Year 2 Day 28

Year 2 Day 28

Pray (ACts)

Read - Mark 1:12-13 Genesis 3:1-9 

Message - Alan Burke

Today we continue on in Mark’s gospel but as we do so we go back to the book of Genesis. You may wonder what Genesis has to do with this passage, yet what takes place here in Mark and what took place in the garden was a trial of obedience. The first man Adam was tempted by Satan in the form of a serpent in the paradise of Eden and Jesus the second Adam was tempted by Satan in the barren, desolate wilderness.

Let’s start with Adam, he was created by God in His image, with the ability that he needed to do what God required (God... made man upright. Eccl 7:29), he had the ability to refrain from sin, he did not have to sin, Satan could not make him, he was not deceived the apostle Paul tell us (1 Tim 2:14), he knew that Satan was tempting him to do something he ought not to do. Adam was surrounded with abundance and God told him, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat” (Gen 2:16). That of course included the tree of life that was also there (Gen 2:9), and since we know that God had freely offered and it all was very good (Gen 1:31) there was no need for Adam to go against God’s word. He was warned how failure to obey would result in a terrible penalty, that of death, for the day he should eat of it he would surely die. The death that God spoke of here was a warning to Adam that the consequence was that of physical as well as spiritual and eternal. We know what happened, Adam gave into the temptation before him and right now we face this terrible penalty, we will all physically die no matter how we pretend that it’ll never happen to us or sanitise our hands and we are born spiritually dead in our trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1). 

Now think of those verses in Mark, two of them. Jesus after his Baptism was at once’ or ‘immediately’ driven out into the wilderness (depending on what translation you have before you) driven out by the Spirit to the wilderness. The wilderness portrayal in scripture is that of an evil, desolate, wasteland, a hostile environment, a dark place that is the opposite of Eden where the first Adam was tempted. This place where Jesus was led immediately and was the opposite to what God intended for his people. Unlike Adam who was surrounded by the beauty and abundance of Eden and lost, Jesus faced Satan in a place of curse and would come out the other side victorious. Jesus would continue to face temptations throughout his life here on earth yet he was victorious throughout, he was sinless unlike you and I, but on the cross he became sin for us. The apostle Paul explains to us what happened because of Adam’s trespass and Christ’s obedience in Romans 5; 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (ESV). Jesus was the second Adam, he was the true and better Adam, he did what Adam did not so we might know life through his obedience and through faith in Christ alone we are made righteous.  

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC
Q40 What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience? The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience, was the moral law. (Rom. 2:14–15, Rom. 10:5)
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