God created all things and gave a right to a man to rule and govern and own all things in the world. But God forbade mankind to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God commanded the man not to eat the fruit saying, “When you eat of it you will surely die.”(Genesis 2:17) However, the first man Adam ate the fruit against the word of God. (Genesis 3:6) At that moment, death came to Adam as God said “You will surely die.” In addition, all the people born from Adam, the ancestor of mankind are destined to die as God said. No matter how badly we struggle to live, there’s no chance of living since God said, “You will surely die.”
God sent his Son Jesus Christ in order to save all mankind who are destined to suffer eternally in hell after living under the sins. The promise of God made to save mankind appears several times since chapter 3 of Genesis. The promise was realized so God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans and said, “Go to the land I will show you.”(Genesis12:1) And the Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”(Genesis18:10)
There was Noah before Abraham but Abraham is an ancestor of faith. The reason is that the Genealogy of Jesus Christ who is our faith starts from Abraham. (Matthew 1:1) When we look at genealogy, there are many people we don’t understand ethically. There is a pagan, a prostitute, and a son between daughter-in-law and father-in-law. We really don’t understand ethically.
This means the grace of the Lord God transcends human thought. Jesus did not come to the world through the ones who are suitable for the blood or ethically or morally to save mankind but through the ones who are hunger and thirst for righteousness and faith for God.
Pastor Seok-Jeon Yoon
Extracted from Yonsei Newspaper #679
