Genesis 3, 4 and 5 are very important chapters. They show us the production of the two great energies which, to this day, animate the whole moral scene around us. These two energies are the energy of flesh and the energy of faith, that is, of the old nature and of the renewed mind.
The Energy of the Flesh
The lie of the serpent prevails to produce the first of these. The serpent gains the attention of the woman with words in which there was some suggestion injurious to her Lord and Creator. It was a lie, though subtly conveyed — the only instrument by which he could reach and tempt her. She listens and answers, and her faculties, thus enlisted, are soon in action in the cause of her seducer. The principle which is called the “flesh” is produced and begins to work at once.
The Case of Cain
But the working of this same principle (thus produced in Adam through the lie of the Serpent) is manifested in other ways afterwards in Cain. “Cain . . . was of that wicked one.” He becomes a tiller of the ground. But he tills, not as subject to the penalty, but as one that would get something desirable out of the ground, though the Lord had cursed it. He would get something for himself, independent of God.
Nothing is more godly, more according to the divine mind, concerning us, than to eat our bread by the sweat of our face, to get food and raiment by hard and honest toil. It is a beautiful accepting of the punishment of our sin and a bowing to the righteous thoughts of God. But to get out of the materials of the cursed ground what is to minister to our delight, our honor and our wealth, in forgetfulness of sin and of the judgment of God, is but perpetuating our apostasy and rebellion.
There is the enmity of the seed of the serpent against the Seed of the woman. “Cain was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” This was the cause. It was the enmity of sin to godliness, the enmity of the carnal mind against God, the lusting of the old man, the lusting of flesh against Spirit; it was the hatred of the world to Christ, because he testified of it, that “the works thereof are evil.” “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”
Such is the flesh, the old nature, in the history of its production and in the course and character of its workings. It is exactly now what it was then. It rules “the course of this world” under Satan, but it is found also in each of us, if provision be made for it. But we are to know it — to know it whence it came and how it works and to mortify it in its principle and in its acts, in all its proper native energies which so continually beset the soul.
The Activity of Faith
But we now turn to the other activities which we find produced and at work in these wonderful chapters — the activity or energy of faith produced by the Word of God through the hidden but effectual power of the Spirit.
While Adam was in the condition to which sin had reduced him, while he was still the guilty and culprit man under the trees of the garden, the word of the gospel — the tidings of the Conqueror slain, who bore the penalty, the woman’s Seed — reached his ear, and he is born again of the incorruptible seed, the word of the truth of the gospel.
He comes forth just as he was. But he comes forth in the sense of salvation and of the victory, which the grace of God had wrought for him. Accordingly he speaks of life. He calls his wife “the mother of all living.” There is something truly marvelous as well as excellent in that. Dead, as he himself was, in trespasses and sins, he talks of life, but he talks of it in connection with Christ and with Him only. He gives himself no living memorial at all. He does not link himself with the thought or mention of life, but only the Seed of the woman, according to the word which he had just heard. Nay, he rather implies that he knew full well he had lost all title and power of life, and that it was entirely in another, that it was in the promised seed for him. That the life found in another was for his use, he had no manner of doubt, the proof of which is this — he comes forth from the place of shame and guilt into the place of liberty and confidence and the presence of God.
Faith Regains God
He regains God. He had lost Him and been estranged from Him. He had lost Him as his Creator, but he had now regained Him as his Saviour, in the woman’s Seed, in Christ his righteousness. This simplicity and boldness of faith is exactly after the mind of God. Nothing could have been so gratifying to Him as this, and, consequently, in pledge of this, He first makes a coat of skins for Adam, and then with His own hands He covers his naked body.
Christ is now everything to this pardoned sinner. In like manner, through faith, Eve exults in the promise. It is the joy and expectation of her heart, and Abel’s religion is entirely formed by it. The penalties of sweat of face and sorrow of heart seem to be forgotten. And what is deeply to be considered is that the earth is lightly held when Jesus was firmly grasped. Adam has regained the Lord Himself, and he seems never to count on being a citizen of the world again, but a mere tiller of the ground according to divine appointment for a season and then to leave it to share the full fruit of the grace and redemption he had now trusted, in other worlds.
The energy of the flesh or of the old nature is produced and begins its work. The energy of faith is also brought forth in the souls of the elect and displays its power very blessedly. We learn our own lessons here. We carry the two energies in us. By nature and through grace our souls have got connection with Christ, like Adam or Abel or Seth. And we wait for the translation of Enoch (Gen. 5:2424And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. (Genesis 5:24)).
J. G. Bellett, adapted from Musings on Scripture