Joy!—God’s Secret Weapon for Every BelieverSample

God’s Solution

To grasp the full magnitude of what Christ accomplished, I began by looking at the severity of what happened during humanity’s Fall. When the Lord placed Adam and Eve in the Garden, He told them that they could eat from any tree except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? Because eating from that tree would cause them to die (cease to exist) spiritually (to God). Satan used the serpent to question Adam and Eve about what God had said. He twisted God’s warning by telling them that they would not die. 

The truth is, God had already created Adam and Eve to be like Himself, yet without the devastating effects of the knowledge of good and evil. God had already blessed them to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth. When they bit into the lie of the deceiver, however, they became permanently separated from God. The Supplanter succeeded in ruining the plan of God for Adam and Eve and their offspring to rule the earth under God’s leadership. Thus, they forfeited their authority and divine inheritance into the hands of the enemy.

At that point, Adam and Eve’s existence became distorted by the deception that they could exist independently from God. Corruption entered in; their innocence was gone. Instead of existing independently from God, as the deceiver had suggested, they now found themselves bitterly estranged from Him.

That is the horror of it all; the collateral damage of spiritual death was instant. Adam and Eve did not slowly become corrupt; it went viral immediately. The delusion corrupted their minds and their souls, and their bodies began to decay. Murder manifested itself as their firstborn son, Cain, killed his younger brother, Abel. In the loins of Adam, the seed of humanity in its entirety was fully corrupted. We had now become a race of sinners, rotten to the core by birth and by nature.

Adam and Eve were ashamed and remorseful, and God in His mercy forgave them. But forgiveness alone was not enough to cure the problem, for they had become trafficked as slaves to the dark forces of sin, evil, and death.

In their shame, Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves. The leaves were not sufficient, however, and the Lord slaughtered an innocent animal to provide their covering. This act showed that the shedding of blood was the price for redemption. While the animal skins offered a temporary outward solution, it would ultimately take the blood of the Lamb to remedy humanity’s fallen condition.

When the time was right, the Father sent His perfect Son, Jesus, who shed His own blood. He did this not only to wash away our sins but also to cure us of our old nature, which was corrupt to the core, and to set us free from the curse of the Law and our efforts to exist independently from God.

He became a curse on the tree, and then He absorbed that curse and dissolved it. He killed everything that was killing you so that when He was raised, you could be connected to the living source of love and joy.