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Week 4 Genesis to Jesus – The son who falls

Part 2 The Essence of the Fall – What Really Happened

Here is where Scott discusses the difference between mere human life, and supernatural divine life, as we become sons and daughters of God. The former happens naturally as the result of my mother and father coming together to produce me. I became a son of Freeman and Buzzy Oglesby in 1951, but that did not automatically make me a perfect baby or a son of God. If you don’t believe me, ask my mother. I was given human life at that point in time, but not divine life. Divine life only becomes a reality as the result of the supernatural grace of God.

Genesis 2:7 (RSV2CE) 7 then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Our beginning was much humbler than we may want to acknowledge, you and I came from the dust of the ground. You can make it cute and call yourself a dust bunny if you want, but it is still dirt. But God then breathed His life into that dust, so Adam first breath was not just oxygen, it primarily was God’s breath of divine life. Adam was given the gift of life, and it was divine. What did that collection of dust do to deserve or merit divine life? Nothing, absolutely nothing, only supernatural grace can make that happen…divine life is a gift. The Spirit of God was breathed into Adam and he became a son of God. But at some point, we all are given a choice to accept this divine life that is given by grace, or reject it. Adam’s choice is found just ten verses later.

Genesis 2:16–17 (RSV2CE) 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

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Divine life is a gift, but choosing to live in that divine life is our choice. Even for baptized babies when you think about it. It is true the gift of God’s grace is present in those waters of baptism, and the faith to receive that grace is present when you were baptized comes through your parents, your god parents, and through the Church in the form of the priest that baptizes you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Babies can’t make that choice…yet. But eventually the day comes when your choice to live in the gift of divine life must be confirmed. That is what the sacrament of Confirmation is all about. That is the day that you publicly choose to live in, and cooperate with, the divine life of Jesus that began in your life when you were baptized.

Adam and Eve each had a choice, and God warned them of making the wrong choice, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Satan told them that they wouldn’t die, and he seemed to be right. They didn’t die that day, or least they didn’t drop dead on the spot. But here is where the ancients could see things in this passage that we many times miss in our modern thinking. They could see that sacred scripture was talking about two deaths, a physical death which is bad enough, but also a spiritual death that God was revealing to them, that was far worse. They did die that day, but they couldn’t see the kind of death God was talking about. The two of them moved from eternal life to eventual natural death, and separation from divine life that can lead to eternal death, all in the same day. Once natural death that can lead eternal death was released into the earth, it became the norm for all human beings born for that generation, and all those

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born in the centuries and millennia to follow. We were born with natural life, but at the same time into natural death, and if we choose, eternal life or eternal death. When we accept the gift of God’s eternal divine life, and we choose to walk, and live, and have our being in that divine life all our days, even though we still will suffer natural death, that becomes our door to continually enjoying God’s divine life forever. The wonderful part of God’s eternal divine life is that we get a taste of it now, we can live in His joy and peace and love and kindness and patience, and all the rest right now. It is our choice, and all of it is made available to each of us in the sacraments of the Church.

So how do all those who lived under the Old Covenant come to this saving grace, very good question. We all come to salvation through faith, that is how we enter in. For all those who lived and died under the Old Covenant, their faith was looking forward to Christ and believing all those prophecies about the coming Messiah. For all of us living now, our faith is looking back at the cross two thousand plus years ago and having faith in the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But it is very important to realize that all of us, no matter what covenant Old or New, we all come in by grace, the gift of divine life.

Moses proclaimed to his generation, “Choose you this day, life of death”, as he renewed the blood covenant between God and the nation of Israel in his day. The

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Passover feast is a picture of what was to come in the Eucharist, as Jesus transformed that Last Supper in the Upper Room just before He went to the cross. They needed to walk in faith back then just as much as we do today. St. John the Baptist is a perfect example of someone who received the gift of salvation looking forward to the cross. He was beheaded before the Passion of Jesus. His life was very important because he was the last prophet of the Old Covenant, and the first prophet of the New Covenant.

I love how Scott makes such wonderful connecting points between the Old and the New Covenants, between the old heavens and earth, and the new heavens and earth.

Genesis 1:1–2 (RSV2CE) 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

John 1:1–3 (RSV2CE) 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Scott compares the creating of Adam and Eve in chapter 1 of Genesis to verse 14 of John chapter 1.

John 1:14 (RSV2CE) 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father.

Then Scott compares the six consecutive days of creation in Genesis 1 to the “next days” recorded in John chapter 1.

John 1:29 (RSV2CE) 29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ‡

John 1:35 (RSV2CE) 35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;

John 1:43 (RSV2CE) 43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

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The days of creation in Genesis chapter one, lead up to a wedding between the first man and the first woman. John chapter two opens with “and on the third day” leading up to a seventh day when the wedding at Cana takes place, the wedding where Jesus changes the water into wine. And at that wedding Jesus calls Mary “woman”, not mother, in the very same way that Adam called Eve “woman”.

John 2:1–6 (RSV2CE) 1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; 2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. 3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

This is a perfect picture of the first Adam and the first Eve in the Old Covenant, and now here in the New Covenant, we find Jesus at this wedding, the new Adam, and Mary, the new Eve. We can also begin to see the comparison of the old creation and the new creation, Jesus making “all things new”, with the beginning

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of His ministry on the earth. All of this gives me goose bumps, big Catholic ones. But hang on, it gets better.

The first Adam begins life in a garden, the new Adam ends up in the Garden of Gethsemane. The first Adam must work and sweat because of the fall, the new Adam sweats blood as the sin of all mankind comes upon Him. The first Adam brings in the curse of sin, and death enters the world, but the last Adam overcomes sin and death, and reverses the curse of the first Adam. The new Adam finally defeats the devil out in the wilderness protecting His bride, doing what the first Adam should have done to protect his bride, and as a result the world was turned into a wilderness. But we are not done yet, Adam moves within the Garden of Eden to the wrong tree, eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil disobeying God. Jesus moves from the Garden of Gethsemane, to the right tree, the cross in perfect obedience to His Father. The Early Fathers saw the cross as the tree of life spoken of in the Garden of Eden. And the New Adam is not alone there at the tree of life, Mary is there at the cross also, the New Eve, and she watches in agony as Jesus gives up His live for His bride, the Church who was to come.

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Rob Corzine brings in a final comparison that is amazing. God put the first Adam into a deep sleep and from his side, God created Adam’s bride, Eve. The New Adam as He dies on the cross, a Roman soldier pierced His side, and blood and water flowed out, the precious blood of Jesus and holy water of baptism that would create the bride of Christ, the Church. And Jesus would give His own body and blood for His Church to eat and drink, so She could be and would be purified and strengthened for the journey on this earth. Divine life was lost by wrong eating, eating the forbidden fruit. But now divine life would be restored by choosing to eat rightly, through the Holy Eucharist that the bride of Christ receives at every Mass. The Early Fathers called the Eucharist the fruit coming from the Tree of Life, the Cross of Our Lord Jesus.

We can now see how the New Covenant is concealed in the Old, and the Old Covenant is revealed and fulfilled in the New. And all we have done today is compare a few chapters in Genesis to a few chapters in the Gospel of John, this

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class will allow us to step back from the trees, so we can see the forest. The Bible is an amazing book, a powerful book, a Holy book, and it contains the living words of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, written down by inspired human authors down through thousands and thousands of years. Shouldn’t we be spending time in it every day?