A friend recently spoke of the prevalence of “Adam’s itch” in all of us. He was talking about the compulsion to do something to get back into the good favor with God—back in the Garden of Eden—back to where we can be the recipients of God’s blessing rather than the object of curses. Like all itches, Adam’s itch begs to be scratched, and it feels so good for the moment, but later causes further inflammation and infection. It seems that we will go to any length to hear another clever way to pull the blessing lever. We are vulnerable to religious offers of knowledge, rites of passage, and mystical experiences. Some peddlers of novel interpretations of scripture have built multimillion-dollar kingdoms from scratching the itch. They have honed their sales pitch to convince enough people to buy in. Everyone wants to somehow please God enough to get his blessings.

The gospel eliminates the itch by means of a mediator. Jesus came as a human to be obedient to God’s requirements and receive the blessings commensurate with perfect human obedience. He alone gets the covenant blessings promised by the covenant God. We are given the privilege of enjoying these blessings when we are in Christ, trusting him alone for favor.