December 2 - The Expulsion

Genesis 3:9-15 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, 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: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden was where humanity's need for a savior began and where God gave us the first glimpse of His redemptive plan. Adam and Eve were created in innocence with only one condition placed upon them - God forbid them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Everything else in Garden was available to them, except the fruit of that one tree. But they allowed Satan to convince them to break the only rule God had placed before them. By doing so, sin and death entered into the world and with it, our need for someone to save us from eternal separation from God. In verse fifteen above, God shows this did not take Him by surprise and that in spite of man's failure, He would provide someone to defeat Satan. By doing so, He set into motion the sequence of events that would lead to Abraham being called out to father the nation of Israel. From Abraham to David, to provide a royal lineage for Jesus and eventually the path lead to a young girl giving birth to the Son of God in a manager in Bethlehem.