Psalm 9 is an eschatological psalm. It describes the coming of the Lord to this earth to deliver a besieged people, Israel, surrounded by menacing enemies on the verge of destroying her.

The Psalmist reveals that Israel’s enemies will be routed by the very presence of the Lord, the perousia spoken of in the New Testament,  as Old and New Testament prophets testify also, by the Holy Spirit;

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.(Zechariah 14:2-3)

When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;( 2 Thess 1:7-9)

The Psalmist asks the Lord to consider the troubles he has, which are due to the hatred of the world.

Why has Israel been so universally hated? What is it about her that consumes so much frenetic activity in world forums such as the United Nations? Why so many censures of the only free and democratic nation in the middle east? How could there even be a suggested ‘moral equivalence ‘ in discussions of Israel and her enemies?

How is it that there can be a Red Cross, and a Red Crescent but there can never be a Red Star of David?

Israel, even in it’s current temporary state of unbelief, is an ongoing testimony to the reality of the God of the Bible. The world seeks to “will away” the existence of God, therefore it hates Israel.

Many centuries earlier a pagan prophet, Balaam, was used by the Holy God to prophesy to the King of Moab, who had paid him to curse Israel. Instead God inspired Balaam to bless and extol Israel, predicting that Israel would triumph over all of her enemies in the last days.

One of his statements was  the prediction that Israel  would dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations,(Numbers 23). Israel alone can not have a seat on the U.N. security council, nor will the vast majority of the nations of the world place their embassies in Jerusalem, but rather in Tel Aviv.

The world hates Israel. Other than the majority of evangelical christians who else is Israel’s friend in the world?

The eschatology of the Muslim world, (one out of six people in the world) insists that the “last day cannot come until the Muslims wipe out the Jews”, the very existence of a nation of Israel is an affront to Islam, and a daily reminder of the impotance of Allah.

The secular democracies of Europe hate Israel, because they see it as an impediment to their ongoing attempt to appease the Arab world, for the sake of cheap crude oil. The secular aspect of America is going the same way, despising Israel, accusing her of being an “occupier” and nearly taking the side of Hamas and Fatah in the political debate?

Another prophetic Psalm describes the alienation of Israel in the last days ,

Woe to me that I dwell in Meshek, 
   that I live among the tents of Kedar! 
 Too long have I lived 
   among those who hate peace. 
 I am for peace; 
   but when I speak, they are for war (Psalm 120:5-7)

Such is modern Israel’s plight, that she is situated in the world’s worst, most implacably bitter neighborhood, the middle east. “Meshek” , a son of Japheth whose descendents eventually settled in the Caucasus area,  is slated to lead a confederation of Moslem nations against Israel.

Kedar is a son of Ishmael, one of the forefathers of the Arab nations. Like their father Ishmael, of whom God said he would be a “Wild Ass of a man”, who would be at war with everybody, including his brothers, Kedar is currently for war, though Israel wants peace.

The ‘ everlasting hatred’ is coming to a head. The events leading up to the last intervention of God almighty to this earth are centered around this Israel hatred. This is why  the Psalmist cries out to God, to consider the trouble inflicted upon Israel by it.

But Israel’s prayer to God shall be answered for she will not always be surrounded by such hateful and painful neighbors, who seek her destruction even as she seeks peace, the Lord promises her in Ezekiel that by the time He is through “sanctifying Himself before the nations”,

God’s wisdom is always crying out to every generation, whether it be through the scriptures, the church, or Israel, there is always a Divine witness to truth trying to get people’s attention as life pushes them on to their final destination. I believe that one of the ways God’s wisdom cries out to this generation, is in certain current events.

It is true that for the most part the real message is lost on most people, due to  the cacaphony of other incidents, or the urgency of the mundane. Many of these events are like the writing on the wall in the book of Daniel, people know they are significant but not how to interpret them.

I believe that God is speaking to this generation very specifically through the recent sinking of the Concordia, off the coast of Italy. What a statement it is to us, about where we as a civilization have come from and where we are headed.

The way to hear Wisdom’s message is by contrasting this event with another famous maritime disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, which is just three months short of a hundred years ago,  April 14,  1912. Before we begin, though it is necessary  to banish from your mind director James Cameron’s anachronistic version of the Titanic.

When the Titanic began to sink, and it was discovered that there were half as many life boats as needed, women and children were put into them first, as this survivor recounts,

No laughing throng, but on either side [of the staircases] stand quietly, bravely, the stewards, all equipped with the white, ghostly life-preservers. Always the thing one tries not to see even crossing a ferry. Now only pale faces, each form strapped about with those white bars. So gruesome a scene. We passed on. The awful good-byes. The quiet look of hope in the brave men’s eyes as the wives were put into the lifeboats. Nothing escaped one at this fearful moment. We left from the sun deck, seventy-five feet above the water. Mr Case and Mr Roebling, brave American men, saw us to the lifeboat, made no effort to save themselves, but stepped back on deck. Later they went to an honoured grave.(Elizabeth Shutes,  The Sinking of The Titanic)

The world of the Titanic crew and passengers was yet steeped in a Judeo Christian outlook. The self sacrificial actions of the men on the ship were informed by the chivalric ideal of  the strong bearing the burden for the weak and helpless.  These ideals came straight out of  the Bible, and christianity. Women and children first, even to death!

Again from Shutes,

Sitting by me in the lifeboat were a mother and daughter. The mother had left a husband on the Titanic, and the daughter a father  and husband, and while we were near the other boats those two stricken women would call out a name and ask, ‘Are you there?’ ‘No,’would come back the awful answer, but these brave women never lost courage, forgot their own sorrow, telling me to sit close to them to keep warm… The life-preservers helped to keep us warm, but the night was bitter cold, and it grew colder and colder, and just before dawn, the coldest, darkest hour of all, no help seemed possible…)ibid)

Contrast this with the reactions of our post feminist, post christian passengers on board the sinking Costa Concordia, from an excellent article by Mark Steyn,

The ninth Psalm is an example of this.

I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.(Psalm 9:1-2)

The voice of this Psalm is that of grateful Israel, willingly praising God in the aftermath of a severe testing. Israel had been besieged by the nations of the world, and would have been destroyed but for the intervention of God.

When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence. For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.(Psalm 9:3-4)

Notice that the Psalmist celebrates the final deliverance of Israel in the past tense… the “prophetic perfect”. It is an already accomplished fact, It is finished because God has spoken it.

The prophet Zechariah is but one of the many who saw the final conflict of Israel as an international siege of Jerusalem, leading to the brink of annihilation , until the Lord himself returns to save the remnant of His people,

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem…For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle…Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.(Zechariah 12:2,14:2-3)

It is as a result of “Thy Presence” that Israel’s final enemies “turn back, fall and perish…“. The New Testament refers to the return of the King Messiah as “the Parousia” of our Lord, the actual physical return of Jesus.

The nations of the world are angry, for they have contrived grievances with Israel. But the U.N. isn’t the final court in the worldwide conflict. The last word is not given to the USA, the U.N., or the IMF.

There is a righteous judge of all the earth, the God of the Bible. He is the one that the “kings of the earth and their princes” have taken their counsel together against in the second Psalm,

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed…(Psalm 2:2)

The ninth Psalm praises God that it is He, the judge of all of the earth that has decided the final conflict, “maintain(ing) my right and my cause”.

Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever(Psalm 9:5)

As in the day when God rebuked the sea, saying “You can come this far and no further, thus shall your proud waves be stopped.”(Job 38:11), God shall rebuke all of the nations (Heathen) who had amassed themselves against Israel, and they will find that His rebuke is withering, destructive and final.

The imagery of the Tower of Babel is invoked, for the nations of the world will once again unite, on a project to “make a name for themselves“. But once again the ambitious, humanistic project comes crashing down around them.

The prophet speaks in the past tense, “Thou hast destroyed the wicked…”. The Kings of the earth and their rulers thought that by their unity they could prevail over Him, but the Proverbs warned them long before,

Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. (Proverbs 11:21)

look for part 2

The message of Psalm 9, is the coming of the Lord. He comes to deliver Israel from the enemies who besiege her in the last days. He comes to Judge the world in righteousness. He comes to put an end to the wanton destruction of the enemy.

Here we see another of the reasons the Lord comes again, He comes as the judge to to make inquisition for blood. We like to think that we have progressed beyond the brutality of past ages. But really we live in a bloody age, in fact even in America and the west, oceans of innocent blood have been shed.

Consider that America has recently passed a grisly landmark; our fifty millionth abortion!  As a civilization, we have callously shed the blood of our most vulnerable and innocent, infants in the womb. Do we not remember the solemn warning Jesus uttered about causing “little ones to stumble”?

He has heard the “silent scream” of our little ones, He knows each one of them, and shall soon avenge each one of them. But we have willingly elected to the highest office of our land, a man who as a legislator went far beyond abortion, He vigorously resisted a move to enact a law requiring medical services should an infant survive abortion! The blood of these babies cries out from the very ground!

How many teenaged girls have been coerced into abortion, quenching their very femininity in the act, killing not only the baby but the soul of the mother? God has seen this and will visit us in judgment for it. Did you know there are approximately ten times less Downs syndrome babies than there ever were before? Where did they go? God knows.

There is other bloodletting that He is coming to visit us in judgment for. What of our violent , crime ridden cities?

Virtual armies of fatherless children throng our cities, assaulting people at will in race based attacks on strangers, beating people so they can film the beatings and post them on Youtube. Who is responsible for the breakdown of the family? The racial hatred that is kept artificially stoked? The deliberate division of society for political benefit? The Lord is coming to make inquisition for blood!

Consider also the falsely called “religion of peace”, whose “prophet” was a pirate and rapist, and whose “holy book” incites hatred and violence throughout the world. For fourteen centuries this religion has inflicted violence, murder, war and slavery upon the world, rivers of blood have stained the earth in the name of this pagan religion.

The Muslims harbor a particular hatred for Israel, Ezekiel calls it the “perpetual hatred”,

Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:  Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.(Ezekiel 35:5-6)

On the October 23, 2000, cover of Time magazine, a photo  featured a young Arab leaning out an upper story window waving blood soaked hands to a cheering crowd below. The story explained that two Russian Jewish reservists had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a Muslim neighborhood in Ramallah. A baying crowd hounded them down, and murdered them with their bare hands. God saw that.

Recently, members of the Fogel family, including an infant, who lived in Judea (the “west bank”) were slaughtered in their sleep by two Muslim terrorists. When the news of this cowardly slaughter surfaced, Muslims in Gaza and the West Bank, passed out candies in the streets in celebration.

The bloodletting of the Nazi’s, and of the centuries long Communist revolution has been noted by God. It isn’t only Jews who have been or are being slaughtered by Muslims, Nazi’s and Communists, but there is a particular vehemence in the hatred for the seed of Abraham in these bloody movements. This is God hatred at work.

The Lord is coming to make inquisition for blood, he is going to regard the blood that has been shed as innocent blood, as the Prophet Joel, (in the chapter that reads as though we are reading todays newspaper), states assuredly in the name of the LORD,

Judah will be inhabited forever 
   and Jerusalem through all generations. 
 Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged? 
   No, I will not.”(Joel 3:20-21)

pt 4 to come

The psalmist taunts the enemies who have sought Israel’s destruction,

O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.(Psalm 9:6)

Either this is rendered as ‘Your destructions are over forever!”, or it means “You are eternally destroyed”. Perhaps it is both, for the Coming of the Messiah shall certainly produce both effects; the end of the destruction wrought by the Kings of the earth, and the everlasting ruin which God will bring upon them in the lake of fire.

“Thou hast destroyed cities…”. By the time of the Parousia, ancient cities shall have been destroyed by the “Kings of the Earth and their Rulers”. Damascus, Syria and Amman Jordan come to mind,(Isaiah 17,Jeremiah 49:2) but unfortunately there will be many others as well .

But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.(Psalm 9:7-8)

The Lord is coming to deal with all of humanity in Judgment. But he categorizes them into two groups, “the world” and (His) “people”.

Judgment is coming upon this world for its sins, the cup of iniquity is finally coming full. It seems as though our modern world has systematically repudiated everything that God ordained in the early parts of Genesis, as the foundation for human society. Marriage, Gender assignments, the sanctity of life, sexuality, the family, the death penalty, political separation of  nations, and even “be fruitful and multiply” have all been undermined and rejected by this evil generation.

But The Lord  shall “minister judgment” to the people He has chosen. This is the other sense of “judgment” which is deliverance and vindication. The Lord comes again to Israel, the people He appointed as His witness. They are presently estranged from Him but he is drawing them back to Him.

He is using the current geopolitical pressures, and hatred of the nations to bring Israel to the point where they actually cry out to Him for deliverance in the last day. This is none less than the “Time of Jacob’s trouble” spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet.

Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.(Jeremiah 30:7)

The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. Sing praises to the LORD, which dwelleth in Zion: declare among the people his doings.(Psalm 9:9-11)

Israel shall come to know the Lord again in those days, for He shall reveal himself to them. Moses told Israel that they would drift away from God, and be scattered to the ends of the earth, where they would in the last days, seek Him with all of their heart ;

But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.(Deuteronomy 4:29-31)

I believe that Israel is a microcosm of the whole world, and that God’s dealings with Israel, teach us about His dealings with us as individuals. God is calling all of us to realize how far we have drifted from Him, and to seek Him with all of our heart. The promise is true individually,as well as to the nation, If we seek Him we will find Him. He will reveal Himself to the one who truly seeks Him.Even in the last days.

pt 3 to come….

We come to the final verse of this momentous chapter of the Bible. By now, the LORD has indicted the guilty couple, along with the serpent, and pronounced a judgment upon the serpent. Within that condemnation of the serpent, was a promise of salvation for the man, his wife and their descendants.

The man and his wife also received the Divine sentence upon them. The Lord’s pronouncement is given.  Toil, frustration, futility and sorrow would be their lot, until death. Then Adam and Eve were stripped of the fig coverings which they had made for themselves. The Lord slew an animal as a substitute for the sinners, taking its fleece to make for them a covering.

Finally they were evicted from the garden of delight. The transgressors were driven out by the LORD, they could no longer stay where God has originally placed them. They would now  have to make themselves a home in the hostile, sin cursed world.

But as one of our commenters noted, God set cherubim at the east end of the garden to “keep the way to the Tree of life”. This too, like the earliest gospel of the seed of the woman, and the animal covering, and the name of Eve, is a hopeful development. God assures us by this act, that there is yet a way to the Tree of Life, all is not lost.

Cherubim are set by the Lord to guard the way to the Tree of life. These terrible, holy creatures show up at other places in the scripture; transporting the pavement on which the throne of God is set, in Ezekiel’s vision, sitting on either side of the very throne of God on the lid of the Ark of the covenant, and ceaselessly worshipping God in John’s vision in Revelation.

Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s glory.And the sound of the cherubims’ wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh.(Ezekiel 10:1-5)

Cherubim are evidently assigned to be guardians of God’s glory, keeping away the sinners who would presume to enter heedlessly into the Divine presence. God preserved the way to the tree of life, but no one would be able to access it among the unworthy sinners of the fallen race of Adam.

Thus the figures of the Cherubim were woven into the very curtain which separated The Holy Place from the outer court, and the Holy of Holies from the inner court.

 “Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim woven into it by a skilled worker.(Exodus 26:31)

In Solomon’s temple, not only were Cherubim woven into curtains, and golden ones sitting on the very lid of the mercy-seat, but two 15 ft Cherubims of Olive wood were carved, and overlaid with gold, and set in the holy place.

And within the oracle he made two cherubims of olive tree, each ten cubits high.(I Kings 6:23)

The Holy place of the Tabernacle and temple are widely believed to be God ordained models of the garden of Eden. The  Ark of God’s presence in the Holy of Holies being the true Tree of Life. The sanctuary , a model of the garden itself, with the candelabra (Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil) Shining upon the show bread,(Christ, the valid knowledge), and the altar of incense for true worship.

But the Cherubim keep men away from the glory of God. They remind us continually that none can draw near, for “all have sinned and continually come short of the Glory of God”! The curtains are drawn, the Cherubim on the curtains continually reinforce the separation, that sinful man is cut off, he cannot draw near, the way to the Tree of life is closed.

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.  And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;(Matthew 27:50-51)

What import this brings to  the familiar detail of the crucifixion story, that when Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “the veil in the temple was rent from top to bottom”! Could it be? Has the Way to the Tree of life been now opened to us? Have the Cherubim been enabled to step aside and let the believing sinner draw near to God?

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,  By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;  And having an high priest over the house of God;  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.(Hebrews 10:19-22)

The Cherubim appear again in John’s Revelation, for all things in Genesis have their resolution in Revelation. They appear in all of their holy awfulness, but this time not as an opposition to men, but in harmony with the redeemed sons of Adam, worshipping the LORD and the Lamb who by his own blood has purchased  us.

And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.(Revelation 5:8-10)

As I said earlier, the last word of this solemn, grave chapter of the Bible, is not death, but life. In spite of man’s sin and failure, God’s mercy triumph’s, there is a way back to the tree of Life, there is a “seed of the woman” who has come, the blood of Jesus does indeed cleanse us from all sin! Hallelujah!

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.(Genesis 3:22-24)

Once we were happy, back in the garden, but a lie broke the stillness,and our hearts began to harden…Larry Norman

Adam and Eve were convicted and sentenced for their crime against God. They had broken faith with the One who had made them,  and forfeited their privileged place in God’s Holy garden.

But in mercy , the guilty couple had  also  been given the gospel of deliverance through the “seed of the woman” and taught the importance of worship through the blood of an innocent substitute.

What now?

They must be driven out of the garden. God forcibly evicted them. They would have to live in a hostile world , suffering the consequences of the false wisdom they had opted for. Adam and Eve must toil and sweat, raise fallen children, and see the constant out working of their transgression, from generation to generation until death.

They had to go out of the garden, for should they now, in their  fallen state, illegitimately eat of the “tree of Life”, they would be locked into the fallen state, forever.  Their doom would be irrevocable. God’s love was severe in putting them out, but if He would save them He must do so.

But ever since then, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve have sought to gain some kind of access back into the garden. the whole world of sinful experiences; mind altering drugs, sexual sin, euphoric false religion, the occult, all are examples of attempts to recreate the conditions of the garden, even if for but a few fleeting moments.

Fallen man would smash through the gates, or create his own (godless) version of the garden. Pagans and humanists alike lust  either for the good old days tha once were, or the “golden age” that is just around the corner again, according to the rhetoric of the various political and religious messiah’s.

The Second Psalm warns us that the  world’s masses are being prepared for the arrival of an ultimate “messiah” to inaugurate the new (godless) Eden.This is why the “Kings of the earth and their rulers” are busy eradicating every public trace possible of the West’s Judeo Christian past.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.(Psalm 2:1-3)

The fact that God put a turning sword at the entrance and deployed awesome living creatures, the Cherubim implies that if he could, fallen man may try violently to seize the garden for himself. The fallen sons of Adam would crash through the walls just to grasp a few minutes of Edenic bliss if possible.

This lust for something of Eden (without repentance) runs deep in men’s hearts. Isn’t that what our modern drug craze is all about? The obsession with illicit sex? As our troubled culture departs from God, many  just want to feel better no matter what the cost.

Fallen man lusts for a respite from the sentence pronounced upon us by God in the fall, but never by turning in humble repentance to God.

On a larger scale consider the spectacle of the last century, atheistic Communism which sought by violence to create an earthly Eden, in the name of a promised Utopia. As Stalin once famously said about the massive slaughter, the artificial famine of his own people, and the violent repression he instituted,

“One death is always a tragedy, millions of deaths are a statistic”.

As human history has shown from  the French Revolution, through the various Marxist revolutions, up to our own turbulent time, when fallen man wants to re-create Eden(Utopia), it always ends up looking a lot like Hell. Even if man could concoct a godless Eden he would only corrupt it, for man’s heart is not right.

The social and sexual revolution of the 1960′s was in the same vein, as this famous line from the song “Woodstock” attests,

We are Stardust, we are golden, and we have got to get ourselves back to the garden…Joni Mitchell

It was another naive attempt to cast off all of our traditional Judeo Christian restraints  in an attempt to liberate mankind, hoping to get back to his natural state. Unfortunately they ignored the truth that since the fall, man’s natural state isn’t love, harmony and  and peace, it is violent, selfish and grasping.

God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden,  there will never be a return to Eden. God’s plan for man is not backwards looking, but forward. No, we can not ever recover “paradise lost” , but as pilgrims we look forward to the arrival of the “city whose builder and maker is God”.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.(Hebrews 11:8-10)

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.  And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.(Hebrews 11:14-16)

Remember that when Adam and Eve sinned they immediately perceived that they were naked? The nakedness of our first father and mother was a spiritual condition as well as a physical one. Now that they had broken away from God, they deeply sensed that they were vulnerable , uncovered, and exposed as sinful beings in the presence of holiness.

This sense of nakedness has passed down unto all of the children of Adam. All of us feel the need for some kind of covering of our innate shame. Even unbelievers in God have a psychological need for some sense of justification of their own lives, often seeking it in “do-goodism”.

Adam and Eve constructed clothing of fig leaves in their vain attempt to deal with the sense of shame, caused by the fall. None of us want to have to appear naked before the Holy God, therefore we seek a covering.

But the fig leaves proved to be inadequate. They didn’t truly remove the shame, for Adam and Eve fled from God, even though they were clothed in fig leaves . On the Judgment  day, all of the accumulated “fig leaves” will prove to be insufficient as a covering for our shame.

The problems with fig leaves are manifold. First of all , they are the solution initiated and enacted by man. It was Adam’s idea, his own solution to the profound spiritual, moral and psychological problem of nakedness, ie shame.

The fact that Adam’s solution to the outcome of sin was rejected by God, is an early testament to what Paul the apostle would make so clear, in Romans 3;

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.(Romans 3:20)

We can not be saved by good works,(fig leaves) , for God doesn’t accept them as satisfaction of His broken law. The solution can’t come from fallen man, the best that man can do to justify himself, in the sight of God is as abominable as filthy rags,

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.(Isaiah 64:6)

Secondly, Adam’s solution to the shame problem didn’t address the real problem. In trying to cover over with fig leaves the sense of shame for what he had done, he showed a failure to appreciate the true nature of his sin, as well as the impact of it upon his God. He was trying to remedy guilt feelings, but not true moral guilt.

We men don’t merely feel guilty, we are guilty. We have broken God’s law, and by our self-will, disrupted God’s universe. All of our sins are against God himself. If there is to be a solution to the estrangement they have wrought, it has to come from God.

All of the false religious systems of the world, developed by the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are man centered. They are designed to recover the lost sense of covering, the “rightness” with God that Adam once took for granted and that even fallen men acutely sense.

They are mere fig leaves, man centered works systems which prove wholly insensitive to the true claims of God and to the deepest need of man, which is not the eradication of guilty feelings, but the expiation of true and deep guilt.

This is the significance of the animal skin coverings. The fig leaves had to be removed, Adam and Eve had to forswear their own solution to the shame problem, in order to accept God’s solution, which was the animal coverings.

On a practical level it must have horrified them to see the dead lambs , rams or bulls that God skinned as He made them coverings. They had never seen physical death, the shedding of blood, or the tanning of hides.This was God’s solution? It seemed so harsh, so barbaric, so bloody!

Surely fig leaves was a more compassionate way of clothing oneself!

But the bloody skins were God’s way, not the fig leaves, and like every other detail in this hugely significant chapter, they are of vast theological import. What is God teaching by this act of clothing them?

Substitution; The wages of sin is death, therefore someone must die for sin, either the sinner or an innocent substitute. God’s way of dealing with the shame of sin, is by the substitution of life for life.

It would later emerge in the unfolding of God’s revelation that God knew we would sin and fall and need such a covering, and had already provided Jesus as “the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world”.

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;(Revelation 5:9)

But for the first couple, the testimony was the promise of the “seed of the woman” and the freshly slain animals, whose death provided an adequate covering.The first lesson God taught the newly fallen couple was the lesson that to them, worship would only be possible by way of blood sacrifice.

This they would pass on to their sons, one of whom would virulently reject the revelation, the other one would die as a martyr to it.

Genesis three is a primal chapter of scripture. It is essential to any true understanding of the plight of man, death in the world, the nature of sin, Satan’s wiles, and most importantly,  God’s salvation.

Every detail of this foundational chapter is set in place by the Holy Spirit of God, that we might benefit by this unique revelation of why the world is as it is.

Therefore the naming of Eve, who up to this point is referred to as  “Ishah”, (the woman), is not incidental, but of signal importance to we who believe.

The significance of the naming of Eve, (literally,”Chavah”), can only be appreciated when the dreadful sentence of death is passed upon Adam in the previous verse. “Adam (dust) you are and to Adamah (dirt) you shall return!”.

Of all of the penalties pronounced upon Adam this one must have been the most awful and unthinkable. The man who had been created as God’s regent, commissioned to “subdue the earth”, and to “fill it” with his children, has now been sentenced to death, something he had no immediate understanding of.

Adam was to begin dying from the time of the pronouncement, for death is a state of being, a spiritual status, long before any physical dissolution. Death is separation, from God, from Eve, from Love, well-being and  Shalom, it is depression, despair, breakdown,  decay, disintegration, fear, illness, and finally a humiliating return to dust.

Because Adam and Eve revolted against their own creator, they must die. They are now separated from their environment and from each other as well as from their God, who was the source of their life. Everything has changed and those changes rapidly begin to manifest themselves, as we will see.

They must leave the garden of delights, the only  home they have ever known, they have forfeited it. They now know shame, fear and deep remorse, even regret. The couple must now endure the reign of death.

This is the context that is set for the naming of Eve, the mother of all  living. There are two interpretations for Adam’s act of naming her. Either it is an act of proud defiance or of humble faith. The Sons of Adam and Eve have alternated between the two options ever since.

If it was an act of defiance, Adam is saying, “we will live, in spite of your sentence, we will make a life for ourselves, we will define life on our own terms, the children of Eve will indeed live!”. Some speculate that the goddess worship of the Ancients was actually “Eve” worship.

Goddess worship often involves serpent worship as well, and the pursuit of “hidden wisdom” runs throughout the universal paganistic mystery religion. The secret knowledge Eve was looking for is still sought by the sons and daughters of Eve.

On the other hand, I believe the naming of Eve was an act of faith. True God had pronounced death upon the guilty couple ,and in doing so, upon the whole race of men, but not until after he had indirectly given them the promise of Life, through the woman.

Because of that promise , Eve will indeed be the “mother of all living” for “the seed of the woman” shall bring life! With the crushing of the serpent’s head, comes the reversal of all that the serpent has wrought, thus there shall be Life for the dead.

Thus for Adam and Eve, through faith in the promise, the last Word shall not be death and decay, but through the woman, and through the seed of the woman, Life shall again prevail.

They would indeed both die, and be returned to the dust from which they came, but in continuity with all of the seed of the woman down through the generations, they would look forward to the day Isaiah and Paul ,among others confidently proclaimed,

Your dead shall live; 
      Together with my dead body^[b] they shall arise. 
      Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; 
      For your dew is like the dew of herbs, 
      And the earth shall cast out the dead.(Isaiah 26:19)

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.(Ephesians 5:14)

* When the fulness of time had come … Jesus came into the world at just the right time. There is a precision of God’s dealings with our fallen race, nothing is left to chance. The coming of Jesus Christ into this world was foretold from the very beginning. The prophecies have a finer precision than a swiss watch.

We are told centuries in advance, that the deliverer of mankind would be of the seed of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob, and of Jacob’s twelve sons, the tribe of Judah. When the murderous Herod inquired of a court Rabbi, where the Christ was to be born, without hesistation, the Rabbit cited the prophet Micah,

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.(Micah 5:2)

As for the time of the birth, Daniel gave a remarkable prophecy which detailed the exact time of the Messiah’s coming, presentation and substitutionary death,

Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.  And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself… (Daniel 9:25-26a)

Accounting for the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem by the Persians  in  444 BC , and the fact that a year as reckoned by the Jews is 360 days, Daniels 69 weeks of years(483) would calculate Jesus as presenting himself tot he Jewish people to be “cut off, but not for himself…” in 32 AD.

For a detailed examination of this check out Daniel’s Seventy Weeks .

Another aspect of the “fulness of time” would be the meticulous preparation of the world by God for the arrival of the Messiah.Daniel again predicted four successive world empires which would rule the Jewish people, Babylon,Persia,Greece,and Rome. Although it was a judgment and humiliation to be ruled by these pagan’s God worked it all for His glory and our good!

The Babylonians uprooted the Jewish people, and carried them away to Babylon, but also spread them throughout the empire. Thus by the time of the MEssiah, there were Jewish synagogues set up throughout the known world. Persia was used to finance the return to the Holy land of the remnant and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, the very temple Jesus would come to. “The Lord whom you seek shall come suddenly to His temple…”.

Greece would succeed Babylon, and Alexander the great would conquer the known world, and impose upon them one language, Greek. This lingua franca would allow for the scriptures to spread rapidly to every city, village and hamlet, and would pave the way for the apostles of the gospel.The Hebrew scriptures were translated into the Septuagint, and the New testament was transmitted almost entirely in greek.

Finally the Romans would impose a Pax Romana on the world, lining the empire with efficient roads, clearing the seas of the plague of piracy, impose a stern but efficient law and order on the world, just in time for the spread of the gospel.

*God Sent Forth His Son… The nativity is of God the everlasting Father. It is the gift of the Holy God, who saw our plight, that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins…” and liable to His holy and just judgment. The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world… . God is the eternal Father, and Jesus is the eternal Son. What a deep mystery!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.(Isaiah 9:6-7)

* Born of a Woman- This is a reference to the primal prophecy, the first gospel, announced to the serpent in the garden in the hearing of the guilty couple, who trembled as they awaited their sentencing for their sin. A ray of hope penetrated the gloom, when God told the serpent that the “seed of the woman” would one day deal a capitol blow to the serpent.

Adam and Eve knew that this “seed of the woman” would bring the fallen race deliverance from death, so they waited Him to come.

Seed of the woman?  How could that be?  But when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, the seed of the woman prophecy came to pass! He doesn’t have the corrupted nature inherited from Adam. He is the new Adam, in fact the last Adam, the head of a redeemed race of reborn men!

Romans 5 tells us that the first Adam made us all sinners, but the Last Adam makes us who believe in Him, righteous! Greater is the work of the Last Adam than that of the first!

* Born under the Law … The Son of God became a man, He put himself in our position ,as a man under God. He was circumcised ( which presupposes guilt), dedicated unto God under the law, and He fulfilled in his 33 years every single requirement of the Law of God, up to and including sacrificial law.

This is the only human being who perfectly pleased God in every respect, the only One of whom God could say, “this is my beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased!”. He did not sin, but was “numbered with the transgressors”, and perfectly identified with we who are the Sons of Adam.

Jesus never denigrated the Law of God, He glorifies it. He himself is the very embodiment of the Law of God. He is what loving God looks like, in him is perfection of piety. His life is really what worship is.

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;(Hebrews 5:7)

* That He might Redeem us who are under the law… The reason for all of the above is that Jesus might Redeem us, that is, that He might purchase us from our bondage. We who are under God’s law, are only condemned by it. We don’t “love the Lord our God with all of our hearts…” but we should. We aren’t ready for judgment, for we lack Righteousness. the wages of sin is death, we deserve to die and eternal death!

But this man qualified himself as a human being, pleasing God in every respect, He deserved to live! But at the prime of His life, He laid down his life for us sinners, He made his life our sin offering. The cross wasn’t a murder, it was the work of a Priest, an offering to God. Life for Life, He took our place in Divine judgment.

* That we might receive the adoption as Sons-The greatest Christmas gift of all, is that we might be cleansed of our sins, saved from wrath, and wonder of wonders, adopted into God’s very family!

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.(John 1:12-13)

Is it any wonder that we sing with hushed reverence…(?)

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.