06.1.3. The Fruit of Man's Way

III. -- THE FRUIT OF MAN’S WAY BUT what are the real fruits of this way? The first is a bad conscience: -- "Their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). Then under a sense of their shame, they seek to hide it. "They sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

Such a conscience, such an "opening of the eyes," though it may precede conversion to God, is not conversion. It is not even one of the good things which survived the fall. It was acquired in the fall, and in itself drives man away from God, and only proves that he now sees himself. Man cannot bear his condition, or change it; therefore he hides it. But hiding it is not repentance. Where there is true repentance, there is ever open and unreserved confession. So they made for themselves "aprons," not coats. "God made them coats" (Genesis 3:21); but they were content to hide so much only of their nakedness as they saw before them. God covers all by that which has died. But as long as the shame alone of sin is upon us, we shall seek to hide it, rather than to find atonement. Some creature or gift of God will be used, to keep us from seeing what we are, and to hide us from our own eyes. This is the reason why men so love the world, because the utter loss of outward things would shew us what poor, naked, shameful, restless, aching souls we are; while the abundance of outward things in some measure hides this from us, and keeps us from the humiliating perception of what we are. Should not then our shame be hid? Surely. God would have it covered, but with that which, while it covers, is also a witness of our true state, -- which confesses what we are, and that sin has brought death, though almighty grace out of death brings forth righteousness. This leads to a further fruit of sin. "They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord" (Genesis 3:8). God has now to call out to them, "Where art thou?" How comes it you are not with me? Oh, how much is there in these words! God finds His creatures hiding from Him. He would let them learn the position into which they have brought themselves by disobedience. Does He do this by reproaches? He simply says, -- Where art thou? How comes it you are not with me? Adam had his excuse at hand, and man’s excuse is yet the same. In this excuse of Adam’s we may see a yet further fruit of disobedience. Guilty man attempts to clear himself by throwing blame upon some other one (Genesis 3:12-13). The righteous ever justify God; the sinner’s great mark is self-justification; accusing God, or man, or Satan, without one word of self-renunciation. And, observe, the excuses were all true, but no recognition of God’s claims or open confession of guilt is to be found in them. God asks, -- How comes it you are not with me? We answer, -- Because some creature has beguiled us; which is true, but no fit answer for a sinner. Nor does it spring from, nor produce a good conscience. And truth without a good conscience will not help; rather it may become a snare, serving to root us in the most awful self-deception. Admitting sin is not confessing it. Extorted concession is not confession. But if God has not His place, all spiritual sense is gone. That which has made us err in heart, makes us err in understanding also. But there are other fruits of sin more external, and having to do with man’s body and his dwelling place. The earth is cursed, and henceforth sorrow and toil are to be man’s due portion, until he return to the dust whence he was taken (Genesis 3:16-19): a lot which seems hard, and yet is mercy; by toil to draw man out of self, and then by death to destroy him that hath the power of death, that is the devil. But on this I need not enter here. This part of man’s lot has ample illustration everywhere.

One consequence of sin remains, characteristic of the lot of man as man, namely, exclusion from paradise. Fallen man is driven out, lest as fallen he eat and live for ever (Genesis 3:22-24). This, too, is love. Old Adam is shut out, but the Seed can enter through the flaming sword and past the cherubim. The Head first passed, and then the members; and though man as man, that is the first Adam, without sore peril may not enter into that from whence God has excluded him, yet for man in Christ, the Second Man, the way is open, and we are invited thitherward (Revelation 2:7). Paul was caught up, how he could not tell, whether in the body or out of it, into paradise (2 Corinthians 12:3-4); and John, and others too, have passed that sword, which turns every way to shut out old Adam. For saints the way is open yet. But for man as man to seek by magic arts, as many have sought, without God’s truth and love, in selfhood to enter into paradise, to hold communion with the spirits there, from which as fallen God in mercy has excluded them, only tends to make men into devils; for fallen man deceived and now akin to evil, by laws he little knows of, will come into contact with his like, even with evil, and by it will be yet more deceived, even while he thinks an angel of light is teaching him. To man, therefore, as man, the way is closed. Paradise suits him not; therefore he may not enter there. But, instead, at the gate are forms of the Divine, cherubim, veiling and yet revealing God’s glory; "figures of the true," such as fallen man can bear, instead of purely spiritual communications, serving as a veil for heavenly things, and yet, like the veils of the tabernacle, which were covered with cherubims (Exodus 26:31; Exodus 36:35), in and by the veil itself revealing heavenly things. Israel, therefore, is forbidden to hold any unlawful intercourse with the spiritual world by means of "enchanters, witches, charmers, consulters with familiar spirits, wizards, or necromancers," as the nations of Canaan had done, because the Lord would speak to them by a Man, a Prophet like unto Moses (See the context, Deuteronomy 18:9-19). Such is God’s provision for fallen man, -- forms of truth for those unfit for spiritual things; not leaving the creature in the spiritual world to an intercourse with spirits, for which, as fallen, it is incompetent; but giving, instead, a human form, (the cherubim had "the likeness of a man,") (Note: See Ezekiel 1:5; Ezekiel 10:15. The application of these cherubic forms, the lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle, to the four Gospels, or rather to the four views of Christ which they respectively set forth, is well known. See Irenaeus, who wrote in the second century, Adv. Hoer. l. iii. c. 11. See also Ambrose, Prolog. in Luc. § 8.) by the mystery of the Incarnation in all its forms to teach us in the flesh such things as man can profit by, and yet ordained to shew us higher things, and to be the door to open, even while it shuts, paradise; by that very door teaching man how to pass it, through the fiery sword and past the cherubim. For if we enter, we must yet pass the figures and the sword to that which is within. Any coming into heavenly places is through this narrow gate. If I do but die to my own righteousness, and seek to come into that rest and joy which is by faith, the flaming sword at once meets me. What pains has even this amount of dying and entering cost many! Much more, if faith turn to experience, shall we find how sharp that sword is. Mere flesh cannot pass it; but it may be passed, and must be passed, if we would enter paradise. And awful as it appears, by it is cut off much of that which is our sorrow here.