2.13.1 The Promises in Eden have practical implications; or, The Woman Of Tekoah

The essential conflict between the righteous and the world as prophesied in Gen. 3:15 is brought out throughout Scripture- e.g.. "an unjust man is an abomination to the righteous; and he that is upright in the way [i.e. righteous] is an abomination to the wicked" (Prov. 29:27 RV). That conflict is articulated moment by moment in our internal struggles, as well as in our relationships in this world. The events of Eden have practical significance insofar as they provide an explanation of where we as individuals are coming from, both physically and morally. Only Biblical Christianity can give any firm answer as to the question of origins. Adam’s fall beneath the power of temptation is of course our pattern. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life were the quintessence of the temptation in Eden, just as it is in our hearts and lives to this day. It was the desire for knowledge which was Eve’s downfall; and the essence of this is found in our tacit, unspoken desire to be justified by knowledge today. There is the feeling that because we ‘know the truth’, because we have what we consider to be the true interpretations of the book called the Bible, therefore and thereby we are justified with God, we are somehow walking with the Lord. But knowledge alone cannot justify.

The wise woman of Tekoah understood the implications of the promise in Eden when she tells David that “neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him” (2 Sam. 14:14). Whom did God banish? Adam, and all his children. But God ‘devised means’ through the promises of Gen. 3:15 so that this banishment was not permanent expulsion. The means devised was the death and resurrection of His Son, the seed of the woman. But the woman’s point was that therefore, David ought to restore his sinful son, whom he had banished- for “the king doth not fetch home again his banished” (2 Sam. 14:13). Her point was that as God sought to restore His banished sons, through the pain and cost to Him of the blood of His Son, so we ought to likewise be inspired to win back the banished. And so we look to those banished from ecclesial life by disfellowship, church politics, personal animosities of past decades, or simply their own outright sins; or those marginalized by poverty, education, disability, health, geography…these are the banished whom we ought to be winning back. And the force majeur in all this arises from the implications of those promises in Eden. Truly the woman of Tekoah was, as she is described, a “wise woman”.