In the Beginning
In the Garden of Eden God spoke with Adam and Eve face to face. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8). However, after that fateful day, when they blatantly disobeyed their Lord, they no longer were allowed to enjoy His presence (Gen. 3:23, 24), and their face-to-face communion with Him ended.
What do the following texts tell us about face-to-face encounters with God? Gen. 18:1–15; 32:30; Exod. 33:11; Judg. 6:22; Judg. 13:2, 3.
Frequently the Old Testament identifies the Angel of God or the Angel of the Lord with God Himself. Jacob refers to God and the Angel in the same way (Gen. 48:15, 16); the Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in the burning bush, yet, it is God who speaks to him (Exod. 3:2–6); the Angel who appeared to Gideon is identified with God (Judg. 6:11–14); and the same is true of the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Manoah and his wife (Judg. 13:11-22). Whenever God manifested Himself to human beings in a bodily form, it was always in a humanlike manifestation.
In John 1:18 John says, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The Divine being, therefore, Who appeared to the people in the Old Testament must have been Jesus, not the Father. Ellen G. White tells us that “after the transgression of Adam, the Lord spoke no longer directly with man; the human race was given into the hands of Christ, and all communication came through Him to the world. It was Christ who spoke the law on Mount Sinai.”—Fundamentals of Christian Education, pp. 237, 238.
| What has been your own experience regarding what sin and rebellion does between you and God? That is, when you do something that you know is wrong, that you know is sinful, how does that impact your relationship with God? In what ways do you feel a separation from Him? How does guilt drive you away from Him, away from the desire to pray and commune with the Lord? How does this experience help you better understand what happened in Eden? |
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