As we stressed in last week’s email, God’s heart is not to rule over us, but to supply us with the river of life and the tree of life so that we may know Him and be one with Him in this eternal life (John 17:3). We see this at the end of the Bible in the fact that the angel did not show John the throne, but the river of water of life flowing out of the throne. (Rev. 22:1-2; see “And He Showed Me a River”….)

Because we are so fallen, we desire to rule over others ourselves, so it may be difficult for us to really to grasp this concept. But, it is essential that we do so if we are to be clear about the real purpose of our Christian life. To help us in this matter, then, we will also look at the very beginning of the Bible, which shows how God wanted to relate to man in the first place.

Specifically, Genesis 3:8 speaks of how God came to Adam and Eve just after they ate of the forbidden fruit; it is a truly remarkable verse in the Bible:

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

We may feel that Adam was very foolish, because he thought He could hide from God. In fact, he was not foolish. Rather, what this verse is showing us is that, at this point in the Bible, God had not yet revealed Himself to Adam as God; He had only come to him as another man, “walking in the garden.”

Again, because we are so fallen, it’s hard for us to understand this. Our sin separates us from a holy God; when He comes to us, such as when we hear the gospel, don’t we, like Adam, hide ourselves as well? No doubt, He must deal with the problem of our sin, for He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13), but what He really desires is to be with us, and for us to be with Him.

This verse, then, in speaking of “God walking in the garden,” is showing us a great principle in the Bible, and we must exercise before the Lord to really appreciate “the sound” of it: From the very beginning, God did not create us to rule over us, nor did He create us to awe us with His majesty. Rather, He created us to live in His presence and have fellowship with Him.

I so appreciate what Andrew Murray says In this regard. He is commenting on Genesis 1:26, which states:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”….

Murray writes:

Here we have the first thought of man—his origin and his destiny entirely divine. God undertook the stupendous work of making a creature, who is not God, to be a perfect likeness of Him in His divine glory. Man was to live in entire dependence on God, and to receive directly and unceasingly from Him the inflow of all that was holy and blessed in the Divine Being. God’s glory, His holiness and His love, were to dwell in him, and shine out through him.
— “The Secret of the Faith Life,” page 8

So, in creating us, God gave us His own image and likeness so He could commune with us and impart Himself into us. In eternity we shall, in addition, have God’s nature and glory. That is, after all of God’s work through all the ages is complete, we will be fully conformed to the image of His glorified, Firstborn Son as the many sons of God (Rom. 1:4, 8:29; 2 Pet. 1:4). And as such, we will live in perfect harmony and fellowship with God for all eternity, as the fulfillment of His original purpose for us.

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— 24 May 2022 —