited lifespan, but most people think that God created a paradise where people can live forever, where they can eat the fruit of the tree of life and live in blessings forever. However, this is not a physical story, but a spiritual story.

God created the material world and created man, but he is spiritually dead. The reason he is spiritually dead is because his spirit is trapped in the earth due to the sin of the angel, so he does not know God. That is why God placed the temple of God (Eden) in the human heart. And God is in that temple, and we are told to eat God’s word (fruit of the tree of life) and live.

Through the kingdom of God in the soul, it is a word that tells us to realize the story of the sinful angels in the kingdom of God before they came to the world. From the first man, man and woman were created, and Eve sinned because she wanted to be like God, and her husband also sinned, so they were cast out into the world again. This means that the sinful angels were imprisoned in hell because they sinned against God. Hell is the world. 2 Peter 2:4 “For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of darkness to be kept until the judgment.”

In Eden, God and Satan, the serpent, appear, and the first man is separated from the first woman and the creation of man and woman is also shown. There is also the tree of life and the tree in the garden, and Eve eats the fruit of the serpent's words that she can become like God, and gives it to her husband, so she is punished by God and is cast out into the world again.

If we apply this directly to the story of the kingdom of God, it means that the evil angels opposed God (Christ) and tried to escape his dominion. The reason is that they thought that if they combined their powers, they could become like God. The fact that they ate the fruit means that their greed worked and opposed God, so God imprisoned them in material things. This means that God sent them back to the world from Eden. It also means that God sent the spirits of the angels who sinned from the kingdom of God to the world.

The way people live in the world is that there is a temple in the soul, but God is not there. God has left. This parable becomes the story of the vineyard and the farmer. In the temple in the soul, one sits as the master.

 

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