This transcript was autogenerated

There is one final part to this passage we’ve been looking at these last few days and in the last 3 verses of chapter three, and it simply says; 

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.” So, the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

(Gen 3: 22-24) 

So, God drives them out and he put a guard at the entrance of paradise so they can’t get back in. I want to explain this because I think it's important. God, just as he said he would, expels them out of the garden and He wouldn’t let them back in. As a matter of fact, he saw to it that they couldn't get back in. He places Cherubim at the entrance to the garden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way of the tree of life. God had already said’ you can't eat the tree and know sin, and still stay in Paradise. God says, I can’t let that happen. I believe preventing them to go back and eat from the tree of life at this point was a great act of mercy. 

How was that merciful you might ask? As sinners if they ate the tree of life and lived forever and the implication would be is that they would have lived forever as sinners. God had a better plan - a much better plan. God’s plan is to ensure that the penalty of their sin could be met and the penalty of sin was death. In God plan sin can be dealt with, death can come, but there can also forgiveness and resurrection to a new and perfect life. Therefore, by excluding them from the garden and prohibiting them from going back was in fact an act of grace and love. 

I asked a few episodes back, if once humanity had been kicked out of the garden did that mean that Paradise is never retainable again. Once lost can Paradise be found again. Genesis 3 indicates that man's relationship with God can be restored but his residence in the garden is permanently blocked. On the one hand Adam believe God and he was clothed with the future righteousness of Christ. In that sense his relationship to the Lord was restored but he was excluded permanently from entering the garden again and eating of the tree of life. What happened to Adam profoundly and permanently affected the human race right down to this day. Let me quote Paul Romans chapter 5.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned.

(Rom 5: 12) 

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! 

(Rom 5:17) 

On one hand “we all like sheep have gone astray”, we all sin, that's our nature v12, We have each turned to our own way - that's our choice v17. What Adam did that day has affected us all because now we are all born under the power of sin. Some are going to object to that and say but that's not my fault. I wasn't there when Adam sinned, I didn’t do that. I didn't even vote for Adam. Let me respond to that statement by saying, What the bible teaches is that if we also had we been in the garden of Eden that day we would have done the same thing as Adam did that day. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.  

Can we have a relationship with God? Can the image of God be re-stored in humanity? Can we ever get back to the garden relationship with God? These are the questions that these early verses in Genesis pose and the rest of book and indeed the entire Bible is an answer to those profound questions. And we shall look at the first of those answers contained within the next few verses of Genesis next time.