THEME: THE GOOD LIFE IS ATTAINED ONLY THROUGH RIGHTEOUS GOVERNANCE AND CONDUCT 

The Bible introduces us to the Beginning, Purpose and End of Human Life. When God created man, He gave him authority and power to have dominion over the rest of creation on the earth. The desire and intention of God is man would not only multiply and fill the earth but also that man would tend and keep the earth as he would keep a garden.  

That is to say, the Garden of Eden is the pilot project of man in the tendering, management and dominion over the Earth. Life on Earth is expected therefore to be like the Peace, Quiet and Happiness in the Garden of Eden.  One aspect of the life in the Garden is the visits of God to man in the Garden.  Adam and Eve had good time with God. 

It can be said therefore that the Peace, Quiet, Joy and Happiness and Good Life in the Garden of Eden was subject to three things: 

i. Man’s efficient Tendering and Keeping of the Earth 

ii. The observance of the Restraint on Conduct by the Law or Commandment of God pertaining to The Fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil 

iii. The Visits of God cementing the relationship between The Creator and His Creation via Fellowship with Man on one part and Man’s control over the rest of creation on another. 

Man’s disobedience or transgression of the Law of God, the redefining of conditions and relations between man and man and between man and the rest of creation (Genesis 3). 

The fall of man has its manifestation in three main ways, first the fall of man as a spirit-being.  Man became subject to death, which simply put is cessation of circulation or motion via spiritual arrest and imprisonment. Death fundamentally is spiritual arrest, imprisonment and/or captivity.  Man has lost his power to function and operate in total liberty as a free spiritual and moral agent.  Man’s conduct and life became subject to influences – acts of sin, the consequences of sin and the pervading forces of nature, elemental and physical. 

Man’s disobedience has released and set in motion the force or law of punishment for sin – in the nature of pain and suffering, diseases and sickness, and ultimate death.  The wages of sin is death… but the gift of God is life eternal (Rom. 6:23).  

Second, is the re-ordering of the ecology to make nature less co-operative. 

The third is at the spiritual level – the force of enmity and evil master minded by Satan on one part and the withdrawal of the Mercy and special beneficence of God towards man.  

The combined effect of the three forces is to create a state of life of evil, pain, suffering and death, tension and non-co-operation spontaneous in response and obedience to man’s attempts to dominate her.  

The difficulties with bringing nature under subjection can be deemed to be another version of punishment to man namely, the setting in motion of a general system of disobedience in nature and the wrath and judgement in nature, conflict and disquiet in nature and human relations as a whole. The consequences of Satanic rebellion and man’s disobedience and non-spontaneity in nature is to create a state of war, disquiet, pain and death and non-fulfillment for man. 

The State of War in the Ordering of Life has created the need for a fresh determinant of life for the individual and for society as a whole. 

2002