by Rose Murdock

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it?  Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Numbers 23:19

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; Titus 1:2

God can’t lie.  The Bible says He can’t lie.  God keeps His Word.  He watches over His Word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12).  God has such integrity that He always keeps His Word.  But yet, His Word was broken.  In the Garden of Eden, God gave His Word to Adam and Eve.  He told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  He spoke this to them.  They broke it.

It’s interesting that God created everything in the earth by speaking words.  God said, Let there be light, and there was (Genesis 1:3).  He said, Let there be... and there was.  We’ve noticed how when He made man however, He didn’t say Let there be man.  He said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26).  And then He formed man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7).  Man was a little different in his creation.  God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul.  Man was made in the image and likeness of God.

But man also was given a word and in order to continue in the life of God man needed to keep God’s Word.  God’s Word was given to man in such a way that man could choose to receive it or not.  Everything else that was created didn’t have a choice whether to obey God’s Word or not.  Light couldn’t choose not to come into existence.  The animals couldn’t choose not to be.  Man was made and then God’s Word was given to him so he could choose whether to continue to walk in God’s life or not.

The Word of God was broken in the Garden of Eden.  God didn’t break it, man broke it.  But it cost God a great price.  It cost Him His life.  His Word was broken in the Garden of Eden and because of that it was broken again at Calvary.  There was a price to pay for God’s Word to be broken.

The price God had to pay because His Word was broken in the Garden of Eden became evident to us at Calvary.  God put His Word into a personality to show the fullness and reality of who He is.  We can know God through His Word, through Jesus.  When we think of "breaking Jesus" it’s harder to take than just thinking of disobeying His Word.  We can see through Jesus’ death what breaking His Word really cost Him.

Yet God still chose to create man and still create us in the way that He did even though He knew what man would do.  He knew the heartache man would cause Him.  He knew the pain we would bring to Him yet He still went ahead with it.  Why?  Because as it says in Romans 8:18 the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which will afterward be revealed in us!  The glory of receiving His Word is far greater than the pain of rejecting it and greater than the pain that is still in the world because of Adam and Eve rejecting it.

The Word of God is being offered to us today.  It was given to Adam and Eve and it’s been given to us.  God’s Word is available to us.  Jesus has given us that opportunity.  Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, (John 1:14) The Word of God has been offered to us again.

Are we partaking of Him, the Word of Life—the Tree of Life?  The tree of knowledge of good and evil was the tree of disobedience to His Word. God’s desire was for them to partake of the Tree of Life.  To keep His Word would have nourished them with the life of God.

By receiving the Word of God, Jesus Christ into our lives we are born again.  The life of God is imparted to our spirits as it was when God breathed into man the breath of life.  And by continuing to keep the Word of God we are continually partaking of His life.  We will reap the benefits of the life of God!  If you want to see an example of the life of God and the unbroken Word of God in action look at the life of Jesus.  God desires us to live the same way!

The next time you take communion, think of how the Word of God made flesh was broken for you.  He was broken because we broke Him.  As hard as that is to take it’s necessary for us to realize so our love for Him can grow.

Thank God He didn’t given up on us!  Thank God for His mercy and grace!  Thank God that He still loves us with an everlasting love!  Thank God that although the Word was given and broken, He has now risen and is offered to us again!

Go to the crossword for this teaching