First Church of Post Eden OR

Covenant Love and Life

No surprise that Adam and Eve did not go to church. They didn’t have “devotions” or praise and worship services and never had to sit through a sermon or read a book. WOW-does that sound like paradise?

What did they have? HMM, let’s see… they walked in close proximity with God each evening—face to face as it were. Their  devotion was to keep and tend the garden of God. Their worship was to obey. Their knowledge of God was to  fill the earth by bearing fruit in what they did. God blessed them. They didn’t have a Bible study but they experienced the “GOOD” which God had created and they participated in the re-creation and re-formation of the earth.

Until they fell. They sinned when they believed the lie that they were supposed to be like God and could be like God on their own, instead of trusting and obeying God. They trusted themselves to satisfy themselves and please God and others, or else control them. From then on they had to hide and pretend and blame and control and put on “religion.”

I imagine they could have “formed” something like the “First church of Eden.” They could have made up a liturgy using trees and fruit. They might have made up songs like “I’ll fly away to the garden of Someday,” or, “Hold the fort ‘til the Super Seed comes to replant us in heavenly Glory.”

Covenant—God’s form of relationship, worship and life

God, the Judge of the distorted Form, gave them a form of worship which would shape them for redemption (to be bought back, brought back, re-formed). He gave them a tabernacle and system of sacrifices to prepare them for the Ultimate Sacrifice, the Son of God. He gave them a way to cover their guilt and heal their distorted souls.

God offered them & us relationship with Him through covenant.  He made the rules, gave them priests and prophets, apostles and pastors, spelled out the consequences of their disobedience, then satisfied the demands of the law and paid for our sins (see Abraham in Gen 15). When we receive Christ, are born into his kingdom and enter into his covenant, He involves us in his great joy of co-mission with him to heal and re-from the earth. Together in Christ we can live Covenant life.     

-PD