The Unrecognized King

Chapter 3: Adam and Eve You are very likely familiar with the story of creation, and how at a certain point God created the first humans, Adam and Eve. You are also likely familiar with the story of the fall of creation: how Adam and Eve sinned, were caught in the act, visited by God, and then punished by God. Well, if Adam and Eve were visited by God immediately after committing the first sin, who visited them: God the Father or God the Son? Let’s examine the account of that visit: When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. —Genesis 3:8 The above is only a single, short verse, but it is packed with detail. Although the encounter took place in the Garden of Eden, the encounter does not occur between spirits, nor does it occur in a spirit realm. Instead, the encounter is between three very physical beings. How do we know this? As we examine the passage, we need to take note of several important indicators. First, the writer communicates to us the weather and time, physical attributes of the environment where the encounter took place, “the cool evening breezes were blowing.” Why would the author of Genesis communicate this piece of information if the encounter didn’t take place within a physical setting? Spirits aren’t concerned with cool evening breezes; physical bodies are. Second, notice that Adam and Eve could hear the Lord God walking about in the garden. Spirits do not make noise when walking; physical bodies do. Third, Adam and Eve assumed that the person walking about in the garden had the ability to see them, so they tried to hide behind trees. We can safely conclude that Adam and Eve assumed that the person they were hiding from shared human sight, a sight that is limited in capability and unable to see through obstructions. This is another sign that the person that Adam and Eve encountered had a physical body. Adam and Eve—two beings with physical bodies—could hear with their ears the entity making sounds as he approached; they could see him with their eyes; and they were convinced that they could hide from his sight behind bushes. Without any doubt, Adam and Eve interacted with a physical being. So, the Lord God walked around in Eden, his walk generating sound as his footsteps fell and as his body brushed against foliage. He did so while the cool evening breeze blew, no doubt rustling the leaves. He appeared in a form that led Adam and Eve to assume that they could hide from his sight by ducking behind trees. We already established in the previous chapter that if God appears to human beings physically, then he appears as God the Son, Jesus, since God the Father is a spirit. We have also established that God the Father does not reveal himself to humans, because his glorious presence is too awesome for us to experience. “Well,” you may be tempted to argue, “Adam and Eve were perfect human beings. Maybe in their perfect state, they could safely witness the revelation of God the Father, and therefore the deity in the garden could very well have been God the Father.” In response, let me remind you that this entire encounter took place after Adam and Eve had sinned and were already, for all intents and purposes, fallen. They were no longer perfect. Adam and Eve should have fared no better than you or I when faced with God’s glory. That argument, then, doesn’t stand up. What we have here in Genesis 3:8 is one of the first records of Jesus interacting with people in the Old Testament, thousands of years before his birth in a manger. Still not convinced? Think it’s not possible for Jesus to exist before he was born in Bethlehem? Let’s hear what the apostle John has to say about that: In the beginning the Word [Jesus] already existed. [Jesus] was with God, and [Jesus] was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. [Jesus] gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. —John 1:1–4 Interesting, isn’t it? The author of the Gospel of John is saying that Jesus existed before the beginning of the world and that nothing was created without Jesus’s involvement. If that is so, then John is saying that Jesus was around during the time of the Garden of Eden, and of Adam and Eve, and that Jesus was personally involved in the creation of the Garden and of the first man and woman. If all that is true, then there should be no reasonable doubt that Jesus, the Son of God, visited Adam and Eve as described in the account in Genesis 3:8. It is not a stretch to believe that he who created time can exist outside of time, can exercise unimaginable power, can appear as an adult human to Adam and Eve, and can appear as a newborn babe birthed by Mary some thousands of years later. It is not a stretch to believe that he who exists after he died also existed before he was born. Put another way, if you believe that Jesus lived after he died, it doesn’t require any much greater faith to believe that he lived before he was born. Do you see him? Do you recognize the King, the Jesus of the New Testament, walking in the garden while the cool evening breeze blew, on his way to meet with the man and woman he created? With all the clues provided to us in Genesis 3:8, I’m fairly confident that this is an example of Jesus’s appearance. Long before his humble birth in Bethlehem, he was walking around on Earth, personally interacting with his creation.