With the Creation of the man and the woman in Genesis 2 there follows 7 distinct ages or periods of time that lead us to the permanent eternal state. We will look at these in order (some in more detail than others, probably because they are more interesting). They are: 1) Innocence; 2) Conscience; 3) Human Government; 4) Promise; 5) Law; 6) Grace and 7) Divine Government. The first 6 are all probationary periods used by God to test man’s willingness to submit to Him. Of course, man fails all of them, but God’s grace is always greater than man’s failure. His love and faithfulness always comes through.
I should define “grace” at this point – it is the opportunity He gives for man to access what He offers. It is neither unlimited by our definition, nor is it unconditional. We have to meet His conditions and accept His plan of redemption. Man’s religion will never define God’s plan, He does. And that should become clear as we go through these periods of time and see how He deals with man and how He reveals Himself. We will see in all of these periods of time that in the face of man’s failure, God always affirms His grace!
The first probationary period is Innocence. Following the rebellion of Lucifer, the destruction of the original earth and then the restoration of the earth to its second habitable state, everything in the universe is, again, in harmony with God (except for Lucifer and those spirit beings who rebelled with him against God). The length of this period is unknown, but was probably fairly short. It is contained in the passage that runs from Genesis 2:15 to 3:21.
During this time neither Adam nor Eve had visited the tree of life in the garden (Genesis 3:22-24). This tree, created by God after He had formed the man (Genesis 2:9), is literally the “tree of lives” (again, chayim is plural) and always carries with it the idea of something eternal or perpetual. It probably should be translated “the tree that perpetuates or preserves lives” (body and soul). This tree evidently has the power to preserve life, sinful or otherwise (Genesis 2:22), and those saints who overcome and are able to survive the tribulation period and Millennium are given permission to eat of this tree in the New Jerusalem for eternity (Revelation 2:7, 22:2), we’ll see more on this later in the series of lessons covering John’s Revelation.
The test was obedience. Specifically, the man was told by God not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The woman was not made yet when this instruction was given (Genesis 2:16-17). The reason God did this was to test the man to see if he could be obedient and remain loyal and submitted to Him in the best possible conditions, something Lucifer had failed to do.
If you read Romans 5:12-21 you’ll see that God had determined to deal with all mankind through the same means of grace (defined above), offering redemption and eternal life with Him to all who embrace His offer and spiritual death and eternal separation from Him to all who refuse it. All 7 probationary periods are meant to prove God’s righteousness in condemning Lucifer for his rebellion. God is going to deal with mankind in the same way He dealt with Lucifer. He will bless obedience and judge disobedience.
How did God test the man? He did it two ways. By giving the man a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and by allowing Lucifer (now Satan) to tempt the man by appealing to the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (I John 2:15-17).
What was man’s failure? He doubted God’s word (Genesis 3:1); he added to God’s word – “neither shall ye touch it” (3:2-3); he contradicted God’s word (3:4); he misinterpreted it (3:5) and he followed his own desires, instead of God’s command (3:6). This is the beginning of human morality, the foundation of all religion on the earth. Human morality is what man thinks is right or wrong – always a deceptive combination of what God really says and what man wants Him to say.
What was God’s judgment? The curse of Genesis 3 can be summed up this way. Man lost eternal life and health and gained spiritual death, eventual physical death and sickness along the way. He lost face-to-face communion with God and gained communion with Satan, evil spirits and spiritual blindness. He lost dominion over the earth and everything on it and gained natural disasters, danger from wild animals and more. He lost self-control and the ability to please God and gained depravity and evil. He lost God’s provision and gained the need to provide for himself (the sweat of his brow). He lost God’s holiness and righteousness and gained his own sinfulness and rebellion.
And there are two more things related to the curse that apply specifically to women. The first is they lost the ability to bear children in an easy, painless way and gained a shortened reproductive cycle and pain in childbirth. And they lost the ability to subject themselves to their husbands willingly and gained the desire to control their husbands, something the husband would resist.
Then God affirms His grace in two ways. First is the promise of Messiah who would come and eventually end the conflict between good and evil (Genesis 3:15). The second was the beginning of God’s instruction concerning His plan of redemption, which involved the substitutionary death of an animal picturing the sacrifice of Christ for sin (innocent animals had to die to provide the coats of skins, Genesis 3:21).
Before we finish, this observation should be noted. During this time man had been given dominion over the earth, but his failure allows Satan to regain this dominion (see Luke 4:5-7, John 12:31 and II Corinthians 4:4).