If you take a log and throw it onto a fire, can you revert the log to its original state? Once something has been burned, it is forever changed. Its very chemical makeup has been altered and transformed into something else. It is a reaction that cannon be reversed. Now, that log can be consumed by fire, turned into ash, and used as nutrients for a field or forest, and it can be consumed as nutrients in another tree. But, the log can never go back to what it was.
In the same way, we will never be able to go back to a world that existed before the fall of man. There will be no returning to the Garden of Eden, it is a place that has been forever closed to us. We all have a strong urge in us to try and return things to the way they were. We try to revert relationship back to "the way things were" before a dramatic fight or betrayal. But the truth is, our life is not about moving backwards. Reconciliation is a powerful ministry because it allows us to move on from what we have done, and to learn from it. Experience might be a painful teacher, but we do not forget its difficult lesson.
Vern Sheridan says this about Christ's redemption of us, "Redemption reverses the effects of the Fall. But it does not merely return us to the pre-Fall situation with Adam. God planned from the beginning for development." This is what Christ's victory on the cross means for us in our hearts: there is now room for development.
Living Life
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment