The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Gen 3:22-24,
“The Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”
In the previous chapter God had given Adam fair warning, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16b-17. Mankind disobeyed God and now he receives what God warned him of.
From this account I am reminded of Nahum 1:2-3, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.” Our God punishes sinners, sinners like me, for our sin.
To be sure our God is a God of mercy. In his great self-disclosure to Moses on Mt. Sinai the Lord told Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Exodus 34:6-7. But he goes on to say, “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…”
It is not until I wrestle with the horror of God’s anger and wrath, his punishment of the wicked that I begin to slowly conceive of the boundless love of my Savior who faced it all for me! My Lord endured the full wrath of God’s anger and punishment for my sin that I not have to! What love was expressed on that cross for folks like me! He made a way for me and now I am counted as a child of God! How astonishing!!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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