Gary North

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:7-9).

We are born in debt. We die in debt. This is fitting and proper. The debt is to God. Our problems multiply when we indebt ourselves to others besides God.

God created Adam out of the dust of the earth. He breathed life into Adam through Adam's nostrils. Life is a gift from God. This gift of God precedes all other gifts, both in the life of an individual and in the life of mankind.

This gift has strings attached to it. All gifts of God have strings attached to them. These are covenantal strings. Man is dependent on God, and he is in debt to God from the moment of his conception. The covenantal strings that are attached to all men are first presented in the second chapter of Genesis. But they are presented only after a description is presented of God's gifts to mankind.

The first gift is life. The second gift was the garden of Eden. Actually, the text says that it was east of Eden. This garden was distinct from the general creation. God had already created trees and animals before He created man. This second planting was a special place: the garden.

This garden was man's first training area. In military terms, we could call this a boot camp. It was also a place of testing. There were assignments given by God to Adam. First, however, God planted the trees of the garden.

The trees were pleasant to the sight, and they were good for food. God has standards of beauty and taste. The original creation reflected God's aesthetic standards. The garden was not the product of random distribution. It was not the product of random floating seeds or competing species. There was purpose in the garden, and this purpose reflected God's aesthetic standards and man's needs. The trees were also good for food. Adam was blessed from the beginning with the delights of the eye and of the delights of the tongue. God endowed Adam with aesthetic standards analogous to God's aesthetic standards. Adam was made in the image of God. He therefore possessed an analogous system of standards and judgment.

The garden was designed by God to reflect his aesthetic standards, and it was also designed to please Adam, who also possessed analogous aesthetic standards. This means that Adam was the recipient of God's grace in two ways: he possessed God's aesthetic standards, and he was given a garden that reflected these standards. This made it possible for Adam to appreciate God's grace: by providing him with standards and also by placing him in the midst of a garden in which he would gain great enjoyment.

This passage also speaks of four rivers that began in the garden and flowed outward. These rivers would serve as an easy means of transportation in four directions. This meant that Adam's initial assignment in the garden was not to be permanent. We have already read that the general assignment to mankind is to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:26-28). The four rivers would enable Adam and his descendants to spread across the entire region at a low cost.

The water would also provide a way to replenish the earth. Water is the basis of the preservation of life. It was never the origin of life, but it is the basis of maintaining life once life is created.

One of the rivers flowed to the land of Havilah. In Havilah there was gold, and the gold was good. There were also other minerals. They would therefore be reasons for Adam and his descendants to choose the river Pison when it came time to explore new territories in search of valuable assets. There would be an economic reason for men to leave the garden and explore new territories.

MAN'S FIRST ASSIGNMENT

The passage says that God took Adam and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. This was the first specific assignment to mankind. Man was placed in a garden which he did not create. In that garden, he began life within incomparable blessings. All of this was grace to him.

Now, he was given an assignment. He was told by God that it was his responsibility to dress the garden and keep it. This meant that he was to improve it, and he was to defend it. In other words, he was to serve as a guardian. But he was not just a guardian; he was also a gardener. He was to develop the original asset which had been given to him by God.

From an ethical standpoint, everything was perfect. God had said at the end of each day that His work had been good. The goodness of creation was basic to the first week of creation. The garden was a good place to live in. But it was not a perfect place to live in. It would need further attention from Adam. Adam received something that was flawless, yet he was also to improve it. He received something wonderful, and he was supposed to make it even more wonderful. He was to take the aesthetic judgment that God had given to him by grace, and he was to improve the environment based on this aesthetic judgment and also based on work. He was to apply the standards of beauty which God had given to him to his immediate surroundings.

He operated under God's authority, and he was responsible to God for the proper care of the asset which God had transferred to him. Adam began as a steward of God's resources. But he would also be the beneficiary of these resources, because they were pleasing to look at and good to taste. So, acting as a steward, he had responsibility upwards to God and downward toward the creation. He was to give an account of himself to God, but he was also to improve the garden. In other words, he was told to add value to it.

What was true of Adam is true of each of us. Each of us is given an assignment by God. Actually, we are given many assignments. But there is one assignment for each of us that is central to his or her life. In Adam's case, this was the development and care of the garden. This was a specific assignment. This was not a dominion in general; it was dominion specifically.

STRINGS ATTACHED

We are told that God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was a reason for this. This became Adam's testing ground. God told him that he should not eat of it. He told him also that in the day that he did eat of it he would surely die. This placed a "No Trespassing" sign around this tree. This was God's exclusive property. Any invasion of this property by Adam would constitute theft. In this case, theft was a capital crime. God would kill them.

When I previously said that grace comes with strings attached, I had in mind both the work that God assigned to Adam and the test that God presented to Adam. Adam would not be allowed to continue his work in the garden if he violated God's property. Adam could touch anything else, eat anything else, improve anything else, or cut down anything else. But there was one restriction: he was not allowed to eat the fruit of a specific tree.

In everyone's life, there are general rules and regulations. These begin with what we call the Ten Commandments. There are other laws given by God that are associated with one or another of the Ten Commandments. These laws constitute the equivalent of the law against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We are under far more laws than Adam was. There is grace shown to us in every area of our lives, but there are restrictions associated with the legal use of these blessings. Grace precedes law. Grace never comes apart from law.

If this were not the case, then the atonement of Jesus Christ at Calvary was a case of God the Father's overkill. If law is not associated with grace, then the grace of Jesus Christ that is extended to His people is unnecessary. Sin is rebellion against the law, but it is even more a rebellion against God's grace. This is why Paul wrote this. "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid"(Romans 6:14--15).

God later showed grace to Adam and Eve, despite their rebellion, by not executing them on the day they ate, and by clothing them with animal skins. I will discuss this issue later in this commentary. I mention it here only to remind you that grace comes at a price. When God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins, He had to kill the animals. Similarly, when God clothed us with the grace of Jesus Christ, He had to kill Jesus Christ. Grace comes at a price. That is because grace is always associated with law.

Jesus Christ had to die on Calvary in order to atone for the sins of His people, because His people constantly break the law. As surely as Adam broke the law in his perfection, the sons of Adam break lots of laws in their imperfection. Adam had only one thing that was prohibited, and he immediately, or close to immediately, violated the law. In our imperfection, we have many laws that we must obey, and we constantly break them.

LAWS OF FINANCE

All of this leads to a point: there are laws of financial responsibility. We find that the sons of Adam constantly violate these laws. They pay a heavy price for the violation of these laws.

We find also that those who are the adopted sons of God, by means of the grace shown to them through Jesus Christ, violate the same financial laws that the sons of Adam violate. They find themselves in similar positions of weakness and desperation. The fact that they are the recipients of God's grace does not change the fact that they are supposed to obey the laws of finance. When they disobey the laws of finance, they find themselves under the same negative sanctions that the sons of Adam must bear for violating the same laws of finance.

This is why it is silly to say that we are under grace and not law. Of course we are under grace. The fact that we are under grace is what places us under law. Adam was the recipient of enormous grace, but he was immediately placed under law. God warned him that he would suffer the consequences for violating this law.

Similarly we are given enormous grace by God, both as the sons of Adam and is the sons of God through adoption by Jesus Christ. But we, just like Adam, are under law. Grace precedes law. It is not that we are originally under law, and are the recipients of grace only after we are under the law. We are under grace from the beginning, but grace is always accompanied by law. It is when we find that we are under the burden of law that it points us back to grace. The fact that we are under the curses of the law is supposed to point us to faith in Jesus Christ as our only means of deliverance.

So, it is ridiculous to say that you can do anything you want with your finances, and God is somehow obligated out of grace to bless whatever you do. He is under no obligation to bless whatever you do, when what you do includes the violation of many of God's laws of finance. Not only is God not under any obligation to bless you, He is under an explicit obligation to curse your efforts, just as He was obligated to curse Adam's efforts (Gen. 3:17-19). This is how He reminds you to trust in Jesus Christ and His deliverance. If He did not do this, you would not have come to Christ in the first place. When you were saved by grace, you were saved from the inevitable consequences of your sin. "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4).

So, with respect to the laws of finance, you are under law precisely because you were under grace even before you were placed under law. Everything that you have received from God is by grace. You did not earn any of it. You did not deserve any of it. So, all of the blessings which you have received at the hand of God should remind you that you are under the laws of God. This is why you had better understand the laws of finance, and once you understand them, you had better obey them.