Genesis 3:17b-19

Yesterday we discussed the role of work in our lives. As we saw in Genesis 2:15, man was intended to share in God's creation as caretakers of the Garden of Eden which in Hebrew is synonymous with bliss, paradise or delight. And truly, the garden was a delight. Everything thing that Adam and Eve needed was provided with pleasant work.

But then Adam and Eve rebel against God's few rules of the garden, specifically not to eat of the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When they eat the forbidden fruit (we have this image of the fruit being an apple even though that is not stated anywhere in the text) disobeying God, there is a list of consequences.

One of those consequences is a change in work for man. Instead of a place of fulfilling work in an environment of plenty, Adam is condemned to (Genesis 3:17b-19) "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground."

Notice how the nature of the work has changed. Never mentioned before were the words "sweat" or "toil". Not only toil, but painful toil, working a creation that would not automatically yield plenty. There will be thorns and thistles instead.

And that is our state until Christ returns again to establish the new heaven and new earth. What will happen then? Will there be work? I don't know. What I do know is that we will worship God in perfection and that things will be so different from what we can possibly conceive. It will be perfection in the presence of God and that is enough for me.

Mark