Is There A War In The Nature Of Your Soul?

The *desire of *Adam was for *His *mercy because the *contentment of a poor man is the *faith of a *liar. (MAST)

*[desire] literally, covetousness. But this is not in association with an object of sin but in relationship to the lovingkindness of God. The desire is for God not to turn His favor away from Adam; the covenant that once was toward him in the face of God. Therefore the object of this desire is God Himself. Adam’s natural response to his sin was shame because the Spirit of God was in him to bring him to it, which in turn brings him to cry out for the reunion of his fellowship and forgiveness of offending the Persons and nature of God. He feels in his flesh and bones the grieving of the Spirit within him and understands the pain and suffering he caused the God who loves him. He feels this separation where the wicked do not and cannot. This is not a lust for the flesh but for the Spirit of God (Gal.5:17). It was lust for the flesh that separated him from fellowship with God, but it is this lust for the Spirit that mourns and longs to be restored to God (Gal.5:16).

*[Adam] literally, the man. But, again, Solomon is exalting Adam above the natural being of man to a spiritual being who has the conscience of theology in his physical nature. Therefore Adam is a theological term for a spiritual man in contrast to a natural man (1Cor.2:9-16). As a sinner, Adam is as ordinary as any other man, but because He was made in the image of God’s covenant, he is a spiritual man (1Cor.2:16). Adam is used, here, by Solomon to shape the children of Israel not after Adam’s sinful nature but after the eternal covenant that God had made with Adam (1Cor.15:45). Therefore we don’t want to interpret this like an Arminian that sees something desirable in the nature of man but rather in the nature of God’s covenant with a particular man (Gen.1:27). The reading of verse twenty-seven of Genesis chapter one is to read it with the “direct” article that is mysteriously removed in translation and in the singularity of the image of the masculine pronoun of the rendering of the first man, Adam. “So God created “the” man . . .”. This is because Eve is the subset (or lesser) of Adam’s federal headship and representation of God in the earth. Therefore the woman is only in the image of God as far as she is under the headship of the man of God. She has no representation outside of Adam, and therefore, neither do we as Adam’s offspring. This particular man is Adam, the first of God’s grace, whom the Man Jesus Christ, who is the Eternal Word and Son of God, came to redeem with his own flesh and blood and incorruptible Spirit. Adam is for whom Christ died as a substitute in the covenant of grace. Therefore, we are not to shape ourselves after Adam’s sin, but after his faith and “desire” for mercy.

*[His] literally, his. But it is capitalized due to its antecedent of the previous proverb concerning the counsel of the LORD. Adam’s desire is being contrasted with the rich schemes of the natural man in the “counsel” or “will” of the LORD. We are to pattern our desire after Adam instead of the rich man who “wills” according to the nature of the flesh, for it was Adam who lusted for the Spirit after he learned the taste of death for the riches of the world (Mk.4:19;Rom.11:12). It is the Lord’s will to show mercy to whom He wills in the sovereignty of His grace (Rom.9:15-18). It was this sovereignty that Adam violated (Rom.9:20), and it is this will of the Lord that Adam desperately seeks after (Rom.9:32). In the mind of Solomon, if Israel must be represented by Adam, it is going to be by his faith rather than his sin (1Cor.15:22;Rom.5:19). Observe, then, Adam not after the flesh but the Spirit of God (2Cor.5:16-17). Follow Adam into calling out to the LORD of mercy for reconciliation and forgiveness.

*[mercy] literally, mercy. Most “desire” to emphasize the lovingkindness of God through this word, and this is a true rendering of it in some contexts, but that’s not the main thrust of Solomon for us, here, in his proverb. The AV translates this Hebrew word, hesed, as mercy 149 times out of 248 occurrences. It translated, lovingkindness, only 30 times in other contexts, but what best fits for us, here, is mercy. While it is true that it is the expectation of the Lord’s lovingkindness that draws Adam to God to ask for mercy, it’s mercy that is desired not the promise of lovingkindness. It was lovingkindness that Adam did have previously in the fellowship of the garden of God, and therefore Adam is fully aware of what he was separated from, but mercy from God is not what is promised to any sinner. This is why Adam made it his aim to be merciful to the children of his sin, for he desired mercy in return from them as neighbors, but with God nor with man is this mercy promised. The principle of reaping and sowing holds relatively true with fellow men, but with God, justice is owed because He is absolutely good, and it is justice that should be expected. Nevertheless, Adam pleads out of a heart of desperation and poverty for the restoration of fellowship this lovingkindness through mercy. In mercy, God gave Adam all the trees of the earth to be food for him, but without fellowship with God Adam, he was left to his own wisdom, which comes through trial and suffering rather than revelation from God which he had in the beginning. Adam seeks to avoid unnecessary suffering and trial through a restored fellowship to God. In other words, Adam learned that he was not wiser than God in undermining His sovereignty (Gen.2:15-17). It is this mercy from God that he seeks to carve a pathway through the wilderness of his sin and in this new but unknown environment. In both the knowledge of good and evil, he is to guide his way; but Adam desires the tree of eternal life because he has indeed tasted death in his lust for this present world (Gen.3:6). Therefore in his reproach and shame, he appeals to the nature of the Lord’s lovingkindness for mercy (Gen.3:17-19).

*[contentment] literally, morally desirable. But, again, the theme and thread of Solomon’s proverbs is this Hebrew word, tob, and the thrust of it is contentment. This is the heart and nature that Solomon is judging and praying for Israel to strive after. It is a spiritual condition and position to be controlled under to be ready for holy use by the Lord. It is the nature that God uses for the glory of His name and to serve His eternal purpose (Eph.1:6). To be content is to be usable and teachable of the Lord (Rom.9:21;2Tim.2:21). Those who are void of this nature bear the name of Israel’s God in vain (Mk.7:7;2Cor.6:1). Without this spiritual nature, their only use to the Lord is to be cut down and thrown into the fire (Ezk.15:4;Matt.3:10;7:19).

*[faith] literally, away from, or out of. But this in conjunction with Adam’s desire for mercy. His desire was purely mercy, not riches; therefore, unlike the “natural” man, his faith is credited to him for learning contentment in his cry for mercy from God. Again, Solomon is using Adam as a theological tool to shape the sons of Israel into the proverbial image of God. Because Adam was found to be a liar in violating the covenant, it was not a “quality” in him that is to be desired, but rather his personal desire for mercy from the Lord that credits him with a saving faith in the midst of his “spiritual” poverty being disciplined from the riches of the garden of God (Gen.3:24;Matt.5:3). Therefore it is literally “out of” the Lord’s mercy that Adam learned contentment in retaining the gift of the Holy Spirit in the covenant of grace (Ps.51:8-13,17;Rom.6:23). Adam did not lose his election but the riches of the garden; it was a portion of his posterity; however, that lost (or better said, never gained) the Holy Spirit. Adam lost not the multiplication of flesh and blood but the fruitfulness of the Spirit to the following generations by disobeying God. In him, the children of the lie multiply but without any ability to bear fruit to God without the Holy Spirit and Christ (Jn.5:19;15:9;Lk.11:13). Adam desired mercy from the covenant God who gave him personal fellowship while the natural man desires the natural riches from the life of flesh and blood (Matt.16:17).

*[liar] literally, a falsehood. But because this noun is in conjunction with the participle of Adam’s poverty, it is referring to the nature of the same type of man (a sinner). In Adam’s continuing existence, he is a falsehood in the nature of his being in the judgment of God, but by growing in the contentment of this justice over him, he is growing richer in the nature of faith (Rom.3:4). So the participle is referring to one individual, but as a bi-polar nature in his relationship to God (Gal.5:16-18;Rom.7:4-25). In other words, Adam is both a natural man and a spiritual man. He possesses both the nature of sin, is [ אִישׁ ], as much as he possesses the nature of the image of God, the (first) Adam [אָדָם ]. In the mind of God, according to the theology of Adam’s confession, he became a liar; but in the mind of faith, according to God’s eternal decree (1Cor.2:16), Adam is forgiven through the substitution of Christ, the last Adam (1Cor.15:46-49).