Probably the first instance of My People who experienced the Judgment of God and became Not My People were Adam and Eve. At the start, they had it all, the quintessential My People. They’d been made in the Image of God, with His clear commission to multiply His Image, His holiness, His love, everything wonderful about God throughout all of Eden! It would be a testimony to the land, to the Created Order, and to Adam’s and Eve’s offspring of the true and loving nature of God.
It’s a fearsome responsibility to know that for every instance in which you can affect someone for good, the potential is always there to harm someone, too. Adam and Eve disobeyed the God who loved them and created them. All of creation witnessed their listening to Satan instead of obeying God.
It was sin, and because God’s Image is not that of sin, they no longer reflected God’s Image perfectly. In God’s eyes, therefore, they went from being My People in Eden to Not My People to remain in Eden. Out you must go. And don’t come back, because you can’t. Once a sinner, there’s no going back.
It doesn’t mean that God stopped loving them. It means they stopped worshiping Him alone and honoring Him. They could no longer be trusted with the privilege of stewardship of Eden, importantly of the tree of life which would allow them to live forever because now, their forever would be a state of disobedience and idolatry. They were sent away for their own good.
Reflection questions as we continue this study:
How is being sent out of Eden a foretaste of disobedient Chosen People becoming Not My People who many years later end up enslaved, exiled, or sidelined as God works His Judgment through other nations?
Did God leave the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, exiled in Babylon, or was there a time of redemption as He brought them back to be a nation?
God made Adam and Eve more suitable clothing (Genesis 3:21) than just fig leaves, and in Judgment, He sent them away. How are both indicators of God’s grace and ongoing love?
How does an out of context snapshot of Adam and Eve getting evicted fail to capture the grace undergirding that moment or the redemption God planned through the offspring (seed, Messiah) who would come?
If we look at modern Israel as a snapshot instead of a movie on pause, how does our view change of God’s Chosen People and God’s continual grace and love?
It has been said that the ongoing remnant of the Jewish people testifies to the existence of God. In what ways would that be a true statement?
