The Adam and Eve Riddle

and the Lord is the Breaker-Througher

1/ Death First, then Life (John 5:24)

“Truly, truly, I say to you,
whoever hears My word
and believes Him who sent Me
has eternal life.
He does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life.

2/ The Adam and Eve Riddle

This is a good one to consider.

Even before the Fall, Adam and Eve were given food to eat. Was it, then, possible for them to starve? The Lord also created the Tree of Life so that they would live eternally.

All of this indicates, mysteriously, wonderously, that even before the Fall life was provided by God, externally. Adam and Eve were not perpetual self-contained units. They needed what God had provided.

So, was it possible for Adam and Eve to starve?

If we isolate Adam and Eve and look at them alone: yes.

But if we look at Adam and Eve in the Garden, surrounded with the orchard and the Tree of Life, blessed with perfection, wisdom, and life from God: no. They were to live forever.

3/ The Lord will Break Through

Luther on the Lord breaking through.

But the exceedingly wretched throng that has the spiritual blessing is weak and afflicted. It is a poor little flock, as Christ says in Luke 12:32, rejected, despised, and not worthy of being regarded as the church. Indeed, it is not worthy of being regarded as a people at all, much less as the people of God. “What is that poor throng?” the devil will think. “I will devour them in the twinkling of an eye.” “But let him ravage without measure, tear, persecute, resist, and hinder,” says the Lord. (And again He holds up before him the word meaning to proceed against.) “I will proceed against him. (LW V.226)

We’ll be talking about this in the Worldwide Bible study in 10 minutes! Join us here: www.wolfmueller.co/bible

4/ The Importance of the Unknowness of the Last Day

Here’s a wonderful quotation from Edersheim

It is at least a question, whether the Lord, while distinctly indicating these facts, had intended to remove the doubt and uncertainty of their succession from the minds of His disciples. To have done so would have necessitated that which, in the opening sentence of the Second Division of this Discourse,a He had expressly declared to lie beyond their ken. The ‘when’—the day and the hour of His Coming—was to remain hidden from men and Angels.b Nay, even the Son Himself—as they viewed Him and as He spake to them—knew it not.1 It formed no part of His present Messianic Mission, nor subject for His Messianic Teaching. Had it done so, all the teaching that follows concerning the need of constant watchfulness, and the pressing duty of working for Christ in faith, hope, and love—with purity, self-denial, and endurance—would have been lost. The peculiar attitude of the Church: with loins girt for work, since the time was short, and the Lord might come at any moment; with her hands busy; her mind faithful; her bearing self-denying and devoted; her heart full of loving expectancy; her face upturned towards the Sun that was so soon to rise; and her ear straining to catch the first notes of heaven’s song of triumph—all this would have been lost! What has sustained the Church during the night of sorrow these many centuries; what has nerved her with courage for the battle, with steadfastness to bear, with love to work, with patience and joy in disappointments—would all have been lost! The Church would not have been that of the New Testament, had she known the mystery of that day and hour, and not ever waited as for the immediate Coming of her Lord and Bridegroom.

And what the Church of the New Testament has been, and is, that her Lord and Master made her, and by no agency more effectually than by leaving undetermined the precise time of His Return. To the world this would indeed become the occasion for utter carelessness and practical disbelief of the coming Judgment. As in the days of Noah the long delay of threatened judgment had led to absorption in the ordinary engagements of life, to the entire disbelief of what Noah had preached, so would it be in the future. But that day would come certainly and unexpectedly, to the sudden separation of those who were engaged in the same daily business of life, of whom one might be taken up (παραλαμβάνεται, ‘received’), the other left to the destruction of the coming Judgment.

Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah   V 2, p 451 

5/ The Triumphal Entry is the Church Sign

6/ Upcoming Events

Pencil these in on your calendar:

• Youth for Life (Washington D. C., January 19-21)

• Life Magnified (Austin, TX, January 28)

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Remember to go to your pastor's Bible Class this week and, read old theology books. (If you don't have a pastor or congregation, click here. If you don't have old theology books, click here.) 

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Thank you, again, for your time and attention, and for your prayers. Please keep in touch. 

Lord's Blessings, Pastor Wolfmueller

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

www.wolfmueller.co

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