OUR FIRST PARENTS ARE CREATED IN SANTIFYING GRACE

In the book of Genesis, God Himself reveals to us Adam and Eve in the very moment of their creation.  God Himself says: “LET US CREATE MAN IN OUR IMAGE, AFTER OUR LIKENESS.”  God creates us with intelligence to know God and to govern our lives according to His divine Will, to be happy with Him in heaven.

 “AFTER OUR LIKENESS” means our sharing in the Life of God which is known “SANCTIFYING GRACE.”  Sanctifying grace makes us holy, saints.  Also God creates us with a WILL.  Our will is our motor that moves us in reaching our goal in life.  Eve reveals to us that our first parents had a good relation in friendship with God.  However, God gives them His Divine ORDER (Will)  in these words:  “You  are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden EXCEPT the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”  (Gen 3:2-3) Thus we must obey God because;  we must render an account of our whole life, as saint Paul reveals it to us: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.”        (2Cor 5:10). 

Thus, in the very first moment of our creation, God reveals that He is a loving God,  OUR GOD OF LOVE AND MERCY, always ready to bless us with the abundance of His Love in giving us a life full with happiness.  We can eat from the abundance of Paradise, WE CAN EAT ALL THE FRUITS OF ALL THE TREES, with one exception.  God forbids Adam and Eve to eat the fruits of the tree of good and evil.  God implores our first parents to worship only Him and nobody else.  If they disobey, they will die.  The sentence has been pronounced: DEATH. 

Therefore, our first parents know God’s Will.  God reveals Himself to them and gives them full knowledge of how they must live their life in the Garden of Eden, a plentiful life in the abundance and full happiness.  “YOU ARE FREE TO EAT FROM ANY OF THE TREES OF THE GARDEN EXCEPT THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL.” (Gen 2:16-17)  God did not ask our first parents to do anything they could not reasonably and faithfully do.  In all, God gives them one commandment; He is asking Adam and Eve to submit themselves to God, to worship only God and nobody else.

Thus, death does not belong to creation and therefore is not God’s doing. Death is man made since it is a punishment for disobeying God’s commandment.  Our first parents are told they will have to give an account to God  how they use their freedom. Their encounter with the devil was not beyond their ability to refuse any dialogue with the prince of death.

What happens in the Garden of Eden really happens in each one’s life.  We must all give to God an account of our life in the body.  God in his great love and mercifulness for us is always ready to pardon us of all our sins if we sincerely repent.  However, let us learn that sin always has two consequences.  First, sin is an offense to God’s Majesty. God pardons the offense to the  sinner who with the grace of God repents.   Secondly, sin is a transgression of God’s commandments.  We must  atone for each sinful transgression committed.  Such expiation must be done on earth or in purgatory.

Let us meditate on how we want to enter into our eternal life.  Saint Paul animates us with his beautiful revelation in 2Cor 4:17:  “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”   The professor.