II. SAVING MAN FROM HIS FALL
Man became fallen to such a miserable state. Surely such a fallen man could do nothing to help himself out of such a fallen state. Only the wise and almighty God could afford a full and dynamic salvation to the man created by Him and spoiled by His adversary. Furthermore, He, as the unchanging and everlasting God, could not have any change in annulling His eternal economy which He made in His Divine Trinity in eternity past and for eternity future. He had to rescue the man whom He had created for His unchanging purpose, and He did it!
Furthermore, what God created for His purpose according to His good pleasure was a wonderful, excellent, marvelous, and precious man. In the eyes of God, man in his original created state was most excellent, marvelous, and precious. We may even say that in Genesis 2 man became God’s pleasure. Hence, God loved man (John 3:16)! He would save him at any cost, even at the cost of sacrificing His only begotten Son!
This is why even in eternity past Christ as the Second of the Divine Trinity was preparing to come into time (Micah 5:2) to die for fallen man according to the divine determination made in the council of the Divine Trinity in eternity past (Acts 2:23 and note 1; 1 Pet. 1:19-20).
Thus, God came in to save man from his fall. Genesis 3 tells us that God came to visit the man whom He had created and who had become fallen and lost. When God came to Adam after his fall, He called to Adam, saying, "Where are you?" (v. 9). It was as if God were saying, "Where are you? You have become lost, so I have come to seek you. You have become fallen, so I have come to rescue you." That was God’s visitation to Adam. This was the first case of "door knocking" in the whole universe. God was knocking on Adam’s door to visit Adam. Man had not yet invented physical dwelling places, so there was not a physical door on which God could knock. But God came to knock on the door of Adam’s heart. He came to seek Adam because Adam had become lost.
When God found Adam, He had a kind of gospel conversation, gospel talk, with him. The first gospel talk is recorded in Genesis 3. The first lesson for those who intend to visit people with the gospel is in Genesis 3. We should learn how to talk to a fallen man.
The first thing God uttered was, "Where are you?" Adam responded by saying, "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself" (v. 10). This indicates that when we talk to the sinners whom we visit, we have to spend some time to help them realize where they are. We need wisdom to do this. The way is not to tell them where they are but to let them tell us. God was very clear where Adam was, but God would not say anything. Instead He asked, "Adam, where are you?" Adam told his story to God. Then God preached the gospel.
The first thing in the preaching of the gospel is to condemn the serpent. The serpent was cursed by God in Genesis 3. God said to the serpent, "Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (v. 14). This indicates that formerly Satan, the serpent, was standing and walking. Now he is cursed to go upon his belly along the earth and cursed to eat the dust. Now he is altogether something belonging to the earth. In God’s condemnation of Satan, He gave Satan a limitation: he cannot move above the earth, and he cannot eat anything except dust.
(The History of God in His Union With Man, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee)
