Immediately after an act of disobedience in the garden God had intended to be a place of peace, its only two inhabitants were exiled.
God had spelled out the consequences of their disobedience very clearly, starting with immediate spiritual death. Choosing self over God would bring trouble in every aspect of being human and coexisting with other humans.
There would be consequences for men, for women, for Satan, and all of creation. Marriage would become a competition, childbirth would become painful, and the land would be difficult to farm.
As Genesis unfolds stories of ancient people after this fall from perfection, the dominant themes are jealousy, treachery, and conflict. These themes show up in relationships between Cain and Abel, amongst the entire world population in the time of Noah, between Abram and Lot, Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, Jacob and Laban, Jacob’s sons and the people of Shechem, Joseph and his brothers, Judah and Tamar, Joseph and Potiphar.
And this is just in Genesis, and I haven’t mentioned all the relationships in Genesis that were fraught with conflict.
The Exodus story is tied together by conflicts between Hebrews and Egyptians, Hebrews and other Hebrews, Moses and the people he led, even Moses and his siblings!
The other history books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are also replete with warfare, treachery, and murder.
Conflict between people appears to be the chief marker of human fallenness. Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth (and to us),
You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? (3:3)
This verse states some bad news and implies some good news.
The bad news: contentious behavior indicates we are not living under the control of the Holy Spirit, but are still controlled by our flesh. We do not yet outwardly reveal the inward salvation of our souls. This limits our fruitfulness and our witness to a lost world. We will struggle with sin as long as we are in our mortal bodies, as Paul laments in Romans 7.
But here is the good news: as we put on new garments of righteousness and pursue God’s righteous ways, we are gradually being transformed into the image of Christ. We can more and more display a sanctified ability to think and act more like Christ.
We have a Helper, a Comforter, a Convicter, and a Teacher–the Holy Spirit within us.
While we exhibit jealousy and quarreling, we are still worldly. We are like mere humans. What is a mere human? Someone who is not filled with the Spirit of God, and therefore can only be controlled by the world, the flesh, and the devil. When we act in worldly ways, we are no different from someone who doesn’t know God.
Therefore, If we want to represent Christ and be different than the world, we must let go of our worldly ways of dealing with problems. We must acknowledge that we are prone to jealousy and quarreling. We must bring these sinful behaviors to the Cross, and receive the strength to redeem and reform them.
When we do so, we begin walking by the Spirit. We become spiritual, gaining back as a gift the spiritual life and entablement of the first couple before they sinned. We are freed from our bondage to the carnal nature.
We will probably never be completely free of conflict, jealousy, and quarreling in our relationship with the world. The world is extremely messy and relationships with unbelievers can be difficult to navigate.
But we can start at home, and first in our own hearts. We can become quicker to notice our hearts beginning to stray into anger and conflict, confess our wrong attitudes—to God and sometimes to one another (James 5:16)–and receive God’s forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9).
Then, God’s word challenges us to remove jealousy and quarreling from his church. Whether we like it or not, there is only one true church of which all true Christians are members. If we cannot speak or act rightly toward those in the family of God, how will we expect to show the lost of their need to join us?
As we are especially good to one another, we may attract into the body of Christ, by his grace, those needing to be saved. They will see there is an alternative to relentless conflict in their souls, in their relationships, and in their stories.
