Some Thoughts 001

On My Mind

I’m preparing a lesson on work drawn from Genesis 1 and 2. For this reason, I’ve been thinking about God’s curse on Adam in Genesis 3:17-19. The text reads,

“And to Adam he said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.’”

While reading Geerhardus Vos’s Biblical Theology, the following comments on this curse stood out.

“The conjunction ‘till’ is not simply chronological, as though the words could mean: ‘thou wilt have to endure hard labour up till the moment of death.’ The force is climactic: ‘thy hard labour will finally slay thee.’ In man’s struggle with the soil, the soil will conquer and claim him.” ¹

Adam, made from the dust of the ground, will toil “in pain” to work the ground for his sustenance. To prolong his life, he will endure hard labor as he tries to subjugate the earth day after day. Yet, all of his work will ultimately be hopeless. In the end, the soil will reign supreme over Adam, turning him back into the dust from which he came. And as dust, he will “return to the ground” for another man to toil.

The echoes of this curse resound in the voice of the writer of Ecclesiastes, who says, “I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me…What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation.” (Ecclesiastes 2:18, 22-23)

Because of the curse, there is sorrow in our work and vanity in all our striving under the sun. However, work remains good even if it is marred by sin and death. God “put [Adam] in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” before the fall (Genesis 2:15). Thus, work is part of God’s good creation order.

Here too, we can turn to the preacher who, in light of the vanity of toil, says, “there is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

The preacher declares that though “all are from the dust, and to dust all return,” yet “there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot” (Ecclesiastes 3:20, 22). When we recognize that our work is a gift from God and that He intends us to enjoy the fruits of our labor, we embody the original ideal of work as closely as is possible in this life. With this mindset, we can joyfully await that future day when we shall work for the glory of God with no struggle, no pain, and no death.

What I’ve Been Listening To

The White Horse Inn podcast just completed a 4 part series on the Comfortable Words found in the Book of Common Prayer. Each episode is a reminder that though our manifold sins and wickedness justly deserve the wrath and indignation of God, we can take comfort in Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us to God.

Listen to all four episodes here.

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1. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2014), 37 ↩