“For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the LORD, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory; but they would not listen” (Jeremiah 13:11).
The glory of man, as he was created, was that he was able to walk in the presence of God; this is what Adam did. Everything was provided by God in the relationship – eternal life, nourishment, divine fellowship, protection from evil, and authority over all of creation. All that was required of man was to obey the one commandment that God gave him: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
Obedience to this commandment was the one condition of man’s abiding continually in the presence of God and enjoying that relationship eternally; it was the only virtue that man had to bring to the relationship. While he obeyed, Adam had all that God had to offer; there was nothing else required of him.
In the event, this was too much for Adam and it has been too much for God’s people ever since. Yet God hasn’t changed; obedience is still the only pre-requisite to a living relationship with a living God. The disobedient may not abide in His presence; hence, we have religion.
But, in spite of what men may believe, God is the same as He ever was; He is unchangeable and unshakeable and He will have obedient children or He will not have children at all; there is no place in between. Suggestions to the contrary stand in opposition to the whole counsel of God and amount to religious mythology.
The centrality of obedience to the living relationship with God is not only shown at the beginning of God’s revelation to man in the Book of Genesis, but also at the end:
“Blessed are those doing His commandments, so that their authority will be to the tree of life, and they may enter by the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14).
The garden containing the tree of life was shut up because of disobedience – “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24) – and it will only be opened up for the obedient. That much the scripture plainly teaches.
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