GOD'S CARE FOR YOUNG BELIEVERS
GOD’S CARE FOR YOUNG BELIEVERS
Genesis 2:8,9; Genesis 2:15-20
I wish to use these verses as setting out how God in His wisdom and love cares for believers, especially young ones. The divine record only proceeds a little way before we get this thought inserted. In chapter 1, Man is said to be created. There is nothing said about his need for a companion in that chapter. The word “Man” includes both man and woman: “male and female created he them”. But chapter 2 brings things in from the standpoint of God’s own affections and pleasure in what He had created, so that we have the word “formed” there instead of “created”. The word “formed” denotes skill of handiwork after a pattern, so that men are not simply the product of the ground. Eve comes under the divine hand in the sense of formation. Formation involves features of life which would be pleasing to the person who formed the things. So that every creature of the field would have some attractiveness for the Creator, but particularly Man. So we have the word “formed” used in regard to him at first. The same word is used for the lower creatures, but Man is distinguished in that he is breathed into by the Creator; he lived by the breath of God; not by the formation of God, but by the breath of God he became a living soul.
Formation refers to ornamentation, appearance, the framework. As a result of it God saw His own image in Man, and then He began to think for him. So that Adam comes in immediately as an object of divine interest. We cannot say that of the lower animals, although they had their existence by God and were formed too; there is nothing said about their environment, nor is it indicated that they had a place in the garden, but Jehovah Elohim planted [p. 54] the garden eastward in Eden for a purpose. It was by His own hands, we might say. You may be sure that no landscape garden has ever exceeded its beauty. Similarly you may be sure that no houses equalled the midwives’ houses in Egypt in architecture. But here He planted a garden: “Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward, and there put Man whom he had formed”. He was occupied with this great creature whom He had formed and into whom He had breathed. God was intensely interested in Man. He would not be the sole object of interest in the universe, of course, because angels were made before him. We are not told how they were made; there is no evidence that they live by breath, but they were made before Adam, and before this earth, too, on which Adam was set. For as the earth’s foundations were laid, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God, referring to angels, no doubt, shouted for joy. So that God had objects of interest there in the angels, but none of them is a type of Christ, none of them is the image of God. God intended Man for that great honour. He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”; that is the divine thought; and now He is occupied with Adam and He plants the garden and places him in the garden.
Then it is said that “out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food”. That is a question of providing for Adam; the “sight” would be Adam’s sight, and the eater of the food would be Adam. Jehovah Elohim (the compound name is used indicating that He is entering into close contact with Adam) is going to provide for him and care for him, and if any need arises in Adam’s history, Jehovah Elohim will see to it that it is met. Sin had not yet come in; so there is no need to use the word ‘legitimate’, because everything, so far, was perfect.
[p. 55] Now, applying this to the christian, it is that he is taken up potentially, and the work is to proceed in his formation and development, so that he may meet the divine needs, for God has needs in His affections. And so the believer is taken up by God for His pleasure. The first epistle to the Corinthians regards the saints as “called” — called saints. That does not means that ‘saints’ is their title; it means that God has called them, so that they are available to Him. That epistle develops this great thought of divine care for believers, and how we have been called into the fellowship of God’s Son. God has thought of you long ago, long before you had any existence at all: “Whom he has predestinated, these also he has called; and whom he has called, these also he has justified”. But I am speaking of the calling, and that He foreknew you before He called you. That means that God in His long outlook, back in the countless millenniums of time, or even before time, saw you as you are, born of Him. He has wrought in you now by the Spirit and you have moved on spiritual lines, however little, however feeble, however vague it may be. God sees the whole matter of your history until you are to be established in an unchangeable blessing in eternity. He foreknew you; He foreknew me. Paul says of the Lord that He “loved me and gave himself for me”. That would mean that the Lord had seen Paul in His divine outlook, not as he was, an insolent, overbearing man, and a murderer. In that state there was no attraction in him for the Lord to give Himself for him. It was as wrought upon by God that Paul became lovable to Christ. But he says, He loved me. There was something to love; something which the Lord foreknew; and so great was the love begotten in the heart of Christ for Paul that He gave Himself for him.
[p. 56] Now it should touch our hearts to know that the Lord gave Himself for us because He knew us, not in naughtiness, not in self-will, not in stiffneckedness, but in lovableness; and the point now is to reach that in some concrete way. We are told that “the wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice, but knowest not whence it comes and where it goes, thus is every one that is born of the Spirit”. It is a sovereign matter and has in mind the securing of the believer already known in the divine way. All that is of divine purpose is according to what is lovable. God is going to surround Himself with lovable persons, and their lovableness involves formation. It involves breath, too; that is, the Spirit in us. God has taken us on, knowing us from the beginning, so that He might reach the end He had in mind for us.
Now it is the man whom Jehovah Elohim had formed that He placed in the garden, according to Genesis 2: 8. Our first blessing does not involve responsibility on our part, in the sense that it is based upon the work of Christ — not our works. A young believer is not blessed on the side of responsibility, exactly, but he is given to understand there is such a thing as that. So the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is just said to be there, but the stress is laid on the tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. That is what you need — what is pleasurable to the eye and what is good for food; and God puts us where that is available. He has put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there, but He does not say anything about the responsibility not to eat of it as yet, or the penalty attached to eating it. It is rather that the environment provides a great source of wealth that is enough to overwhelm you; if you have been brought into any need, this is to meet it. The potential richness and the [p. 57] actual riches are overwhelming if we are ready to go in for them. From God’s side they are overwhelming.
And so the river is said to water the garden; and then it flows out from the garden, where Man was. And that is where you and I are. It does not say the river is for Man, but it indicates that it is an immense idea as to what is good and refreshing and enriching. So that you are to be kept in the new sphere into which you have been introduced through the gospel, because it is not only the gospel of salvation; it is the gospel of blessing. We are brought into the blessing that God has prepared for us. But when the river is mentioned as becoming four main streams or heads — for that is the word used — then Adam is placed under responsibility; that is, God would have us first to understand that He has brought us into blessing of extreme delightfulness where nothing at all is omitted that we need. There is a source of refreshment; an unending source of riches, for the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone; there are great potentialities of wealth, and it is all infinite in this realm.
Now in verse 15 we are told that Jehovah Elohim took Man, and put him into the garden of Eden to till and to guard it. That is the next thing; that it is not all pleasure, it is not all gratification and enjoyment. God would say, now, There is work to be done; there is the tilling of the garden and there is the guarding of the garden. There is no mention here of the sweat of the face. That is said later, when sin came in, but not here. It is, so to say, a gentleman’s life. You will understand what I mean. God is setting up man with plenty; with everything that is pleasant to the eye and good for food; beautiful landscape; nothing wanting to please him so far as his needs go. We are not yet told that he needs a companion; we will hear of that later. The young people do need companions, and they need holy
[p. 58] companions, because you will surely become like your companions, and God is going to say, right here in this chapter, that He has the idea of companionship in mind for you. But in the meantime it is a question of what your life is in the new order of things.
So that God has called us into the fellowship of His Son. That is what we are told in 1 Corinthians 1: 9. It is a question of calling; not yet to heaven — that is more Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians. But in Corinthians we are called into the fellowship of God’s Son. And every young person here should begin to look around and see what he has been brought into, and begin to enjoy and partake of the trees. And God would now press upon him that there is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and He commands in regard of that. This is the first time we have a commandment in Scripture. So that if you have begun to look around, with spiritual vision to see what beautiful trees there are, and what food there is, and what a river there is, and what potential wealth there is, you are now to take on responsibility. What I observe with young people is a great lack of acceptance of responsibility to till and to guard the garden that they have been brought into. It is not only that they should not bring anything damaging into the garden — or the local assembly, for that is what is in mind — but they should see that others do not do it. If you are loyal to the fellowship you will not fail to tell of any secret damaging root of evil that is being allowed. That is the guarding. There is the tilling and the guarding. You begin to see that you are wonderfully provided for, and you put your hand out to do something, and that something is to till and to guard the garden. Tilling is not arduous labour; there is no sweat, as I said before. God comes into the garden in the cool of the day, meaning that Adam [p. 59] would be free at that time of the day for a divine visitation. These are beautiful thoughts, because the God that we have to do with is the God that did all these things for Adam. And He is doing them for us; He had us in mind. He would as much as say, You young people will understand that I am not only enlightening you, but I have made a wonderful environment for you, and I am now just seeking to get you to take on a little responsibility. And that is to be in the way of tilling the garden; doing what you can to help the brethren so that there should be fruit to God. And also, you are to guard the position that there should be no evil root in your own heart, practised in secret or cherished in the mind, which will defile, and that you will not condone it in any other person either. You are guarding the position, because Satan will come in if you do not. The record of how the serpent came in is in the next chapter.
In the first epistle to the Corinthians we have all this that I have been speaking about. There is the calling into the fellowship of God’s Son. Think of the magnitude of that! “God is faithful, by whom ye have been called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”. But then there is a commandment. The whole first epistle to the Corinthians is a commandment, and so you get the word “commanded” in this second allusion to Adam’s position in the garden. He is under commandment; later, Jehovah’s commandment is called a covenant, and the thought of the covenant attaches to every believer who has part in the fellowship in the assembly. Now, as it were, God said to Adam, ‘All this I have done for you; I have set you up in My own image and surrounded you with a most attractive environment; there is the river, an infinite source of supply in the garden; and now I have placed you here just to look after things, to guard the position and to till the land’. There is no need for ploughing or harrowing [p. 60] or heavy work; it is just a simple matter of tilling. There may have been some digging, but the word is not used; there is no idea of the sweat of the face, which comes in later. It is God making the position attractive to us, and then He would say, ‘Not only have I done this for you, but I want to draw near to you, to establish Myself in your heart; I want you to be in covenant with Me; I want the position consolidated so that you will have a conscience in regard of any movements of yours that may violate this contract’.
You might think God is becoming more severe. But He would tell you that He likes you so well that He wants the bond sealed, and it is not to be violated. He does not wish it said of you, That young man has transgressed the covenant. He does not want to have to say that of any of us. He does not want to make any historical allusions to our naughty ways; God wishes to set us up as men, able to keep a covenant, as it were. He wants to have us near to Him and have us under the bond of covenant. It is the perfect law of liberty, because we are surrounded with everything that is delightful; and it should be delightfully attractive to us to be in bond with the God who is so good to us, as I may say, who has given Jesus for us.
Well, this is only the fringe of things; it is what God does for the believer. He impresses on us what He has done for us, as He said to His people Israel: “Ye have seen what I have done to the Egyptians, and how I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”, Exodus 19: 4. He wants to draw us into covenant with Him, to have a people near to Him, and to make a nation of priests. These were the thoughts He expressed, to Israel, and He would bring us near, too. And He would enter into covenant with us to place us under responsibility not to violate the position. So that we are in a position [p. 61] of covenant; we are set up in relation to God, and God would be severe as to this matter. He commanded Adam, and said to him, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die”. The time had come for God to be very definite with Adam, and so with us. Dear brethren, we would appeal to the youth as to definiteness. The winds are blowing hard, the storms and the floods are rising, and we had better get our houses built on a rock, which would mean we are to judge all the things that are negative to what we have here. God is rightly severe about this matter of good and evil. It is a crucial matter, and it is imperative that I be exercised about it, for there is penalty attaching to disobedience.
But I go on to verse 18: “And Jehovah Elohim said, It is not good that Man should be alone”. Now we have come to a very interesting matter — a marital matter. Whether in dealing with it spiritually or literally. God would say, I am thinking of you and I can think for you better than you can think for yourself in this matter. He says, “It is not good that Man should be alone”. It is very touching that God should think of us as He thought for Adam. Whether Adam had indicated in some way that he had a pressing need in his heart, we cannot say. But what is presented here is that God had taken account of the need in Adam’s heart, that in spite of this wonderful environment he was still wanting; and it was not good for him to be in that condition. God was thinking of him in that way. This would all be accentuated as it applies to a believer. We are to make our requests known unto God; not simply to speak of them, but to make them known to Him. He is ready to take cognizance of what we say, “Be careful about nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”, Philippians 4: 6. He is ready to take account of the prayers and desires of your heart. But He would have us know that He was thinking of that Himself. You will find that God has always thought for you. How wise to let God think for you!
Now the time has come to bring up this marital question, and every believer is to come to this point, though many have never come to it. There are places where brothers and sisters break bread together, but if the marital thought is not in prospect, such meetings come short; they are questionable. Why not make way for marital relations? We are to be married “to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”, Romans 7: 4. That is something that should come into your heart. As believers we are said to be married to Another who has been raised from the dead. We are not said to be raised from the dead in Romans. We are here in flesh and blood condition, and that is where this matter of marital relations comes in. It is that we may bring forth fruit to God. I touch on that so that the young people may have some thought of what is in the mind of God for them, and think that they are to be companions of the Christ. We are in need of that. Of course, no one should think of literal marriage in relation to Christ. Marriage to Christ is not literal marriage. But if I do not know what it is to be married to Christ, how can I understand what it is to be married according to God? The passage shows how God is thinking of us first, and then thinking for us. He is attracted by His own work in you; He loves you; but He sees the dangers; and now He would say, It is not good that you should be alone.
The next thing is wisdom. Once you reach the marital attitude in christian experience, the question [p. 63] arises as to what wisdom you have. So that, first of all, God is thinking for Adam, that it is not good that he should be alone, but first He tests him to see if he can name things. If you are going to have a husband, or a wife, as the case may be, you should be able to name him, or her; and choose the right name. It is remarkable that God brings up this matter Himself. He saw that Adam was in a state that was not complete, but before proceeding in the matter He would see if Adam was able to name things. How often we are deceived and put the wrong names on things. It is most important, in relation to marriage, that I name things aright. If it is to be “in the Lord”, then I must consider what the person is. Can I name what is in the person?
Well, Adam is tested by an animal. It is a form of life. God has formed that creature and it is to be named; and God brings it to Adam. Now, in doing so, God is testing him out to see if he is equal to the new relation which He has in mind for him. Well, can he name the animals? He has already said of Adam that it is not good for him to be alone. All these creatures refer to certain features of life in christians. Animals are used throughout the Scriptures to represent features of life in men and women. And Adam was able to name each one. And, as I said, this matter is raised before the marital matter is raised. The same is true of the fellowship, I should be able to name the evidences of life; I should not be deceived; for many are deceived and lose their way because of inability to name things or persons. But with Adam, God would say, I am not going to allow things to be spoiled. I will see if Adam is likely to link up with one of the lower creatures. Think of linking up with a monkey or a giraffe! Adam was wise enough to avoid that. The names which he gave illustrate the various features found in persons. Think of persons who grovel in the [p. 64] earth and never look up to God! Think of a believer marrying such an one! The Lord healed a woman who was bowed down for eighteen years. Satan had bound her. She could not lift herself up. The Lord named her condition. Satan had done it.
Well, Adam saw that there was nothing to answer to his mind and affections in the lower creation. His mind repelled any such thought as that. It says that “he found no helpmate, his like”. It was Adam’s own decision. God knew the condition well enough, but Adam decided the answer; he found no helpmate his like. The book of Job tells us how noble some of these creatures are, but Adam would say that none of those creatures was his like.
Adam was qualified now for the divine thought. Whether in natural marriage or spiritual, it is a question of headship, of naming things, of calling persons according to what they are. So that now God can provide what Adam needs; he has shown his qualifications, that he can marry intelligently and that he can marry the object of his affections — one that is like him. That is the position, and God would work the matter out. What a transaction it was! God was thinking of Adam! And He is thinking of believers; every moment He is thinking of you and for you, to provide for the needs of your souls, so that you might be satisfied. You should not go off after the animals or wander about to gratify yourself. Think of God taking measures to meet your needs! He caused Adam to go to sleep. Think of the blessed God causing a man to go to sleep — a deep sleep such as would dull every sensibility in his being, so that He should bring into being what Adam needed. And so He brings a woman forward.
Well, I need not enlarge further upon this, but it is said that God brought the woman to the man, as much as to say that He would go the full length for [p. 65] you in providing for you, potentially; not bringing this creature out of the man and then letting him find her, but he brought the woman to the man. He is still testing him as to whether this new institution is to be in intelligence. He knows what appeals to our intelligence. God is in this marital relation, whether it is spiritual or literal, it is to be a matter of intelligence, otherwise you will have darkness; you will have sorrow untold.
God does not say one word to Adam, but Adam sees the creature and he says, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. It is the rounding out of the position from the divine side, and Adam is unmistakably intelligent as to what he is doing. He sees all things clearly. So he said, “This time it is bone of my bones” — that is in contrast to the bones of the lower creatures — it is now bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh; “this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a man”. The whole position is rounded out in intelligence, so that from the divine side, at least, there is a pattern and type; there is no room for the devil to come in. The sequel shows that the moral side had to be dealt with, but so far the position is rounded out, I am speaking of it, now, as to how the believer’s position is filled out. You are in a wonderful circle and God is providing for every need of your soul; He sets you up in intelligence, and He is asking you to name that brother and that sister. What do you think of them? And so the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians, “I speak as to intelligent persons”. The position is not rounded out until we come to that; it is in that connection that we come into the marital relations, that we are intelligent persons and we know what we are to do. The Lord’s supper is the bond of all that. Before you get the truth of the Supper developed the apostle says, “I speak as to intelligent persons, do ye judge what I say”. You are not a critic, but at [p. 66] the same time you can name the evidences of life, and you can say, I am brought into a wonderful circle. That is really what happened when Eve was brought to Adam, I am brought into the joys of family life in the christian circle; it is the rounding out of the whole position, which involves that I am brought into Ephesian conditions, heavenly, spiritual conditions in the heavenlies in Christ. What is there equal to it? Nothing! We have the very best that God can devise for us, and we are set in heaven with companions that we can love; and they can love us.