The Relentless Pursuit of the LORD God

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman,  "Did God really say, 'You cannot eat from any tree in the garden'?" 

(Genesis 3:1)

The first deception by the enemy in the Garden was not distorting God's Word - it was distorting God's identity.  Consider this...

Throughout Genesis 1 God has chosen to identify Himself as Elohim (the Hebrew word translated "God" in our bibles).  This is the intensely powerful Creator of the Universe; the One Who merely spoke, "Let there be..." and it was so.  He is the holy, transcendent, all powerful, unknowable God.

Yet...

In perhaps the greatest paradox of all time this unknown and unknowable God seeks to be known by His creation, seeks to reveal Himself to us.  Throughout Genesis 2 He does that by revealing Himself as Yahweh Elohim (the Hebrew words translated "the LORD God" in our bibles).  This is the intensely personal and immanent God; this is the One Who desires intimate relationship with His creation.

This is the God Adam and Eve knew.  They never knew God as just "Elohim", transcendent, powerful, unknowable.   In fact that title for God is never used in the account of God's interaction with them in the Garden.  He had always and only revealed Himself to them as "the LORD  God".

This personal, intimate LORD  God picked up dust from the ground...

     ...formed the man Adam...
          ...breathed the breath of life into his nostrils...
               ...caused a deep sleep to come over the man, took a bone from his side
                   and closed the flesh at that place...
                    ...fashioned the bone He had taken from the man into the woman Eve...

This was Yahweh Elohim...the LORD  God...intensely, intimately in relationship with His people.

Then one day the serpent, the deceiver, said to the woman,

"Did Elohim really say..."

"Did God really say..."

And the woman, who had only ever known her Creator as the LORD God, the intimate and personal One who sought relationship with her and the man, fell for the lie of the original identity thief.

She listened to the thief strip away that very special part of God's identity; she listened to the enemy refer to her LORD God as the all powerful and unknowable God who isn't intimately involved in relationship with her. 

Eve responded in kind to the enemy's deception, 

"...God did say..."

She fell.  When she and Adam ate the forbidden fruit, rather than run to the LORD  God, they ran from God.

Yet who pursued them in their shame?  in their fear?  

Yahweh Elohim!  The LORD God!

He asks them, "Who told you that you were naked?  Who told you that you were shameful?  Who told you to hide from Me?  Who told you...?

This is our LORD God, Who pursues us relentlessly in our sin just as He pursued Adam and Eve in theirs.  He pursues because He is an intimately personal God who desires relationship with all of His creation.  He pursues to restore our perception of His identity - to restore what the enemy has stolen.

He pursues to provide proof that He is who He says He is.  He pursues because He knows that if  I have a distorted view of His identity - of Who He says He is - I will never have a true view of my identity, of who He says I am in Him.

Oh Lord, you prove Yourself over and over again that You are who You say you are!  You don't have to.  You are, after all, Elohim - the immensely powerful Creator.  You are the Potter and You don't have to prove Yourself but You do, You do!  Praise you LORD God!  You are the great I AM!  Always the Pursuer and Rescuer of Your people.  Oh take off your shoes - this is holy ground!