Bishop Eric Menees
A couple of weeks ago on a parish visitation, I had my
standard Q & A with the congregation during fellowship. I asked if anyone
had any questions, and a gentleman asked with a broad smile: “Yes, why does
evil exist?” This was followed by chuckles from those gathered around. Clearly,
he didn’t expect an answer...but ask a preacher a question, and you’re going to
get a sermon...which they did.
Fortunately, last Sunday’s lesson from Genesis chapter three
answers that question better than I did. The short answer is: because our first
parents chose independence over dependence on God! Adam & Eve were in the
midst of paradise. Man had been given a job: “15 The Lord God took the man and
put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15) Woman had
been given a job: 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man
should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18) And they
had both been given clear directions: 16 “And the Lord God commanded the man,
saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat
of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17) The command was a test, and a
warning – disobey this command, and there are serious consequences. Looking
back on it from this side of the Fall, we’ve got to ask our First Parents:
“What were you thinking?!” They lived in the Garden of Eden for God’s sake (no
pun intended); they had each other without shame, or sorrow, or heartache; but
more importantly, they had the Lord, who would stroll with them in the cool of
the evening.
We know what happened: Satan deceived Eve – tempting her to
disobey God and seek independence; Eve convinced Adam – and as a consequence,
sin and death, pain and sorrow, alienation and separation from one another and
from God, entered into the world.
Adam & Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden: “24 He
drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim
and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of
life.” (Genesis 3:24) And yet, even in our willful disobedience, God did not
withdraw His love and instead set out to heal the breach – as we heard in what
is referred to as the “proto-evangelium:“15 And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15 KJV)
The fulfillment of the proto-evangelium, and the answer to
evil, came in the person of Jesus Christ. As we read in Romans Chapter Five:
“18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of
righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one
man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience
the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:18-19) Paul, in two sentences, sums
up the Gospel Message. Sin and death came into the world through Adam;
Righteousness and Eternal Life came through Jesus Christ!
That’s it in a nutshell. We have come to know that abstract
reality as a concrete and life transforming reality, because we have come to
know Jesus Christ as our King and Savior – our Redeemer – who bore the wrath of
God, so that we would not have to; who overcame the sting of death and rose
from the grave on the third day!
The question is, “What are we going to do with that
reality?”
I pray you all a Holy Lent!
Thirty-nine
Articles of Religion
XVII. Of
Predestination and Election.
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God,
whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly
decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those
whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be
endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose
by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they
be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like
the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good
works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our
Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to
godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of
Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and
drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth
greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed
through Christ as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So,
for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have
continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most
dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation,
or into wretchlessness [sic] of most unclean living, no less perilous than
desperation.
Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise, as
they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that
Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the
Word of God.
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