Text: Genesis 3:20-24 (NIV)
20Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
For the past five weeks, we have been reviewing the Garden of Eden narrative, and everything has been building to this point. We have seen the goodness of God’s creation, followed by temptation, sin, shame, and the consequences of the sin. Now, for the first time, God’s creation is in need of a Redeemer.
There is a story of a young man who purchased his first new car. He really wasn’t a handy man, and he knew very little about vehicle maintenance. This was before the days when there were lights on the dashboard to warn the driver of upcoming maintenance needs and other vehicle issues. At the time, he was dating a young lady who lived about 150 miles away, and every weekend he drove back and forth to visit his bride-to-be. It didn’t take long for the mileage to add up, and after a little more than a year, that new vehicle had more than 35,000 miles. (Remember, that young man didn’t know much about vehicle maintenance and the vehicle did not have warning lights on the dash.) After 35,000 miles, and not a single oil change, the engine simply blew.
Here was his problem: he had little money saved up to pay to fix the car; no skills to fix it himself; and he still owed three years of payments on it. His bad judgement had created a problem that no matter what he tried, he couldn’t fix—it was beyond his capacity and his ability.
This was the story of Adam and Eve. Through their bad judgement and choices, they had created a situation that they could not fix. They would experience suffering, pain, toil, and even death; and there was simply nothing they could do about it in their own power. They were in need of a Redeemer.
In the garden, God demonstrated the plan for redemption with Adam and Eve.