I've been trying to get into reading more books lately, thanks to a bunch of recs from my siblings. It's been an awesome introspective journey and eternally-minded-shift so far, and I want to be able to share some cool things with you too.
"The first couple existed in eternity with God in the Garden of Eden. There was no such thing as evil, or at least Adam and Eve did not know what evil was. Things were all good.
The Bible tells us that "God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground -- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food." But in the middle of the garden were two significant trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of god and evil. God told Adam he was free to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But Adam and Eve did not listen. They ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and something terrible happened. For the first time, things were no longer "all good." Humankind "knew" both good and evil. The Hebrew word from know here is the same word that Scripture uses when it says that Adam "knew" Eve in the sexual sense (Gen 4:1 KJV). It refers to the total experience of knowing. This experience of knowing evil -- and therefore pain -- is what God had tried to protect people from. He knew that it would hurt.
Nevertheless, Eve was deceived by Satan. Satan held out the apple of omniscience and wisdom (Gen 3:6), and the first couple received evil and pain.
Imagine, for a moment, the situation. God had created a perfect place with perfect creatures to live in eternity. And, suddenly, evil arrived on the scene. What did God do?
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.' So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After 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" (Gen 3:23-24)
God moved immediately to protect humankind from being in a state of eternal isolation, experiencing pain for a very long time. To protect Adam and Eve from eternal pain, he drove them out of eternity, guarded eternity with a cherubim, and sent them to a new place called redemptive time, where we live now. Here God could fix the problem; he could undo the effects of the fall. He could redeem his creation, and then bring humankind back into eternity after it was again holy and blameless.
What an awesome plan! He even gives us a clue in Genesis 3:15 about how he would accomplish this: The woman's offspring would eventually crush the serpent's head, a promise fulfilled in Christ's victory over Satan. No wonder the writer of Hebrews calls it "so great a salvation." God not only kept us from eating from the tree that would have trust us into eternal pain, he drove us into a place where he would have the time to fix us and bring us back into relationship with him!
Philosophers and physicists have for centuries debated the nature of time, but for our purpose, let's define redemptive time as "an incubator that exists for the purpose of redemption." It is a place where God can lovingly fix what is wrong. It is a lace where evil temporarily exists while God does his work.
Think of it another way. God has a sick creation. He needs to do surgery. Thus, he places us in the operating room of redemptive time. Into our veins he pumps the life-giving blood of grace and truth. During surgery, he excises evil and brings the renewed patient back into eternity in a holy state. We don't know how long this surgery will last. We only know that we are expected to participate actively in our own surgery, and we don't get any anesthesia for the procedure. That's why growing up into the image of God often hurts so much.
Redemptive time, an essential ingredient to growth, will not last forever. Paul says that we need much to make the best possible use of time, for we don't have much: "Be very careful, then, how you live -- not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil" (Eph 5:15-16). Scripture tells us that God will at some point put an end to this redemptive time and usher in the return of eternity."
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