What We Learn from Genesis, Part 3: Relationship
But the LORD called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:9
A remarkable trait of biblical faith is the relationship between people and God that it portrays. From the first chapter until the last chapter of Genesis we see the central reality of human existence is the relationship we are intended to have with God, and when this relationship exists and is healthy, then every other relationship is likewise healthy and is put in its proper order.
At the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2, God made man, male and female, in His own image, and this clearly means that we have the potential for relationship with Him. The first relationship of Adam was not with his wife, Eve, she had not yet been created, but with God who formed Him and then commands Him. Though God relates to Adam with unquestioned authority, the authority of Adam’s Creator, it is also loving authority. God gently forms Adam from the ground, breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, commands him in a fatherly tone, and guides him to the discovery of Eve.
Adam and Eve, because they lived in the freedom of God’s loving authority, because they derived from their relationship with Him the understanding of their full acceptance by Him, they then lived in love and openness with one another. No shame was present. In those early days before the first sin, no guilt had yet darkened the door of human conscience.
The nature of the original sin was to question the authority of God, to question His intention toward us. The serpent suggested that God’s motives were not pure, that God was not all that He seemed, that He could not and should not be blindly trusted. And because His motives could not be trusted, then neither could His threats and warnings be believed. “Did God really say…” is the NIV translation, the small Hebrew word aph inserted into the first sentence from the tempter — translated “really” or “indeed.” It is the idea of doubt, and once we begin to doubt the words of another, then we also doubt the intentions of another, and the relationship begins to decay. Genesis 6:3 describes the relationship between God and humanity as one of contention, conflict, friction, and this reality resulted from the rebellious hearts of people.
The remainder of the story of Genesis reveals this tension that now exists in humanity — to know and trust God, to live in relationship with God, or not? But clearly the relationship with God was not something that any human by him or her self could achieve. It is God who must reach out to us and draw us to Himself. The doubts that led to the sin of Adam and Eve has severed this relationship with God, and has damaged our relationship with each other and even between the individual and himself. We now live fractured, splintered lives — unable to know who we truly are, often pursuing lusts that bring us into conflict with our own values. Our inner healing awaits the revelation, the call, the grace and redemptive work of God. It was written, “Noah found favor (or grace) in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8), and this describes our helplessness as well as God’s mission to reach out to us. Of Abraham it was written, “He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). So these two matters — God’s grace and our faith — have governed the relationship between humanity and God from the beginning until now.
Even for those, such as Enoch, Noah, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, who had such a relationship with God, God still clothed Himself in mystery. Even as we live in relationship with Him here, in grace, there remains some fog between us and Him. He is always beyond our means to fully discover Him. We see the edges of His glory, the mere glimpses of His heart’s intent, but even these are glorious and wonderful.
From the beginning worship was done through a sacrificial animal slain on altars, and these altars and sacrifices all symbolized the future sacrifice of Christ on the altar of Calvary for the sins of the world. This inspired means of worship — sacrifices — helped to understand how greatly we have fallen as a race, but to also give us the knowledge of redemption. God will provide a way that people can come back to Him — not just to a Garden but to the Gardener Himself, to the Creator Himself.
Enoch and Noah were described as ones who “walked with God” (Gen. 5:22 and 6:9), and this depicts the relationship they had with God. They walked with Him as a man walks with His friend, and the simple language proclaims a great and profound reality, that we are made to know God as our friend and as our Creator. To Noah God shared His thoughts, His concern for the world, His very emotions about the fallen race of Adam and Eve — “for I am grieved that I have made them” (Gen. 6:7) — to know God means to know His very heart and what moves and touches Him. To Abraham God shared His vision of the future, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you” (Gen 12:2). To Abraham God also revealed Himself as a God who provides, especially who will provide the necessary sacrifice for our sin (Gen. 22:14).
To Jacob God revealed Himself as the God who interacts with humanity, who protects His chosen people, and who is worthy of worship. To Joseph God revealed Himself as the God who reveals mysteries, who delivers His servant, and who redeems difficult and hateful circumstances to accomplish His will and His purpose. For each believer in Genesis there is the sense that the personal relationship with God brought them into a greater type of living, into a life that promised more and hoped for more and anticipated God’s great purposes and future acts.
Later Paul described his Christian life as one caught up in the “upward call of God in Christ” (Phil. 3:14) and that is the sense of what a relationship with God means also in Genesis. Jacob ends his life with blessing his children, and his words help to bring the entire book to a close. Because of the failure of Adam and Eve sin is in the world, and sin goes deep within the human race. But because of the redemptive work of God there is reason to hope, there is reason to be optimistic and expectant that God shall redeem and revive and bless. The Redeemer will come. Humanity need not merely look back nostalgically upon the early days when our original parents lived in the Garden of Eden without sin, when they walked in the wonderful freedom of clean consciences and sinless innocence. We can also look forward: “Because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, because of your father’s God who helps you, because of the Almighty who blesses you with blesses of the heavens above … Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills” (Gen. 49:26a).
And this is the message that also encourages us. In Christ we have redemption — the forgiveness of our sins and the reconciliation with our Creator.
