| A Tale of Two Trees - Part 1 |
Psalm 8:4: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
What is so special about man that God’s mind is full of the thoughts of man. If present day man is any indication than the last thing God should be thinking
about is man. To understand this it is essential to understand why God created man in the first place. The short answer to this question is that:
• God created man to become a perfect being.
• Let me repeat, God created man to become a perfect being,
• And once more with feeling - God created man to become a perfect being.
It is apparent that I am trying to emphasise the two words TO BECOME.
This would imply that Adam at the time of his creation was not a complete being but would become one through a process over a period of time. This is
exactly the case and this is how we come to understand the present and past state of man and this planet from the time of creation of Adam to the present. It
is obvious that some process is taking place to bring us to perfection because the bible makes that abundantly clear through passages such as the following:
Phil 1:6: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Psa 138:8: The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.
The common misconception is that the first man Adam was more or less a perfect being or at least a finely tuned spiritual being walking lock step with God
and having an intimate relationship with him. Many a preacher has quoted Gen 3:8 (And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden), to try and prove that Adam
and God walked together just having a whale of a time – that Adam was totally attuned to God, at least before the fall and they were at least good friends if
not bosom buddies. Furthermore we are taught that Adam was a great spiritual person but his spirit died once he fell and now all that’s left is a sinful carnal
nature that cannot relate to God. But is this what the bible teaches? Let’s look at:
1 Cor 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1 Cor 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1 Cor 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1 Cor 15:48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1 Cor 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1 Cor 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
1 Corinthians 15 is one of the greatest and most misunderstood chapters of the bible. In this chapter Paul makes a clear distinction between the first man
Adam and the last Adam Jesus and he makes it clear that these two are diametrically opposed not because of man’s fall but because of how man was
created in the first place. Here are the differences between them:
Adam did not become the things listed above because of the fall, rather he was made that way right from the beginning and here's more evidence to prove
this claim:
Gen 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
1 Cor 15:46: Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. Paul does not teach that
Adam was created spiritual but became natural as a result of the fall; he clearly teaches that Adam was created a NATURAL man right from the
beginning. According to Heb. 5:14 spirituality is simply the ability to differentiate between good and evil. Since Adam had no knowledge of good and
evil in the beginning it was impossible for him to have been spiritual.
The first Adam was the clay, the last Adam is the finished vessel.
The first Adam was the seed, the last Adam is the full grown plant.
The first Adam was the stone, the last Adam is the building.
And this is the way it had to be - Jesus had to attain perfection through the medium of the first imperfect Adam thus making it possible for the first imperfect
Adam to be afterward transformed into the last perfect Adam. This is a process that began way before the Garden of Eden and will finally end after the
thousand year reign of Christ on Earth, after the final judgment and once the universe has finally and permanently being cleansed of all evil and all evil
doers. The questions that begs to be asked is why did God not make Adam like the last Adam Jesus as listed above rather than a corruptible flesh and
blood being? Why not make him a spiritual being, a perfect being? The answer is that it is impossible to pre-program any creature to be perfect – perfection
only comes through experience. In the Greek, the English word perfect means COMPLETE and WHOLE. If Adam was not perfect it means that he was not
complete, not whole and how big a hole he had in him we will see later on. Therefore man had to experience certain things that would bring him to perfection,
to completion, to wholeness, to integrity and this would happen through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead.
We are told in Isa 65:17: For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind and
again in 2 Pet 3:13: Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. If this
earth is not permanent and this universe is not permanent why go through so trouble and labor and anguish as God and Jesus have gone through if this
present world does not serve any real purpose? Why not go straight to the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells righteousness because it is
inhabited by righteous perfect beings? The answer is that the present temporary evil world is very necessary to prepare for God a race of beings who are in
every way equipped to be worthy citizens of the world that is to come. But how?
Before the ‘how’ can be addressed it becomes necessary to address the issue of why evil exists in a world that has apparently been created by an
absolutely Good God. If God is Omnipotent and if he is omniscient and if He has perfect foreknowledge of all events and if he has created all things as the
bible tells us then it stands to reason that evil must have been created by him. If evil arose of its own volition and without the knowledge of God, then God is
not omnipotent, omniscient, with perfect foreknowledge and not all things have been created by him, at least not those that are evil. The great mystery is
how can an absolutely good God create evil without becoming evil himself but more importantly why? It may or not be true that opposites attract but
opposites are valuable teaching tools. Do we not teach kids in school and home the meaning of words through explaining the meaning of its opposite, Tall-
Short, Big-Small, Fast-Slow etc.? Likewise God created his own opposite in order to teach us who he is by showing us what he is not. God created Lucifer to
become Satan, the opposer and opposite of God. The word Satan in the Greek language means opposer or adversary. Satan is the exact opposite of God.
He is the darkness to God’s Light and without this darkness we would never have understood Light and since God is Light, we would never have understood
Him. A person who has always dwelt in the light can never understand light because he cannot see it. But let darkness come even for an instant and in that
very instant the person would comprehend, understand and appreciate light. Do not scientists study the properties of light by shining it into a darkened
chamber? Would they be able to study it in the light of a bright noon day sun? This is exactly what happened with Lucifer and the angels especially the ones
who rebelled against God, although they had stood in the very presence of God for eons, they never came to understand Him because they lacked anything
to compare God with in order to understand his inner character. Though they were in the light and Lucifer is called the light bearer, he and they never
understood what light meant because there was no darkness in that age.
The Whys and Hows of Evil
To cut a long story short EVIL was necessary in this universe to serve the purposes of God or else it would never have arisen. Without evil it is impossible to
understand good. Jesus said there was none good but God. Mat 19:17: And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. What he meant was that there was only one person in the entire universe who was
ABSOLUTELY good, who was absolutely incapable of being or doing evil and that person is God. So without understanding good it is impossible to
understand God. God has not created us to be robots or automatons which is essentially what Adam was because it is the knowledge of good and evil that
lifts a person from the realm of being a robot being a moral person. Here’s a trick question, was Adam a moral person before the fall? The answer is no,
does that mean he was an immoral person? The answer to that is no as well, if he had no knowledge of good and evil, none of his actions could evaluated in
terms of good or evil, he was therefore an amoral creature. Similarly was he immortal or mortal? The answer is neither, he could have lived forever but since
he was subject to mortality he was also capable of dying.
God made him an amoral and amortal person so he could become an immoral and mortal person for then and only then would he be in a position to
understand his Creator. Had God made him thus in the beginning Adam could have accused God of being the source of his troubles. Therefore this HAD TO
HAPPEN to him by his own choice, he himself had to choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for it is this knowledge that would make him
spiritual and capable of understanding and loving God: not in a ritualistic way but because he would understand the very nature of his creator and come to
love him because of this understanding. At the same time he could not be the source of evil – it had to come from an external source. This is where Lucifer
the former archangel comes into the picture.
Continued in Part 2
What is so special about man that God’s mind is full of the thoughts of man. If present day man is any indication than the last thing God should be thinking
about is man. To understand this it is essential to understand why God created man in the first place. The short answer to this question is that:
• God created man to become a perfect being.
• Let me repeat, God created man to become a perfect being,
• And once more with feeling - God created man to become a perfect being.
It is apparent that I am trying to emphasise the two words TO BECOME.
This would imply that Adam at the time of his creation was not a complete being but would become one through a process over a period of time. This is
exactly the case and this is how we come to understand the present and past state of man and this planet from the time of creation of Adam to the present. It
is obvious that some process is taking place to bring us to perfection because the bible makes that abundantly clear through passages such as the following:
Phil 1:6: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Psa 138:8: The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.
The common misconception is that the first man Adam was more or less a perfect being or at least a finely tuned spiritual being walking lock step with God
and having an intimate relationship with him. Many a preacher has quoted Gen 3:8 (And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden), to try and prove that Adam
and God walked together just having a whale of a time – that Adam was totally attuned to God, at least before the fall and they were at least good friends if
not bosom buddies. Furthermore we are taught that Adam was a great spiritual person but his spirit died once he fell and now all that’s left is a sinful carnal
nature that cannot relate to God. But is this what the bible teaches? Let’s look at:
1 Cor 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1 Cor 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1 Cor 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1 Cor 15:48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1 Cor 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1 Cor 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
1 Corinthians 15 is one of the greatest and most misunderstood chapters of the bible. In this chapter Paul makes a clear distinction between the first man
Adam and the last Adam Jesus and he makes it clear that these two are diametrically opposed not because of man’s fall but because of how man was
created in the first place. Here are the differences between them:
Adam did not become the things listed above because of the fall, rather he was made that way right from the beginning and here's more evidence to prove
this claim:
Gen 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Was man not made of the earth, that he was earthy as Paul explains in I Cor. 15:47?
- Did this happen after the fall or was he earthy even before the fall?
- Did he not become a living soul which simply means a living being or a living creature without any connection to spirituality?
- Did this happen before or after the fall?
- Was he not flesh and blood even before the fall? Was he not corruptible or subject to corruption even before the fall?
- Had he been incorruptible before the fall he could have never died!
- Adam was a flesh and blood carnal sensual being finely attuned to his physical senses and the physical world around him but blind to the spiritual
world. Living on earth it is plain to see that like their first father present day adams are also sensual carnal beings driven completely by their physical
senses with nary a clue about spirituality. So please don’t tell me any more tall tales about how his spirit died when he was not even a spiritual being to
begin with. This was not a flaw in his design but rather he was designed in this fashion so that he could become a quickening spirit, a spiritual being,
heavenly, flesh and spirit, incorruptible and an heir of God’s Kingdom, a process that has been in the works for ages and was finally completed upon
Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
1 Cor 15:46: Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. Paul does not teach that
Adam was created spiritual but became natural as a result of the fall; he clearly teaches that Adam was created a NATURAL man right from the
beginning. According to Heb. 5:14 spirituality is simply the ability to differentiate between good and evil. Since Adam had no knowledge of good and
evil in the beginning it was impossible for him to have been spiritual.
The first Adam was the clay, the last Adam is the finished vessel.
The first Adam was the seed, the last Adam is the full grown plant.
The first Adam was the stone, the last Adam is the building.
And this is the way it had to be - Jesus had to attain perfection through the medium of the first imperfect Adam thus making it possible for the first imperfect
Adam to be afterward transformed into the last perfect Adam. This is a process that began way before the Garden of Eden and will finally end after the
thousand year reign of Christ on Earth, after the final judgment and once the universe has finally and permanently being cleansed of all evil and all evil
doers. The questions that begs to be asked is why did God not make Adam like the last Adam Jesus as listed above rather than a corruptible flesh and
blood being? Why not make him a spiritual being, a perfect being? The answer is that it is impossible to pre-program any creature to be perfect – perfection
only comes through experience. In the Greek, the English word perfect means COMPLETE and WHOLE. If Adam was not perfect it means that he was not
complete, not whole and how big a hole he had in him we will see later on. Therefore man had to experience certain things that would bring him to perfection,
to completion, to wholeness, to integrity and this would happen through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead.
We are told in Isa 65:17: For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind and
again in 2 Pet 3:13: Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. If this
earth is not permanent and this universe is not permanent why go through so trouble and labor and anguish as God and Jesus have gone through if this
present world does not serve any real purpose? Why not go straight to the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells righteousness because it is
inhabited by righteous perfect beings? The answer is that the present temporary evil world is very necessary to prepare for God a race of beings who are in
every way equipped to be worthy citizens of the world that is to come. But how?
Before the ‘how’ can be addressed it becomes necessary to address the issue of why evil exists in a world that has apparently been created by an
absolutely Good God. If God is Omnipotent and if he is omniscient and if He has perfect foreknowledge of all events and if he has created all things as the
bible tells us then it stands to reason that evil must have been created by him. If evil arose of its own volition and without the knowledge of God, then God is
not omnipotent, omniscient, with perfect foreknowledge and not all things have been created by him, at least not those that are evil. The great mystery is
how can an absolutely good God create evil without becoming evil himself but more importantly why? It may or not be true that opposites attract but
opposites are valuable teaching tools. Do we not teach kids in school and home the meaning of words through explaining the meaning of its opposite, Tall-
Short, Big-Small, Fast-Slow etc.? Likewise God created his own opposite in order to teach us who he is by showing us what he is not. God created Lucifer to
become Satan, the opposer and opposite of God. The word Satan in the Greek language means opposer or adversary. Satan is the exact opposite of God.
He is the darkness to God’s Light and without this darkness we would never have understood Light and since God is Light, we would never have understood
Him. A person who has always dwelt in the light can never understand light because he cannot see it. But let darkness come even for an instant and in that
very instant the person would comprehend, understand and appreciate light. Do not scientists study the properties of light by shining it into a darkened
chamber? Would they be able to study it in the light of a bright noon day sun? This is exactly what happened with Lucifer and the angels especially the ones
who rebelled against God, although they had stood in the very presence of God for eons, they never came to understand Him because they lacked anything
to compare God with in order to understand his inner character. Though they were in the light and Lucifer is called the light bearer, he and they never
understood what light meant because there was no darkness in that age.
The Whys and Hows of Evil
To cut a long story short EVIL was necessary in this universe to serve the purposes of God or else it would never have arisen. Without evil it is impossible to
understand good. Jesus said there was none good but God. Mat 19:17: And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. What he meant was that there was only one person in the entire universe who was
ABSOLUTELY good, who was absolutely incapable of being or doing evil and that person is God. So without understanding good it is impossible to
understand God. God has not created us to be robots or automatons which is essentially what Adam was because it is the knowledge of good and evil that
lifts a person from the realm of being a robot being a moral person. Here’s a trick question, was Adam a moral person before the fall? The answer is no,
does that mean he was an immoral person? The answer to that is no as well, if he had no knowledge of good and evil, none of his actions could evaluated in
terms of good or evil, he was therefore an amoral creature. Similarly was he immortal or mortal? The answer is neither, he could have lived forever but since
he was subject to mortality he was also capable of dying.
God made him an amoral and amortal person so he could become an immoral and mortal person for then and only then would he be in a position to
understand his Creator. Had God made him thus in the beginning Adam could have accused God of being the source of his troubles. Therefore this HAD TO
HAPPEN to him by his own choice, he himself had to choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for it is this knowledge that would make him
spiritual and capable of understanding and loving God: not in a ritualistic way but because he would understand the very nature of his creator and come to
love him because of this understanding. At the same time he could not be the source of evil – it had to come from an external source. This is where Lucifer
the former archangel comes into the picture.
Continued in Part 2
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| Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. |
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