The Sentence

Genesis 3 cont’d: 

Now Adam is handed his punishment.  Not one party in the awful act of sin was left out of God’s discipline.  We can rest in that fact when we are abused, mistreated and sinned against, even if it appears that the abuser gets off free…

To Adam he said, “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 will be reminded his entire life, as he works and plows the fields, of what he has done.  But in that remembrance, he will be sustained with the food that the ground produces.  Wow….even in discipline God provides life.

And the sentence of death to our human bodies is handed to us right here.  Our earthly bodies will die.  They were made from dust and to dust they will return.

I don’t like that sentence.  It’s the most painful one that we experience today – death of loved ones and friends.  It comes unexpected, through great pain sometimes, and leaves a wake of sorrow that never subsides…

But remember earlier?  God promised redemption and the hope of a Savior who would “crush” Satan under his feet – rendering death defeated once and for all.

That’s the hope of the believer.  That’s the hope of those who repent, even when they have been tempted and fall.  That’s the love of our God.