This month, we're going to explore the Christmas story. We wait impatiently for Christmas each year, and relish every moment of it when the holiday season finally arrives. But in all the rush and excitement, in all the shopping deals and flying reindeer, does everyone stop and think about what Christmas is about? In a series of posts, we'll focus on the reason for the season.
In the beginning, God created the universe and everything in it (Gen. 1). The Lord formed a man in a likeness from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. The man became a living being, and was called Adam.
The Lord had planted a garden in Eden, and he put the man there to care for and tend the garden (Gen. 2:7-8,15). He told the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Gen. 2:16-17).
The Lord said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and while Adam slept, the Lord took a rib from the man and closed the place with flesh. From the rib He had taken, God created a woman, and brought her to Adam. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man is united to his wife, and they are considered one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. (Gen. 2:18,21-25)
The serpent, who was the devil in disguise, asked the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman replied, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
The woman decided to take the fruit. She ate some, and also gave the fruit to Adam to eat. Upon doing so, their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked. They sowed fig leaves together to make coverings for themselves.
Adam and his wife heard God walking through the garden, and they hid from Him in the trees. God called out to the man, "Where are you?"
Adam answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
"Who told you that you were naked?" God asked. "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
The man said, "The woman you put here with me— she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
The Lord told Adam, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it', cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
Adam named his wife Eve (which likely means 'living'), because she would become the mother of all the living.
God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and Eve. For their wrongdoing, they were banished from the Garden of Eden. (Gen. 3)
By eating from the tree, Adam and Eve committed the first sin. Sin is, by definition, an act of disobedience against God. All of mankind descends from Adam and Eve; therefore, sin has been an inherited part of human nature through the ages (Rom. 5:12).
Romans 6:23 says that 'the wages of sin is death'. But what does that mean, exactly? Adam and Eve were not stricken dead, nor is it common for a person to spontaneously keel over after telling a lie or stealing a candy bar from the general store. What it means is spiritual death- that is, our separation from God. Before Adam and Eve disobeyed, there was no separation between them and God. Sin separated us from God, because He is perfect, and our wrongdoing makes us impure.
Because we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), we are unworthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Our spiritual death means that when our bodies die, we will experience eternal death.
If all sinners are doomed to die, and we are all sinners, what does that mean for us? We are incapable of remedying the situation ourselves. We need someone who is greater than ourselves, someone who is able to save us.
The story doesn't end here. In the next posts, we'll be exploring what Christmas is, and why it's so significant.
Romans 6:23 says that 'the wages of sin is death'. But what does that mean, exactly? Adam and Eve were not stricken dead, nor is it common for a person to spontaneously keel over after telling a lie or stealing a candy bar from the general store. What it means is spiritual death- that is, our separation from God. Before Adam and Eve disobeyed, there was no separation between them and God. Sin separated us from God, because He is perfect, and our wrongdoing makes us impure.
Because we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), we are unworthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Our spiritual death means that when our bodies die, we will experience eternal death.
If all sinners are doomed to die, and we are all sinners, what does that mean for us? We are incapable of remedying the situation ourselves. We need someone who is greater than ourselves, someone who is able to save us.
The story doesn't end here. In the next posts, we'll be exploring what Christmas is, and why it's so significant.
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