The Rabbis and Sages pour over the texts of Scripture looking for every little jot, every dot, every marker, making sure they have not missed any possible conclusion or outcome to the texts. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their tireless efforts. There are many sacred texts that recount their findings, such as the Mishnah, The Ethics of Our Fathers, the Talmud (just to name a few) and a rather stunning text, some 23 volumes long, known as The Zohar (The Splendor).
The Zohar contains many stories about the Torah and the characters that appear within its pages. One such story is the subject of our article. Very few Biblical characters are as well known as Adam. Much of the glory of his story has been diminished by the fact he is best known as the cause of “The Fall of Man”. We will now turn to a section of the text of the Zohar for a keen insight about Adam.
Hear these words...
“So it is that when a man is about to depart from life, Adam, the first man, appears to him to ask why and in what state he leaves the world. The man replies, “Woe to thee, that through thee I have to die”. To which Adam replies, “My son, I transgressed one commandment and was punished for so doing, see how many commandments of your Master, negative and positive, you have transgressed”.
For years I was raised in a church environment that embraced the idea that we currently live in the Age of Grace, and that the Age of the Law of Moses, is done. The Old Testament is about an angry God, taking vengeance on those that disobey Him with acts of violence, death and plague. Surprisingly, this was the whole teaching premise of an early church influencer named Marcion.
His doctrines, while as a wholesale we rejected, parts were engrained deeply into Christian thought and Theology. But Adam’s narrative here expresses an interesting change in God’s approach:
God started the Age of Grace right after the Garden, not some 2,000 years later. Adam’s point is clear; he was judged quickly and severely. He lost his immortality, his perfect environment and his direct connection with the Light of the Creator.
You and I do not fall under that same judgment. God’s grace started immediately after the Garden of Eden and extends to all today. This is not a license (as mentioned by the Apostle Paul) to sin and expect to live unscathed by God. As a matter of fact, if you are currently living out of fellowship with God, with un-confessed sin in your life, and you are not experiencing God’s Right Hand, remember, He chastises those He loves. Sometimes we allow our connection to get so weak, we think we are not being watched.
When Adam comes to me on that final day, and asks me about “the what and why” of my world, I will tell him I wrote about him once. Maybe he will give me a tour of the World to Come, my home after death.