Sorry, Eden Wasn't Perfect

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today

Eden Wasn't Perfect!

Hosea 6:7 NLT

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I want you to show love; I want you to know me.

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But like Adam, you broke my covenant
    and betrayed my trust.

Sometimes we wish we could go back to the Garden of Eden. All would be perfect. All would be peaceful. All would be sin free.

Sounds really good, but it's an over idealized picture.

God planted a garden in Eden and there he placed the man. The rest of the earth was not a garden. In fact the garden simply showed man what God meant for him to accomplish as he became fruitful, multiplied and filled the earth. It was a template for subduing and stewarding the undeveloped spaces on the planet. All was not perfect. All was waiting for man to implement God's design.

Perhaps Eden was peaceful. We really do not know. We do know it was not all leisure and no work for from the beginning man had to care for the garden - it was not a self-care creation. Work happened from the beginning.

And as good as sin free sounds, we forget that all was not sinless perfection. Already the evil one had entered the earth. Sin was always lurking by the door.

We forget that a perfect Eve, and then a perfect Adam, when tempted, both chose to sin. Both broke God's covenant when all that was required was take care of the Garden (a positive) and do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the one and only do not). In Eden, Adam and Eve did not make perfect choices and neither would you if given a chance.

And we are given a chance even though we live in a fallen world. Our sin is not a result of a fallen world. Our sin is a result of our current choices. We have two commandments - love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength - and - love one another even as I have love you (also stated love your neighbor as your self). Two points of covenant to break. The same number as in Eden.

But we continue to break God's covenant with us. We continue to betray him, to deal treacherously with him as the NIV translates that phrase. And it is for this treachery - no matter how natural it seems to us - that we stand under the same judgment the prophet Hosea taught Israel and Judah.

To what is God calling us? What faithfulness does he want restored?

God wants trust restored. God wants us to show love and to pursue knowing him.

Photo Credits:
Red Neck Adam some rights reserved by outdoorPDK @flickr.com 
Trust some rights reserved by Pro-Zak @flickr.com