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What Fathers Are For (Father Hunger 2)

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The fact that God is a perfect Father is a two-edged sword, and we must take care that we not emphasize just one of them—lest we damage our souls . . . and our families. God is a perfect Father, and we are fallen creatures. This means that God is a perfect Father as an example, in front of us, and this means that we always fall short. This is one edge. This is why a series of messages on biblical fatherhood could be filled with condemnation. But here is another edge, cutting and piercing, but not like a sword slash in battle. It is more like a surgeon’s scalpel, bringing healing and restoration. God is not only a perfect Father in front of sinners, He is a perfect Father to sinners. He does for us what fathers ought to do. And so it is that we are not consumed.

The Text

“And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15).

Summary of the Text

This is of course from the creation account. Just prior to this verse, we have a description of the Garden of Eden, and of the two trees that God placed in it (v. 9). We are told about the goodly rivers that came from the one river flowing from Eden (v. 10), and we are also told of the metals and precious stones to be found there (v. 12). Just after our verse, we have the prohibition of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 17), and a description of the creation of the woman (v. 18ff.).

In verse 15, the Lord God took the man, put him in the place prepared for him, and gave him his directions. He was put into the Garden in order to do two things. He was put there to “dress” and to “keep” it. These two verbs describe for us what men are for. The word for dress means to tend, or till, or serve. The word for keep means to watch, keep, protect, preserve. And so Adam was placed in the Garden, and he was told to provide for it, and to protect it. Those marching orders took on a much higher level of significance in the verses that follow, when Eve was created. She was a garden within this garden, and so he was called to provide for her, and to protect her.

The command that is given in verse 17 gives us the sin of commission that Adam was guilty of (Gen. 3:6). But we often overlook the sin of omission that was clearly involved. He was told to provide for his wife, and yet the serpent came to her and provided for her. He was told to protect his wife, and yet he stood by and failed to protect his wife from the serpent. He had been given the prohibition before she was created, and he knew directly from God what he was supposed to do. So be assured of this—when you find yourself doing something you ought not be doing, it is almost always preceded by a neglect of something you ought to have been doing, and yet did not.

Justification and Sanctification

Godly fatherhood (on a day-to-day basis) must absolutely be based on the free grace of God that is offered to us in Christ Jesus. We are justified in Him, which means that when God looks at you, considering whether to deal with you at all, what He sees is the absolute perfection of Jesus Christ. In the free justification that God offers (because of the cross), what kind of father are you? You are a perfect father, because Christ was and is perfect, and His perfection has been imputed to you. This sets you free from the curse of condemnation (Rom. 8:1), and it means that you can set about the work of being a father to your children without fear or guilt. The things you will apply as you and your wife give yourselves to the work of being Christian parents belongs entirely to the realm of sanctification. In being a father, you are not trying to earn anything from God (for all has already been given). You are rather trying to give something to your children, in free imitation of the free gift that has been given to you.

Never forget the gospel in this. You are not a bramble bush trying to grow an apple so that you might be turned into an apple tree as a reward. You are not a coyote going baa baa in order to turn into a sheep.

Provision

All that said, your natural instinct with your children should be yes. Not the yes of a push-over, or the yes of a fearful and craven doormat, but the yes of a father. And when you say no (think ahead to the second category of protection), you are doing it because the yes involved is as plain as anything to you, and is still invisible to your children. All they can see is no, but you should know better. You say no to candy before dinner because you want to say yes with the dinner. You say no to lazing around on the couch because you want to say yes to the productivity of a lifelong work ethic. In this realm, motive is everything.

Fathers who say no simply because they can are being diabolical fathers. What do demons do? They say no just because (1 Tim. 4:3).

A man who does not provide for his household is involved in denying the faith, and is worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:8).

Protection

We must not allow ourselves a false and pristine view of the nature of the unfallen world. The first bloodshed was before the fall, when God took a rib from the side of Adam (Gen. 2:21). The sleep that Adam was put into was a type of death, before the fall. Death and resurrection patterns are more violent now (John 19:34), but they nonetheless existed before the fall. And God required an unfallen man to protect an unfallen woman from an enemy, and He required this before either of them had sinned. They sinned because they did not treat that enemy as an enemy. So fighting did not bring in sin. A lack of fighting brought in sin. Had war broken out in the Garden, it would still have been a perfect world. It would have remained a perfect world.

Fathers, what does a protector do? What does a watchman on a tower do? What does a security guard by the doorway do? He looks for enemies. He is suspicious. He is suspicious on behalf of his teenaged daughters (who are as a class not suspicious), and he should do this with a fierce loyalty. When a daughter says that “some boy” is “so nice,” a father’s eyes should narrow. But your model for security should be that of a fierce Levite with a spear guarding the sanctuary, and not a TSA agent full of hassles for everybody. Again, why are you saying no?

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The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The Lord Jesus was born in this world in order to reestablish mankind. The first mankind in Adam had failed at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so Jesus was born into this world in order to rebuild the ruin we had created here. Our celebrations at this time of year are dedicated to a remembrance of what He came in order to do. And as we remember, and understand it more fully, that work which He has accomplished is actually advanced in our midst. As you set up a Christmas tree in your living room, remember that in Scripture a tree can be a place of great folly or of great wisdom. Adam disobeyed at a tree, and Jesus obeyed on one.

The Text

“But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

“But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:14).

Background to the Texts

We all know that there was one prohibited tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Note that the tree of life was not prohibited (Gen. 2:16), but once sin had entered the world it went off limits— lest we should eat from it in a rebellious condition and live forever that way, unredeemable (Gen. 3:22, 24). So God in His mercy barred the way to the tree of life, until it was opened up again in and through the gospel (Rev. 2:7). But what about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

So we need to take a moment to consider what that phrase means, and what it does not mean. The two basic alternatives are that it was bad for us to have knowledge of the difference between good and evil, period, or that the prohibition was temporary, and the sin was in grasping for something prematurely. We should be able to see that it was the latter by how God responds to the situation when our first parents disobeyed.
And it cannot mean experience of sin. The Lord said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). The serpent earlier had promised that this knowledge would make them “as God” (or gods), “knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Millennia later, the author of Hebrews does not identify this ability to distinguish sin from righteousness in itself, but rather with maturity, with the capacity to handle “strong meat.”

Too many Christians assume that a pre-fall lack of the knowledge of good and evil was a total blank innocence, no ethical categories at all. But if this were the case then how would Adam have been able to fall into sin? How would he have known it was evil to eat from the prohibited tree? No, the knowledge of good and evil here has to mean something more than a simple knowledge of the difference between right and wrong.

Preparation for Rule

God had created mankind to rule over creation and all creatures (Gen. 1:27-30). In learning how to judge and rule the created order, man really would be like God (Ecc. 12:14). Entering into that rule would have been a transition from immaturity to maturity, and not a transition from moral cluelessness into an ability to tell right from wrong. Kings make judgments. They have to be able to discern right and wrong in the case before them.

Now it is quite true that the Bible often speaks of “good” and “evil” in the simple moral categories of individuals learning to love good and hate evil. But when we talk about this kind of discernment, we are talking about the ability to tell good from almost good, to discern the difference between white and off-white. Because God created us for rule, He created us for this. And when our first parents ate this forbidden fruit, they were grabbing for rule prematurely, before God gave it to them as a gift.

What Children Don’t Do, What Kings Do

Consider the language of Scripture. “Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither . . .” (Dt. 1:39; cf. Jer. 4:22). This was true of a type of the Messiah, the child born in fulfillment of the promise to Isaiah. “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel . . . for before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings” (Is. 7:14-16). Extreme old age prevents a man from being able to serve as a judge between good and evil, as Barzillai observed: “I am this day fourscore years old: and can I discern between good and evil . . .?” (2 Sam. 19:35).

And how did Solomon please the Lord when a vision was given to him at Gibeon? Even though he sacrificed in the high places, he did love the Lord (1 Kings 3:3). When the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him to ask for whatever he would have, Solomon’s answer pleased the Lord (1 Kings 3:10). So what did Solomon ask for? He said first that he was “but a little child” (1 Kings 3:7), and so what deficiency did he think needed to be corrected? “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people” (1 Kings 3:10)?

Growing Up in Jesus

We are called to understand the world so that we might grow up into a maturity that is capable of ruling the world. The author of Hebrews knows and understands the creation mandate. He quotes Ps. 8, and says that we do not yet see everything subject to mankind—but we do see Jesus (Heb, 2:9). The world to come is not subject to angels, but to mankind (Heb. 2:5ff). Mankind in Christ is therefore being fitted for godly rule (Heb. 5:14). Because we grabbed the forbidden fruit out of order, we have needed to be retro-fitted for it, but this is what is happening.

In the child Jesus, given to us at Christmas, our response should be the same as that of the wise men. We look at a little child and we see a king. And all around you, you should see princes.

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Ruth 4: Tamar And Ruth

Joe Harby on

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The Genealogy of Matthew 1

Although the idea of Mary’s immaculate conception had been held by some within the church for centuries, the doctrine was not formally embraced by the Roman Catholic Church until Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that it was official dogma.

The idea behind the doctrine is that it just seems like the Messiah, who would be the perfect and sinless lamb of God, could not be born of a woman who had been stained by sin. And so Mary must have been kept completely pure for Jesus’ sake. But if we pay close attention to the Genealogy of Matthew 1, we will see that Matthew is highlighting something very different. Bathsheba, Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, and Mary – these five women are the only women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. If we wanted to talk about the purity of Jesus’ line, the author clearly picked a lot of the wrong women here.

Tamar

In Genesis 38 we read the story of Tamar.

Rejected

First Tamar loses her husband. Then she is rejected, in the most humiliating way, by Onan. In doing this, Onan was saying that it would be better for his seed to rot on the ground than to be in Tamar’s womb. Then Onan dies and Judah himself, in a very dishonest way, rejects her again and she is sent away to live with her father.

Defiant

But Tamar refuses to take this. She sees what Judah is doing and she hatches a plan. Just as Judah’s father, Jacob, got what had been rightfully his by deceiving Isaac, so too Tamar tricks Judah into giving her what was rightfully hers.

Righteous

When the whole story is over, Tamar is the one who is declared righteous. And she is the one who is included in Jesus’ genealogy. We have to remember that throughout this whole story, this Tamar fighting for the line of the Messiah.

Ruth

And then there is Ruth, the Moabitess. Although it might not jump right out at you at first, Ruth is clearly being described to us as being another Tamar. It might seem strange because Ruth is not nearly as scandalous in her behavior as Tamar, but the author had Tamar in mind when he told the story of Ruth.

They are in very similar situations. Both are foreign wives, taken by young Israelite men as they wandered with their fathers away from Israel. The husbands of both women died childless, leaving their widowed wives with the choice of returning to the home and gods of their fathers or of clinging to the hope that they might still find a place within the family of Israel, the people of the one true God.

Defiant

Unlike her sister-in-law, Orpah, Ruth refuses to leave Naomi, “Your people will be my people, and your God, will be my God.” And then again, when she understands who Boaz is, she insists on being with him.

Rejected

Ruth’s rejection is less obvious, but when Boaz agreed to be her kinsman-redeemer he tells her that there is another man who is closer to her, who is really the first in line. However, when Boaz puts the matter before this man, Palony Almony, he rejects Ruth because he is concerned that she will ruin his inheritance.

Righteous

Boaz declares that Ruth is blessed (3:10), because her covenant faithfulness has steadily increased. And he proclaims her to be a “virtuous woman” (3:11).

Ruth as Tamar

As the story of Ruth ends, the author of Ruth gives us several more obvious hints that we should be thinking of Ruth as another Tamar. First, the elders in the gates of Bethlehem give a blessing that explicitly compares the two women (4:12). Second, the chapter concludes with a brief genealogy, beginning with Tamar’s son Perez and going to Ruth’s great grandson David (4:18-22).

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba as the Church

The last bit of genealogy in Ruth places the coming of King David in the context of the lives of these women. As David is the picture of the king to come, King Jesus, these women picture the bride that Jesus would take, sinful and rejected by men. These women, despite their rejection, cling to the covenant family with all that they have. What would it look like for someone to be in that position in our midst?

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