Can one even imagine the
providential and creative God’s response to being rejected by Adam? A
sense of it can be had through understanding that God’s response at having been
rejected by Israel, as Jeremiah exclaims “Be amazed at this, O heavens!
Be shocked and dumbfounded…Do so because My people have committed a double
wrong: they have rejected Me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have
dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water”
(Jeremiah 2:12-13). As humankind (via Adam) rejected their life-giver, turning
their trust away from their Creator and looking elsewhere for support,
ultimately, to other creatures now marred and cursed and corrupted, so too did
Israel reject their covenant God that had redeemed them from Egypt and carried
them through all their years.
The Creator God of
Israel says, “You have brought all this on yourself, Israel, by deserting the
Lord your God when He was leading you along the right path” (2:17).
Effectively, this bears little difference to what that same God can have been
thought to have said to Adam. Again, it
should be noted that though the Adam story may very well be a retrojection of
the Israel story, it is still the story by which Israel partially defines,
understands and presents itself. Did Adam not desert the Lord and His
path, bringing a curse upon all creation, as it is reported, through not
heeding the warning promise? Israel failed to heed the warning promises,
and as a result, their faithful covenant God was going to bring a curse upon
His people.
Jeremiah goes on to
share that “Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment”
(2:19a). For Israel, the punishment was going to be the curses of siege,
destruction, exile, captivity, and oppression. For humankind, the
immediate judgment was that “cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful
toil you will eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17b).
Continuing in Jeremiah, the God of Israel informs His people that “Your
unfaithful acts will bring about your punishment. Your unfaithful acts
will bring down discipline on you” (2:19b). Israel’s unfaithfulness was
to the covenant, and to their God’s requirements that they do not engage in
idolatry, that they reverence the sanctuary, and that they keep His Sabbaths
(while also caring for orphans and widows). Their punishment and their
discipline represented their God’s faithfulness to His covenant, in response to
His people’s lack thereof. Adam fared no better. His unfaithful act
most certainly brought about punishment, as it is understood to be the vehicle
that carried death into the world for Himself and all living things. Jumping
further along in the story, as the second Adam to come, Jesus reverses this so
as to ultimately carry death out of the world by exhausting the curses brought
about by both Israel and Adam.
To Israel, to Adam,
and to His covenant people from all nations and generations, the Creator God
says, “Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject Me,
the Lord your God, to show no respect for Me” (2:19c). This is what is
spoken by “the Lord God Who rules over all” (2:19d). The rejection, by
Adam, of God’s singular command, brought the curse. The rejection, by Israel, of their God’s
covenant laws and responsibilities (what can be thought of as a singular
command) brought exile and captivity.
Later, that rejection would be manifested in the rejection of Jesus as their
God’s anointed, crucified, and resurrected King and Lord of all creation.
Submission to His rule means being brought into a fertile land, as were Adam
and Israel, so as to enjoy its fruits and its rich bounty in eternal life (the
life of the age to come brought into and making itself felt in the present as
the Creator God’s people become the place where heaven and earth overlap as
part of their service in recognition of their King) and a renewal of God’s good
creation. Rejection means a continued march into the bonds of death,
under that curse forever.
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