As we take a look at the modern world and see all that man has accomplished over just the last 100 years it’s amazing to ponder. We have gone to the moon, sent rovers to Mars, drive in cars at 80 mph, can contact the other side of the world in seconds. In the next 10 years the changes we are going to go through are literally going to change the way we do most things. Hold on to your seat the world is changing rapidly and the only way you are going to understand how to navigate the days ahead is by understanding the one who created all things.
Think about what I am doing right now. It would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. I am literally sitting in your living room or with you in your car, maybe you're even at the airport and I am able to teach you anywhere in the world. I work for a major fortune 500 company and I am able to train employees all over the nation from my office. We are seeing all of these amazing things yet at the same time man is literally destroying himself through war, crime, addiction, sexual dysfunction, and the list goes on.
We need to stop and ask ourselves the question, ‘What is man?’ Some say man is nothing but an intelligent or not so intelligent animal, while others claim that man is a god. One day as I was studying the Bible and this scripture stood out to me and I really began to ponder a question the author of Hebrews asked. The author of Hebrews ask’s God the question in Hebrews 2:6 “What is man that you should think of Him?” As I started looking at this scripture, I realized that God actually thinks about us. We are on His mind!
We are not a side thought to God, but he is genuinely interested in our well-being.
The Bible gives mankind a very high value. Why is mankind such a high value and priority in the eyes of God? Maybe you have thought that man was just another one of God’s many creations. No, mankind is the crown of all that God created, second only to Himself! Let’s look in the Bible and see man from God’s perspective, because that is the real viewpoint.
As we look at the creation story in the book of Genesis we see that God created light, darkness, day and night. He created the heavens, earth, trees, vegetation, and seas. He then created the animal kingdom, but then we see God created man, as the crown of all His creation. Genesis chapter 1 ends giving us the macro version of the creation of man. It’s the big picture of the creation story. In Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule…then it says God created man in his own image.”
What does it mean to be made in the image or the likeness of God?
If you look at the word likeness in the original Hebrew language it means to operate or function like, not to look like. So, to be made in the image of God or likeness of God has nothing to do with the color of our skin or our ethnicity since we all come from the same original couple. As scientists study DNA more and more they are coming to the conclusion that humans are very much alike. A scientific study done in 2018 came to the conclusion that all humans descended from the same man and woman. So, the focus should never be on our differences, but our commonality. As I said before, what does it mean to be made in the likeness of God?
To be made in the likeness of God means that we function like Him, but what are some of the ways man is to function like God? Well one way is that man was created to bear God’s nature which is love, joy, peace, kindness, faith, patience etc. The nature of God is also creative, and man was given the ability to be creative and use his abilities to cultivate and keep that which God had given him.
In Genesis 2:15 God commanded Adam to cultivate and keep the garden. As I said in Lesson 1:Who Is God? you can find all the seeds of the main doctrines in the book of Genesis. It is here in the first chapter of Genesis that we see the seeds of understanding the king-priest ministry that eventually finds it’s fulfillment in Jesus Christ and his body the church. The Hebrew word for cultivate is abad, and the Hebrew word for keep is shamar. These same Hebrew words are used to describe how the priest cared for the tabernacle of Moses. The tabernacle was a precursor to the temple of Solomon.
The priests were to cultivate and keep the tabernacle. In addition, we are told that God walked in the garden during the cool of the day. God also walked in the midst of the temple. The meaning is clear. The garden was a temple for God. Like the temple, the garden was the joining together of God’s space and man’s space - the intersection of the heavenly realm and the earthly realm.
Adam was a priest who walked with God, bore his image, was clothed in his glory and demonstrated servant leadership in the garden. Adam was also a king created to rule, which means man was to be God’s representative in the earth and through man God was to exercise his rule and authority in the earth.
In addition, man was created to multiply and replenish the earth according to Genesis 1:28. This is not only the reproduction of children, but also the ability of man to create. When a man or woman creates a painting, music, an invention or even an innovative idea they are reproducing what is inside of them. We are using the creative nature of God that has been put within each of us.
Let’s look at the Micro version of the creation of man. Genesis 1:26 is the Macro version or the big picture of man’s creation. In Genesis 2:7 we see the Micro version of when man was created. It's like in a movie when they take the camera and move up real close. Genesis 2:7 says, ‘The Lord God formed man from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.’ There are two different words used here in the creation of man and they are formed and created.
God formed as a potter forms a pot and made the body of man from the dust of the ground. Then God created or breathed His very own Spirit into this body made from the soil and man became a living being or soul. God, the Master Potter, scooped out of the ground a clump of clay, molded, and made it into the first human and then breathed into that human His very own Spirit or breath.
Until God breathed the divine Spirit into Adam, he was just a clay jar, but when matter united with God’s Spirit it conceived a living soul.
Before I go on from here, I don’t want the ladies to feel like I am leaving them out. Genesis 1:27 says: God created man in his image and then it says He created them male and female. God created Adam first out of the dirt then out of Adam God created the woman. The ultimate companion of man would come from the same source so therefore different, but equal. It required a surgery. Adam was put into a deep sleep then God split his side open, took a rib and created the wo-man or man with a womb. If you have a womb, then you are a woman and if you don’t have a womb then you are a man.
The woman was created as a co-equal partner, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.
As we have already seen the man and his equal partner the woman were originally made in God’s image and likeness, but we have to ask ourselves what happened to them? Evolutionists will tell us that man came from some type of blob that eventually developed over millions of years into mankind. The Bible tells us an opposite story. The Bible shows us a highly intelligent man created in the image of God, who named all of the plants, trees and animals. A man who communed with God and ruled as God’s representative.
God created man in His image then he ‘took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man in Genesis 2:16 that ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.’ The command of Genesis 2:16 was given to Adam and Eve as the requirement to maintain God’s likeness.
In Genesis 3:1-7 we see that Adam and Eve forfeited their right to maintain God’s likeness and through the serpent’s suggestion they disobeyed God when they ate of the forbidden fruit. Now since that day man has forever been inflicted with death and corruption. In the Genesis story, we don’t see Adam and Eve suddenly struck by lightning and die. What kind of death was God talking about when He told them they would surely die, in the day that they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
The first effect of man’s disobedience was spiritual death. Adam and Eve first partook of spiritual death. Spiritual death is a life independent or separated from the life of God. It’s like when you take a plant out of the soil it has been separated from its source of life. It doesn’t die immediately, but once removed from its source of life it’s going to eventually shrivel up and die. Spiritual death is a life dead in sin.
The second effect of man’s disobedience was physical death. Physical death is simply a result of spiritual death. When man sinned, it opened the door for death and corruption to come into the human race and even into the entire universe. Romans 8:20 says that the entire natural creation was subjected to corruption by Adam’s disobedience. Man lost the glory of God, and the created order was placed under a curse of corruption.
The ultimate effect of the first couple’s disobedience is judgment. The man, woman and serpent were all given sentences of judgment. However, judgment to the man and woman was given with the promise of crushing the serpent’s authority with the eventual promise of restoring the man, woman and creation to God’s glory through the seed of the woman. The heart of redemption is that mercy triumphs over judgment. I love mercy and thank God for his mercies that are new every morning.
When the man and woman disobeyed, they died spiritually and were separated from the presence of God. As a result, we see the man and woman hiding themselves from their loving Creator instead of having open fellowship with him. Now they were no longer ruled by God but by deception and self-preservation. Instead of being covered by God’s Spirit and His presence they worked to cover themselves with fig leaves. This is the beginning of man trying to be right or accepted by God based on self-effort instead of simple trust in the loving kindness of God.
The first result of the fall caused God and man’s relationship to be altered where man was no longer in an open relationship with the Creator but hiding from Him. The second result was a broken relationship with ourselves. When man was created in the image of God he was created as spirit, soul and body.
The spirit and soul are the part of man-made in the image of God through the initial breath of God’s life.
The broken relationship with God caused man to no longer be ruled by the spiritual man, but the natural man made from the dust of the earth. I want to repeat that because it’s important to understand and in further lessons I will dig deeper into this truth. The spirit and soul are the part of man, made in the image of God through the initial breath of God’s life. The broken relationship with God caused man to no longer be ruled by the spiritual man, but the natural man made from the dust of the earth.
God asked Adam why he disobeyed him, and Adam’s reply was, ‘the woman you gave me made me do it.’ We always blame someone else for our conduct. Eve replied, ‘The serpent made me do it.’ This was the third broken relationship of human existence: a broken relationship with each other and with the companions God has given us. The great unresolved issue of the human species is this: how to get along with one another.
Then God banished the humans from the garden, which was the fourth broken relationship of human existence: a broken relationship with creation. In Genesis 3:14-19 we see that the man and woman are cursed with a future of pain, problems, corruption, and death then God expelled them from Eden because of their disobedience. To prevent Adam and Eve from returning to the garden, God posted great winged creatures called cherubim and their fiery, flashing swords to guard the gate to the Tree of Life. However, thank God that’s not the end of the story.
In the midst of God’s judgement, we see His hand of mercy extended to the man and woman. The rest of the story from Genesis to the book of Revelations is the story of God’s initiatives to repair, restore, redeem and mend those four broken relationships with the ultimate intent to bring humanity back to God’s eternal purpose.
In Genesis 3:15, God promises the man and woman along with future generations of the human race that one day there would come a man from the woman to break the serpent's head or power over mankind. It is this future hope of mankind’s freedom from sin, Satan, and death through the seed of the woman which is one of the major themes which will help us to understand the entire Bible.
Man in his existence has accomplished much, but he still struggles with life’s most basic problems. When God created man, he was given dominion to rule over the earth. However, when man was separated from God by spiritual death, he no longer sustained God’s likeness. The result has been the earth ruling over man. God created man’s body from the dust of the earth and the judgement of God against the serpent was that his food would be dust.
Satan’s food is your lower nature. Demonic powers feed upon the lower nature of man which is independent of God.
It’s where they get their power. Again, I will say that the serpent’s food is your lower nature. When we walk under the realm of Satan’s moral darkness and become conformed to this world then he is able to eat our lunch.
Yes, man may be the most dominant creature here on the earth, but he is still many times ruled by the earth. When you are ruled by addiction, sex, anger, money etc. you are being ruled by the flesh, the natural man which is made from the dust of the ground. Man forfeited his right to rule and gave it to Satan who became the god of this world. The good news, however, is that God has made a way to escape the corruption of sin.
We are going to cover the subject of the Seed of the woman that way of escape in the next lesson. If you enjoyed this lesson, please go to my YouTube page Foundation Publications and like it so you will get updates when I share new lessons. Share this info with your friends on whatever social media platforms that you use.
Next Lesson: Lesson 3 - The Seed of the Woman
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