LESSON XI.
THE SON OF GOD.
Genesis iii. 14-15.
Are you not very sorry to hear that Adam and Eve were turned out of the garden?
It was not so pleasant outside of the garden. A great many weeds and thistles grew outside; but in the garden there were only pretty flowers and sweet fruits.
Adam was forced to dig the ground till he was hot and tired, for he could not always find fruit upon the trees.
Now Adam felt pain in his body sometimes; and his hair became gray, and at last he was quite old.
Eve was very often sick and weak, and tears ran down her cheeks. Poor Adam and Eve! if you had obeyed God you would have been happy forever.
Adam and Eve knew that they must die at last. God gave them some little children; and Adam and Eve knew that their children must die too. God had told them that their bodies were made of dust, and that they must turn to dust again.
But there was something more sad still. They were grown wicked. They did not love praising God, as they once had done, but they liked doing many naughty things. They were grown like Satan; so Satan hoped that when their bodies were put into the ground, their spirits would be with him; for Satan knew that the wicked could not live with God in heaven.
And they would have gone to hell, and all their children too, had not God taken pity upon them. God, who is very kind, had found out a way to save them.
To his Son, a long, long while before, God had said, Adam and Eve and all their children must go to hell for their wickedness, unless you die instead of them. My beloved Son, I will send you; you shall have a body; you shall go and live in the world, and you shall obey me, and you shall die for Adam and his children.
The Son said to his Father, I will come: I will do all that you desire me to do. It is my delight to obey you.
So the Son promised that he would die for Adam and Eve, and for their children.
How kind it was of the Father to spare his dear Son, whom he loved so very much! How kind it was of the Son to leave his throne of light, his bright angels, and his dear Father, and to take a body and to die!
You know that we are some of Adam’s children’s children. It was for us that Jesus came to die. We are wicked, and we should go to hell, if Jesus had not promised to die for us. We ought to love the Father and the Son, because they had pity on us.
Let us praise God with the angels, and say,—
“We thank thee, O Father, for thy tender love, in giving up thine only Son.
“We thank thee, O Son, for thy tender love, in coming down to bleed and die.”
The Father waited a long while before he sent his Son down to be a man.
All the time the Son waited in heaven he thought of what he promised to do; but he would not go and be a man till his Father pleased to send him.