Thursday, 28 July 2016
GOD’S PRIMEVAL DUAL BLESSINGS TO MAN
God blessed them, saying to them: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (The African Bible)
Greeting to you beloved of God. I am very happy to see you here once again, it is a great sign that you are really going deeper in your search for that water of life, what we call here the pilgrim’s food. Now I want to take you to this verse as written already above. I believe you are already conversant with the previous verses; if not, just take few minutes and read through your scripture, so that you will not be lost. God bless you.
This very verse presents to us the first blessing of God upon humanity. I termed it “primaeval dual blessing”. Now see what fascinates me in this verse. It is as if God has been longing to dish out blessings. At this point in time, he has finished the work of creation; it is now time to bless. It is so lovely to see the fatherly traits God displays in this verse. The action of blessing shows that God was at peace and in love with man. He wanted to give them all that is good. Remember in Genesis 1:31, God had already looked at the world and saw that it was good; so God is not just giving them something he had no idea of. He looked at his great work of creation and approved man to be worthy of being its caretaker. He never doubted man. He believed in man. It is as if love intoxicated God at that moment because we know that God sometimes loves giving test before he bestows a particular mission on people. But in this case, he just gave it to man – his cherished creation! What do you think of that? Do you think that man can handle this great responsibility?
Now let us make a proper analysis of this verse. He gave man dual blessings and we shall evaluate these blessings very carefully. First God blessed Adam and say “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”. There is a very salient message here and I want you to pay keen attention. Remember that during this moment of blessing, Adam is placed in the paradise. In fact, paradise was meant to be the dwelling place of man (Genesis 2:8). And look at what the blessing says, “…fill the earth”, not fill the paradise. Does it not suggest that God already had the foreknowledge of the fall of man? I think yes is the only feasible answer. Can you imagine such great love? God even knew that Adam will fall and yet his love for him still endures. He put him in paradise to enjoy the blessings of paradise lest we say that he never gave us the opportunity, and also in doing that he gave us his blessing and prepared a good place (earth) for us lest we say that he didn’t make any plans for humanity after the fall. What else do we have to complain about?
Another thing we should also observe from these blessings is the fact that God didn’t bless Adam within paradise. He didn’t give any blessing regarding his stay in paradise because paradise is already blessed. The blessings he gave them is what Saint Ephraim calls "a blessing of promise". This means that the blessings were meant to come to pass after man must have fallen. This blessing is an antidote or what I may call a lessening dose to the curse which God will give to the earth after the fall of man. So, even before the fall of man, God had already settled everything to still benefit us and save us.
I cannot imagine why anybody should accuse this loving God as being the cause of evil in the world. We are suffering today because we have failed to take care of this planet God had given to us. We plunder, reap, ravage and destroy it without any remorse. My dear child of God, one thing we should understand is that we are all knitted together in a symbiotic relationship. Whatever we do to nature affects us. We are now lamenting about greenhouse effects, gas emission, ozone depletion, ice melting, oil spillage and all sorts of natural disasters. These are just a tip of an iceberg compared to what lies ahead in wait if we do not stop the evils we are committing against nature. The edict God give to man to "subdue" and have "dominion" over the earth is not that of plunder and destruction but care and tender.
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