The Lord God commanded the man.

John Farley
Pastor Teacher
Sunday,
October 9, 2022

 

The Lord God commanded the man

GEN 2:15-17

The Lord God provided man with everything he would ever need or desire.

The tree of the Life.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden with instructions.

First, he was to cultivate the garden and keep it.

To be human is to work in the service of the Lord God.

Working with one’s hands was NOT part of man’s curse.

GEN 3:17

The Hebrew word for “toil” in GEN 3:17 is different than the word for “cultivate” in GEN 2:15.

itstsabown

worrisomeness, i.e. labor or pain:

GEN 2:16-17

In verse 17, the Lord God issued a command to the man.

It came with a dire warning.

If you disobey Me, you will receive the sentence of death.

What is the knowledge of good and evil?

It is the capability of making independent moral judgments.

God did not delegate this power to man.
He reserved it for Himself.

Man is not capable of making moral judgments apart from God’s revelation.

ISA 5:20-21

The results are in, and they are all around us.

JER 4:22

Humans were designed to rely on God to reveal what is good and what is evil.

God forbade man to assume the power to decide for himself what is in his best interest.

In order to know what is ultimately good and evil, you need to know all things.

So only God knows what is truly good for us and bad for us.

The Lord God asked the man to take what He had to say on faith.

If the man ate from this tree, he would be declaring his independence from God.

Sin is rebellion against God.

Scratch disobedience and you will find unbelief.

ROM 14:23

Sin is disobedience to God’s direct command.

“I will be the final authority on this. I will be like God.”

This is the essence of sin.

ISA 14:14

GEN 2:17

“Dying you shall die”. It’s a Hebrew idiom that adds intensity to the verb “die”.

The idiom portrays the certainty of the action rather than the timing of the action.

If the man disobeyed the Lord God, he would be sentenced to death by God’s decree.

ROM 6:23

Death was not part of God’s original design for man.

The command was designed to impress upon him the need to have faith in the Lord God.

JOH 5:24