Politics Set In The Garden
Written by Elinor Montgomery – emontgomery@cogeco.ca
April 20, 2001
Genesis begins with God the Creator, the living creatures and man, the created, who dwelled together in His creation, the world. God immediately shows the order of His creation, which is a political order that begins with light (Jesus is the light of the World), and finishes with man and all of creation under the ruler-ship of God. He establishes the family as the first institution, describing the relationship of man to his wife, his mother and father and his children under the law. There was no need for a parliament for there was perfect freedom in obedience to God’s law. Man, himself was given dominion over the fish, the birds and all living things, and he was given the job to till the ground. He was given a wife for which purpose he was commanded to leave his father and mother and cleave only to her and become as one flesh with her. This was a politically prophetic pattern, for a political nation called Israel, known as the children of God, who were in covenant with Him, a covenant that would cross over to become another political entity known as the bride of Christ. It would be a breaking away from the Father of the Son, to become one flesh in the spirit with His bride in order to be fruitful and to multiply the numbers of children for the Father, children who otherwise would be lost to sin.
There was temptation in this political setting of the garden for man to fall away from the law of God. Fall, he did to the temptation of Satan, and the judgment of God came down upon him, just as God had warned would happen, if man were disobedient and were to break His law. The Key to the paradise of man in the garden was stolen from him at that very moment, and Satan took ruler-ship on earth, with the result that man was driven out from the garden to till the ground from which he was created. As his eternal life through his relationship with God was lost, so too were the provisions and the promises of God gone. It brought conflict into man’s existence, which would ultimately bring war as he increased in numbers. The ungodly son of Adam called Cain killed his brother Abel, the one with the perfect sacrifice for God. So God raised up a third son called Seth of a godly line. Even in his line, ungodliness would increase until one righteous man was found and along with his family would be separated and taken out of a totally sinful world. God then destroyed the rest of humanity with a flood, the very same means by which He had once before destroyed the world. The flood had again covered over the darkness of sin, but did not remove it. God promised to never cover over the earth again with a flood, but one day the fire of His judgment would come down, and lap up the waters of this world (when God’s fire came down for Elijah). His promise was for another Son (one clothed in a rainbow of colours) who would take away sin, and would set up a perfect government as High Priest and King. God promised the perfect political situation, but man would have to play a major role in achieving this political kingdom.
God chose a nation starting with a single man of faith and obedience called Abraham, who would father this nation of many people who, one day, would inherit a promised land. Through his grandson, Jacob, God would make of him two families or two companies within the nation, the first represented by the family of Leah and the second by the family of Rachel. Jacob, whose name was changed by God to Israel, meaning ‘one who has struggled with God and man and prevailed’, or more simply meaning ‘the overcomer’, became the father of twelve tribes, known as the nation of Israel. But inherent in this nation were two separate families, that would always be separated as the natural and the spiritual companies, yet would come together in the final kingdom of the Lord Jesus, under their Messiah and King, one and the same. This nation, which God had chosen, would follow “The Way” set up in the garden, leading back to the final kingdom of the Lord on earth. This nation called Israel was to be placed in the center of the great trading nations on either side of her, Assyria and Egypt, to be as a light to reveal the glory of God to the men of power in the trading world, men who worshipped idols and dealt in the bad gold of false worship, and the riches created by man. It was necessary for them to travel through Israel on their trade route known as ‘the way of the sea’, or the Via Maris (and in the sea dwelt darkness). We see the two ways coming together, ‘the way of the sea and ‘The Way’ of the kingdom. When this opportunity was given to her to be a light to the other nations, she chose instead to join them in their idol worship. They even chose to have a king like the other nations, rejecting the one great King of the world with whom they were in covenant, and who was their provider and protector.
The nation Israel had been given laws in the wilderness by their Political Chief, the Lord God, and had been commanded to keep them. In keeping the law of God, they were guaranteed freedom and liberty, for God’s law is ‘the law of liberty’ (James 2:12). It meant the nation Israel must be faithful and obey God, while carrying the torch, so that other nations could see the light of His glory. But God warned that in as much as the torch was at the center of the covenant (Abraham’s dream of darkness), so too were captivity and the smoking ovens of Judgment. This judgment would come upon them if they were to choose liberalism, which meant following their own will and making their own laws, as opposed to obeying the will and laws of God. So God granted the desire of their hearts and gave them a king, but not without warning them that when they had rejected Him that very day, that there would be a terrible price to be paid, which would lead down through the centuries to the ultimate rejection of the Messiah. At this time they would be driven from the land, and eventually Satan would take them under his ruler-ship marked by persecution, which would lead to the smoking ovens of Hitler and finally would lead to the terrible judgment of the tribulation, and the time of Jacob’s trouble.
But God being a loving, good, and merciful God, set up His chosen one David upon a throne that would never end, as He handed to him the keys of the kingdom, and the keys to the salvation of man through his line and in the person of Jesus Christ. They both were born in Bethlehem, meaning ‘the city of bread’, both to rule from Jerusalem, the City of David, and before that called Salem, where Melchizedek reigned as king and priest of God Most High. This was the town near which Rachel was buried, as opposed to being taken to the ancestral tomb of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their respective wives Sarah, Rebekah and Leah. She was buried at the point where the crossover blessing of first Abraham, then Isaac, and Jacob upon their sons, would be fulfilled with the birth of the Son of God, the second Adam. This is the point of the crossover on the cross, moving from the nation Israel to the spiritual overcomer of Israel, who would become the true Jew. At this point, Israel changed her political status from a nation of the world, to a nation of the Kingdom. The torch went from the people given the law as a means of salvation, to a people who would be a voice for Jesus as they were called to fulfill the great commission to go into the city, the nation and the world, spreading the gospel to all mankind.
Like the first nation Israel, after her wilderness experience, the next sister called Christianity was also given a land in which her voice could be heard. This nation called the church was to be a light in the democracies of America. Her torch, symbolically held in the hand of the woman at the gateway to the nations, the Statue of Liberty, represents the liberty that God’s law provides. This was to be an example of God’s political plan for liberty within His law, to be exercised in the vote and the participation again of His people uniting God with the land under His authority. North America prospered as a Christian people, in a way no other nation in the world had ever prospered and Canada especially knew long periods of peace within her borders. For God has chosen her for the beginning of the true healing of the nations. She will show what it really means to be a voice for God and to move under His leadership and His protection, as a single political entity. In this land the voice of the bride will come forth in the same way that the voice of Esther was raised up to speak for her people, as the voice of the king of Song of Solomon commanded his betrothed to be for her waiting companions, and as the voice spoken of in the closing words of the Bible calling with the Spirit to come, to come out of the institutions or out of the great harlot of this world, before she goes down into destruction with the beast, to come forth and be heard as a voice for Jesus. This is the voice of the prophet that lobbied as a voice for God to the nation Israel to come back to worshipping only the one true God as opposed to worshipping idols. This is the voice of Elijah calling out to the nation Israel to decide this day, whom she would worship. This is the voice of one crying in the wilderness to repent of sin before the Lord’s return and to return to honouring the law of God. This is the voice of Jesus, the voice of the Kingfisher, calling man out of the waters of darkness and into the living waters of light. This is the healing of the leaf that brings life to a people and to a nation. And all the glory shall be given to the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of lords and King of kings, final political ruler of the world, Amen.
