Thursday
Thursday
The Disruption of Relationships
To the woman [God] said, “I will greatly increase your pains in child-bearing…. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “… Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.”
Genesis 3:16–17
The first two chapters of Genesis have affirmed that God made man male and female in his own image and that the divine image was to be seen above all in our human relationships—to God himself (who engaged Adam and Eve in conversation), to one another (reflecting the fellowship between the persons of the Godhead), and to the good earth (over which they were given responsible dominion).
But the disobedience of our first parents led to the disruption of these three major relationships.
Firstly, Adam and Eve went into hiding, and the greatest of all tragedies began, namely that human beings made by God like God and for God should now try to live their lives without God. All our sense of disorientation stems ultimately from this alienation from God. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you” (Isa. 59:2).
Secondly, Adam and Eve not only blamed each other but found that their sexual relationship had become skewed. Their promised fruitfulness (Gen. 1:28) would now be accompanied by pain as well as pleasure, and in place of the intended partnership between the sexes there would be discord, for Adam would “rule” over his wife (3:16).
Thirdly, although Adam and Eve had been given dominion over the earth and the responsibility to till and take care of the garden, the ground was now cursed, and the cultivation of the soil would be an uphill struggle (vv. 17–19).
Only through Christ and his gospel of reconciliation would this threefold disruption of relationships be remedied.
For further reading: Colossians 1:15–20