The Two Gardens
Adam refused to be a creature under God; Christ, a real man, accepted it, and His obedience counts for all who are joined to Him, as Adam's disobedience counted for his.
Five other clusters build on this: The Law Cannot Justify, Not My People, The Spirit Is God's Own, The Breath Is Not the Spirit and Not Left Alone.
Scripture shows this in six steps:
It all comes together in Revelation 22:14.
Underneath it all lies Romans 5:19.
There are two gardens in the Bible where everything was decided. In the first, a man said no to God. In the second, a Man said yes. The question in both gardens was the same: will you be a creature under God? I have to know which answer is mine.
Genesis 3:4-6
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods… she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
Genesis 3:4-6
Look at what the serpent offered. Not just fruit. He offered two things: you will not die, and you will be as gods. Those are the two things a creature does not have. The fruit was only the occasion. The real offer was a way out of being made.
Adam had everything: a garden full of food, and God walking with him. And he reached for the one thing that was not given. He was not tricked. Scripture says “Adam was not deceived” (1 Timothy 2:14). He took it with open eyes. Then God came, and Adam hid.
I know that hand. It is mine.
Luke 22:42
“Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
Luke 22:42
Christ stood where Adam should have stood. Not in a garden, but in a wilderness, hungry after forty days. And He said what Adam did not: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Then the devil offered Him what he had offered in Eden: “All these things will I give thee” (Matthew 4:9). Everything, without the cross. Christ said no. I have said yes, again and again.
Then came a garden again, Gethsemane. Christ asked for a way out too: “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). Neither man wanted to die. The difference is whom they turned to. Adam listened to a voice from below. Christ asked His Father, and took His Father’s answer. Adam hid. Christ stepped out to meet the soldiers and said, “I am he” (John 18:5).
Philippians 2:6-8
“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation… and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
Philippians 2:6-8
Paul sets the two men side by side. Adam, made in God’s image, reached to be “as gods.” Christ would not reach. He did not grab at being equal with God. He emptied Himself and obeyed, as a man, all the way to the cross.
“As gods” assumes that God and man can be measured on one scale. But God says, “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25). So calling Christ “equal” to God and calling Him “lesser” make the same mistake. Both put God on a scale He forbids.
Hebrews 2:14
“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”
Hebrews 2:14
Christ won through death, and only flesh and blood can die. Being a man was not a detail. It was the very way God saved us.
So the serpent’s words come back one more time. Any teaching that makes Christ God has to say that the God in Him did not die. That is “ye shall not surely die” again. But Hebrews says He took flesh and blood so that He could die.
Galatians 3:13
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
Galatians 3:13
The curse came through a tree in Eden. It was carried away on another tree, the cross. After the fall, a sword kept man away from the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). At the cross, the sword fell on Christ instead: “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd” (Zechariah 13:7).
John 19:34
“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”
John 19:34
God put the first Adam into a deep sleep, opened his side, and made his bride from it. The last Adam fell into the sleep of death. His side was opened, and from it came blood and water, and His bride, the church, was born. What comes out of this is “a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Still a creature. Christ does not lead us out of being creatures. He leads a new creation.
Romans 5:19
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Romans 5:19
There are only two heads of the human race: Adam and Christ. What each one did counts for those who belong to him. So I am not saved by saying “not my will” as well as Christ said it. I am saved by belonging to the One who said it.
Revelation 22:14
“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
Revelation 22:14
The story ends where it began, at the tree of life. In Eden it was shut behind a flaming sword. Christ took the sword, and the way is open again.
What this means
The good news is a Man being what Adam would not be. Adam refused to be a creature under God. Christ accepted it, with a weight on Him that Adam never carried, and God counts His obedience for all who belong to Him.
Adam’s refusal still speaks. Any teaching that cannot let Christ be a true man, a creature under God, is saying Adam’s no again with Christ’s name on it.
I am Adam. I reach, and I hide. But I do not have to win in my own garden. I can belong to the Man who won in His.
Connected chains
This cluster is built on To Whom the Word of God Came, The Head Is the Saviour of the Body, The One Work Is to Believe and Brought Forth.