Redemption

My wife and I were sitting in the living room earlier this week after the kids went to bed, and I forget what I was reading that prompted this comment, but I said something along the lines of, "It seems like God is going to pretty much give to those he saves what Adam and Eve were looking for when they sinned." I got a well-deserved funny look. Read Genesis 3 to understand what I was saying:

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:4-6 ESV)

Adam and Eve were seeking to be like God, and though we're made in the image of God (so we're already like him to some degree), I believe he will make us more like him than we could have ever been in our pure humanity.

The main question about my statement was one of the degree of redemption. Isn't God simply restoring us, to be like Adam and Eve were as they were first created, when God saves us through his Son? The answer is yes, but he's also making us so much more!

God is restoring his elect to be like Adam and Eve again. That happens in some ways now, but God will complete the work [Phil 1:6] when we enter his presence in heaven.

• Our relationship with God becomes personal (Jeremiah 31:33)
• We will not sin (Rev 21:27, Rev 22:15)
• We will not die (Rev 21:4)
• Our home will be like the garden of Eden (Rev 22:1-2)

Already in the list are hints of the ways God's redemptive work is better than simple restoration. When God created Adam and Eve, they possessed all the blessings listed above, but they also had the potential to stumble and fall from God's grace (which, of course, they did rather swiftly). God will remove that potential, and because he bought us with a price, he will be faithful to us for all eternity. So we inherit the perfection of Adam and Eve once again, but the primary reason God's redemption is so much better is that we will possess the perfection of Christ. We will be glorified. We will be fully conformed to the image of Christ. In the same way that Jesus is the good and better everything (Adam, covenant, sacrifice, prophet, king, priest, etc.), the work he accomplishes in us will be a good and better copy of the work of Adam's creation. We will be a new creation.

• We will live in the presence of God (Rev 21:3, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man." That sentence needs an exclamation point!)
• There cannot be sin, sickness, pain or death (Rev 21:4)
• Life will be eternal joy and comfort (Psalm 16:11)

The primary reason I made the original statement, however, is that God will give us wisdom. We will have knowledge like God. I don't think we'll be omniscient, for we are not God, but we will clearly have knowledge of good and evil, and we will have a measure of the wisdom of God that Adam and Eve could never have had before the fall. We will intimately know the saving wisdom of Jesus Christ. And Paul says that one day we shall see clearly, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" (1 Cor 13:12). So that which Adam and Eve were seeking, God is giving it to us, and so much more. He is giving us himself.

"He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev 22:20)