June 16 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Genesis 2:8-17

⁸And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
⁹And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
¹⁰And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
¹¹The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
¹²And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
¹³And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
¹⁴And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
¹⁵And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
¹⁶And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
¹⁷But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Devotional

When God placed man in the garden He was concerned not only with his physical needs but with his whole being. God planned for man the freedom to live a full and complete life. This freedom would be possible only through man's voluntary submission to his Maker and to the pattern of living He had designed for him.

To achieve this end God set aside a certain tree and used it for a test. If man chose the road of obedience to God and resisted the temptation to eat of that tree he would continue to live in freedom under God's plan. If he disobeyed God and ate of the tree, he would die.

The tree had a name, 'the tree of knowledge of good and evil' (2:9). If man obeyed God he would be confirmed in righteousness and so understand that it was good to obey God and evil to disobey Him. If he disobeyed and ate of the tree he would know experientially what sin was and would reap its consequences.

The man understood God's arrangement. As we look back upon it we can call it one of two names. We can call it the covenant of life in that life was the fruit of continuing obedience. Or we can call it the covenant of works since in it God required a specific act or work of obedience on the part of man in order that he might maintain a right relationship with his Maker.

In 1 Corinthians 15:22 Paul tells us that we were involved in this transaction God made with man. We were there in the garden with Adam, our representative, and what he would do with that tree had a significance beyond the garden. This story of Eden is not academic. What occurred there has had an effect on every man and woman born into this world. To understand this is the first step toward understanding how Jesus Christ the second Adam could have paid the penalty for our sin!