God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Genesis .1:31

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” Genesis 3:22

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. Genesis 3:24

God’s Version of the Truth.

You are the one and only God the creator
You put the heavenly bodies in the sky.
Your Word says you made man in your image
But man still kills, he still lies,
He still refuses to comply?
Why, Lord, is man not more like you?

You ask me to use my faith to believe 
That you are just, even when life is unfair.
But the injustice in my past warns me,
To think twice  To beware”;
It leaves me wondering if I dare.
Believe one day Justice will prevail.

You ask me for obedience through my faith,
To step off cliffs when You know I can’t fly.
But Lord, when I stop to consider this,
I want to laugh, I want to cry;
I want for you to tell me why
Why, Lord, don’t you just give me wings?

The enemy tells me to be careful.
Tells me in my heart I know my faith is a lie.
But I know better than to entertain him,
So I close my ears, I don’t reply
 I know my heart is not my ally.
And  I chase him back to Hell where he belongs

I’ve vowed to walk by faith, not by sight.
My faith is much stronger than your proof.
Faith is the evidence of things not seen.
No excuses, no disputes,
I accept God’s version of the truth.
I’m a Christians that’s what I believe.
Linda Troxell © 04/29/202

Did God really DRIVE Adam and Eve from the Garden?

Genesis 3:24 tells us that God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and then posted cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the entrance so they didn’t eat from a different tree. 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. Genesis 3:24.

Doesn’t this seem like an extreme punishment for the two beings He had recently created and called good? Well, He called the man good, anyway. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

Reading it brings to mind an angry God banishing from His perfect garden, two people He has only recently created. Driving them out of the Garden and away from Him, because they are not the obedient children He had created.

In fact, you may have seen the same painting or a picture I have in which God is depicted as an old man with a long beard and an angry face, standing at the entrance of the lush garden, pointing for a very distressed Adam and Eve to get out. 

It does not send the message that He is heartbroken, but that He is angry and wants to be rid of them. And that is how I understood it when I read this Bible story as a child. It seemed to me as if God was good friends with Adam and Eve when they were compliant and walked with Him in the garden. But when they misbehaved just one time, He wanted nothing more to do with them. 

That belief did not help me to see God as a loving father. It did not make me feel as if He was watching over me or protecting me. It made me afraid of Him and eventually, it, along with other similar things, drove me out of my relationship with Him. Of course, that is probably a  good thing because the relationship with the God I left was built on misunderstandings and childish guesses, and it was toxic.

In my adult years, I began to learn God’s true nature. He is an always loving, always redeeming, and always on our side, God. God is always good! He wasn’t rejecting Adam and Eve, He was attempting to protect them. And our God began His plan to redeem us and reconcile with us on the first day that our first parents had to leave Him. 

But no one helped me to see that God was not the ogre these verses make Him seem. In defining God for myself, I had only my own assumptions to work with. And when children have to make assumptions, more often than not they assume the worst, usually something that frightens them or makes them feel guilty.  

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think anyone set out to hide God’s goodness from me or to make me fear Him. What I do think is even sadder. I think many, many adults don’t understand that Children need everything explained to them. Of course, they do, they’re children, how else would they know? 

In addition, and just as sad, many, many Christians don’t fully understand God. They don’t know He is not a humorless angry old man just waiting to catch us doing something wrong. This is probably because no one showed them that God didn’t kick Adam and Eve to the curb because they displeased Him. 

They were never told that God didn’t drive Adam and Eve from the garden because they had angered Him. God was making them leave the garden to save them so that they could live long enough to be redeemed. How do I know this, who showed me this truth about God? It was Lisa Harper the best darn Bible teacher and preacher of our time.  

Lisa is a writer, a speaker, and a Bible teacher. She spends her time traveling around and sharing her wisdom with anyone who is fortunate enough to listen. And In her spare time, she is seeking a Ph.D. in Redemptive Humenetics. She grew up in the church but don’t assume she grew up knowing God or Jesus.  

According to her, she knew a very distorted version of both our Father in heaven and His Son. Believe me, knowing a distorted savior can be worse than not knowing Him at all. Lisa lived through some hard times during which she thought Jesus only saved her because He felt sorry for her. So, you can believe that when she learned differently, she did not want to keep it to herself.

Let me tell you when she teaches the Bible, you should listen. If you don’t know who she is, as soon as you are finished reading this, go Google her. But for now, allow me to share just this one thing I learned from Lisa Harper. Going all the way back to the beginning, I’m going to share how God has been so misunderstood by so many. 

For me what most makes God’s behavior in this Bible story seem so angry and punitive is the word drove, in Genesis 3:24, “So He drove out the man;”. And while that word, even in Hebrew, does mean to cast our or expel, it was not in that connotation that God sent Adam and Eve away from the garden. He was not sending them away as a punishment. In fact, just the opposite.

How do I know this? Well, let’s look at the story. In verse 24, we are told that God drove the man out of the garden. However, just one verse earlier verse 23 says, depending on your translation, something akin to, “God sent him out from the garden” or, the New King James says, “God sent him forth from the garden.” Now that sounds a lot less punitive, right? 

And if we go back even one more verse, it becomes even less punitive. Because it shows that God is not sending Adam and Eve away as a punishment for making Him angry. He is sending them away to protect them from eating from the tree of life and the horrible fate of living forever, and forever as sinners. Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” Genesis 3:22. This, then, tells us why they had to leave the garden.

Sussing out the bare bones of the story looks like this. Satan as the snake manipulated Eve into eating the fruit from the tree of good and evil. Eve, as any good wife would, shares with her husband. This makes them aware of their nakedness which is God’s clue that they have eaten the fruit.  

God talks it over with the other two in the triune (remember in verse 22 God said the man has become like one of us) and it’s decided that leaving the couple free in the garden is too dangerous. They can no longer trust that they won’t eat from an even more dangerous tree, the tree of life. If they allow that to happen then their beloved creations will live forever as sinners. Instead, they banish Adam and Eve and begin operation reconciliation.

For the rest of the Bible, the theme is redemption. The Bible is primarily about the coming Savior. He is foreshadowed in the person of Noah, Jonah, Moses, and more. He is the topic of prophecy and the promise of redemption. The Bible is the story of God’s plan to redeem Adam and Eve and all of us who came after.

I guess what I want you to show you here is that it’s important to understand the Bible in the spirit of who our God is. For too many years I believed my false version of this story. Don’t let that happen to you. You can find help to understand the Bible. You can use commentaries to help; You can use small group discussions to help; you can find a Bible teacher or pastor, like Lisa Harper, on Youtube to help. 

Of course, you will hear different explanations from different people for the same verses or stories. I used to let that make me crazy. But now, I listen to it all, I read it all, and then I pray about it. From there the explanation that shows God as the all-loving and all redeeming God that I know He is, and that settles in my heart easiest is the one I believe. Oh yeah, and I always listen when Lisa Harper speaks.   

Let’s Pray

Father, we sometimes hear explanations of your Word that do not seem to go along with your all-loving, all redeeming character. Some explanations, rather, show you as angry and punitive. This can be distressing God and confusing. But it need not be if we only remember who we know you to be. Help us Father to never lose sight of your true character no matter who is telling us differently. Remind us that there is no ambiguity, you are a loving and redeeming God who wants all of us to live with you in eternity. Those that try to use your name to frighten us are on the wrong track and we should try at every opportunity to convince them that they have it all wrong. Help us, Lord, to also use every opportunity to set your children free with the truth. The truth of your character and the truth of the gospels. That truth is that you love us more than we can imagine and you sent your Son to die to redeem our sin. When we can fully understand that and fully accept Jesus as our savior, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. Thank You, God, for your love, for your protection, and for your Son. We pray this in the name of your Son, Amen.

Points for Pondering and Prayer
Or
Perhaps for Putting Pen to Paper

1. Have you experienced people using scripture to try to convince you to be afraid of God?
   a.Write a paragraph about that.

2. If so, did it work?  a. Write a bit about how it worked or didn’t work.
If it worked, I hope you have discovered that He is no one to fear. If you haven’t, please search Lisa
Harper on Youtube and binge her videos.

3. If you have discovered that God is not to fear, how did that come about? 
A. And have you shared it with others?

4. Do you have a favorite way to find help in understanding difficult scripture?  
a. Write about your favorite way.

5. Have you tried using commentaries?  
a.If you have, write about your experience.
b.If you haven’t, write about why you haven’t.

If you have not used commentaries, I recommend starting with Enduring Word. It’s an app for your phone and very easy to read. 

No matter what you have tried, keep on trying. It’s worth the work and you will find the God who loves you insanely!