File | New .....
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Part 1, was more than a little heavy,if you made it through .... give yourselves a thumbs up / attaboy for that...!
By way of compensation, we want to examine in a much more lighthearted way, a question that arose as we contemplated the realities of Life and death.... it is of similar length, but again ... we promise not to disappoint... and this time, we guarantee you will enjoy reading it, instead of working hard....... ?, so enjoy the early post this week!
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If God is the creator, and sustainer of life... and loves us very much... what could possibly cause Him to leave us - prematurely or otherwise?
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Hmmm... it seems to be something that is not in line with His overarching Will of kindness to humanity, but is a temporary measure in line with His plan to show Heaven and Earth the folly of evil.
We have discussed that in our “Plan of God” post ( accessible from the post pinned to the top of this Page , and also on our website... check out the content there ... ) ... but there are wonderful things revealed when we go back and look at the Genesis account.... and we will take a look at that through a metaphor...
When you create a New File in a CAD (Computer aided design)/3D Animation program, you are presented with a blank (infinite) 3D space inside the program, a set of axes, an origin, and maybe a starting basic 3D shape ( a cube or a sphere ) placed at the origin. The designer then edits/adds additional elements to create the part, character, prop or scene, adding digital lights and cameras till they get what they want.... very similar to Genesis!
Genesis opens with File|New ... “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Note, an empty canvas ( infinite 3d space ), earth ( a sphere ) at the origin... composed of matter (earth elements and water). The first elements to be created. Please note that -after- heaven and earth are created, we have a formless, water covered ball to deal with.... much like the starting point of a CAD session!
Its all dark ( humanly speaking ), so the first act of the Lord is to create Light.
Light is a very unique thing ...it is a faithful carrier of information across vast distances ... photons streak across the vastness, absolute zero cold, and vacuum of space, hit our retina , and we see —- the stars, shapes , colors etc. Photons are -different- from matter in that they have no mass and are pure energy... as opposed to protons, electrons, neutrons that make up matter - photons/light are a different FUNDAMENTAL particle with -both- electromagnetic wave and particle characteristics! No wonder this first act took a day...
The dark is given the name Night, and the Lighted time is called day... we started out in darkness ( File/New ...happened in the dark/ evening ), Light is created and turned on, and so we have morning/day, and thats Day 1 .... done with the light, the Lord switches it off and turns to the next task...
In the dark ( He doesn’t need light...) , He creates the atmosphere, clouds, the water cycle ( mist not rain ), and then turns on the light to keep fine tuning His work ( no sun/moon yet ). And that’s Day 2. Again, at the end of the Day, He turns off the Light Himself.
Day 3 is terraforming... begins in the darkness, dry land appears, the deep waters part to become Seas, and the earth is populated with grasses, herbs and fruit trees. Same pattern, the Lord begins creating in the dark, and turns on the Light to keep fine tuning... ?, turning it off when He is done!
-// Here is something noteworthy... even though we know trees etc are living, the Word does NOT use the words for “life/live” OR “breathe” for any plants. In fact, later in the chapter, we see that they were expressly created as FOOD for things that DO live and breathe.... Gen 1:29-30. We will come back to this....-//
Well, now we have trees that need sunshine, and manually turning on and off the Light is getting old ....... so on Day 4 we see the Lord turning His attention to the Heavens... automating Light generation!
He tells us... these lights are ...” to —divide the day from the night; —and let them be for —signs, and for —seasons, and for —days, and —years:And let them be for —lights in the firmament of the heaven —to give light upon the earth: “. Which is what He does... creating the stars and constellations ( giving us a GREAT and astronomically special view of the night sky ), and creating our sun and moon to regulate earth-time.
He no longer has to turn the light on and off, His creation now DEFINES the length of day, night, seasons, years. And so ends Day 4.... anybody arguing against a 6 day creation will have to explain why, after defining the terms Day, and Night on day 1, the Lord defines, and regulates the —length— of the Day, and Night, by putting the sun and moon in their current places relative to the earth! The length of a Day , Year, Season, is divinely ordained and defined!
Day 5, the Lord turns from dealing with outer space, back to the earth via the atmosphere, populating the sky with birds that fly, and the waters with “ the -moving- creature that hath —-life—- “... literally ‘swarming creatures that -move and -breathe’ if you look at the Hebrew terms used.
Here is the FIRST time we see LIFE mentioned. 2 words are used for what is translated in the KJV as one word ... “Nephesh”... ( which properly defined is —- ‘that’ which breathes !) and “Chayah” ( Living, ‘that’ which lives )... coupled with the idea of MOTION, indicating some form of intelligence...lets look at Genesis 1:29-30 again with fresh eyes....
“ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. —-And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that —creepeth— upon the earth, ——wherein there is ———life, ——- I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.”
Day 6 saw the Lord now turning His attention to the land, moving from birds, & fishes, to creating insects and animals that also move...(every creeping thing) and Man. From the text above, it is abundantly clear that plant life is a DIFFERENT form of life than creatures with intellect that -MOVE- and -breathe-. Some translations render “wherein there is life” to “everything that has a -soul-”.... interesting... and they are not inaccurate.
The single word life/soul in the text above is the same word(s), “Nephesh” & “Chayah” we saw earlier. Water creatures were defined as Nephesh Chayah earlier so don’t worry if fishes seem to be missing from the list in Gen 1:29-30, they are defined as living in Gen 1:21 .... since they don’t eat -land- plants, they are not mentioned here. BTW if you ever wanted to know where the logic of wine pairing recommendations for fish, poultry, or steak has its root ... here it is ? they are different classes of living things altogether!
Therefore Life = Breathing + Moving + Living for animals. As for Man, God creates him in His image and likeness, blowing Himself into clay ( we are 55-60% water, the rest is “dust”), to differentiate us from everything else created!
In Gen 2:7, where we are given the detail, the words used are “Man became a living soul”... no prizes for guessing what words are used here for soul .... Man became a “chayah nephesh”... a Living One who breathes .... echoed wonderfully in the phrase — “In Him we live and move and have our being” used by the apostle Paul on Mars Hill in Athens.
We hope you can see the commonality here, why creatures have intelligence and why Man is superior intellectually, dominant, and yet, similar - to them!
Here’s something else thats common... From Light to the rest of His Creation, the Lord says ... everything was GOOD and VERY GOOD ! .... the word there is the word (adjective/ descriptive ) “tob”. Evil is -not once- mentioned in the Creation account... the Lord only saying that it was NOT Good ... (lo-tob) that Man should be alone...( Gen 2:18 )... it wasn’t EVIL.... it just wasn’t upto His standard of perfection. There is a different shade of good we see in the account of the First Brothers... Genesis 4:6–7: “And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest —well—-, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest —not well—-, sin lieth at the door. “
The word translated “well” in the KJV is the Hebrew word “ya-tab” ... the -verb- or action, form of “tob”, meaning “to be good, do well, be glad, please, do good.” Vines Dictionary —- ‘ This word is found in various Semitic languages, and is very common in Hebrew, both ancient and modern. “Yatab” is found approximately 100 times in biblical Hebrew. —— Among other nuances of the verb are “to deal well” (Exod. 1:20), “to play [a musical instrument] well” (1 Sam. 16:17), “to adorn, make beautiful” (2 Kings 9:30), and “to inquire diligently” (Deut. 17:4).—— very interesting to know if you want to do GOOD/WELL ! ? God loves music/beauty/artistry and wisdom!
Here is the first mention of evil and death (in that order!) ..... “ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the -knowledge- of -good- and -evil-, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt -surely die.” - Gen 2:16-17
Knowledge is the word “da-ath” derived from “yada” ... (made famous in the idiom “yada, yada, yada” )... meaning ... to know, become familiar, be intimately acquainted with .... etc. Good is the same word as used for Creation (“tob”) , evil is the word “ra-ah” and “surely die” is actually the word for death ( “moowth” ) repeated twice.... ( moowth moowth ) ...literally, you shall Die Die, rendered as “surely die” or “dying you shall die” (this reading is VERY accurate)... depending on how the translation renders the idiom.
How do you get to “know”/“become intimately acquainted with”, “ra-ah” evil, not just “lo-tob” , not good? And why would knowing Good, and knowing evil cause Man to “die” when all of Genesis upto this point has focused solely on GOOD & LIFE! ( This is the first time ANY words for evil & death are used... ) We are getting warm!!!! ........
Man knows ,and is given to experience , only Good, and Life... and the Lord lovingly WARNS him not to choose to know evil ( sin against Him ), because death lies there as a —consequence!
THAT is how Sin and Death entered the world through one mans disobedience. It was definitely a setup... ( check out our post titled “Naked and not ashamed” to understand how God SHOWS and tells us ... it was a setup! ) .... but one very carefully constructed so as not to ever violate the free will of man OR the serpent!
The only way Man can eat of the fruit is by trampling the Will and Word of God underfoot, and disobeying ... and that disobedient exercise of self & free will, causes a separation between God and Man.... just as Lucifer fell by rebelling.. (rebelling = free will disobedience ) All the serpent is allowed to do is whisper and hiss... he couldn’t lay a finger on Adam or Eve.. but he knew.... Evil/Sin will drive a wedge between God and His free-willed creatures. We see the serpent and man both as free moral agents, and they are called to account for their free moral actions by God Himself.
Evil came at Adam sideways through the weaker vessel, his wife.... still true today. The voice of the enemy to hurt, mock and jeer at you, can sometimes be heard through the voices of your own, very, close ones - dont be mad or angry at them, they are being used, and dont know what they are saying, and how hurtful it is to you... you know it is diabolical, they do not ... e.g Jobs wife... “curse God and die”!
The devil is a coward ... doesn’t fight fair... and Man can make him run...- James 4:7: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.“ Jesus says ...Luke 10:19 “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over —all the power of the enemy—: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. “ He gives us all power over the enemy... you just have to know it’s there and use it, and know that Almighty God Himself is in your corner, rooting for you!
Can God not forgive evil and disregard the wedge it causes? ——-Yes ——- but for God to be -righteous- in so doing, the scales MUST balance. Christ MUST die to pay for our disobedience —- just as Satan and his angels must pay for their rebellion against the Lords authority in Hell.
The temptation of Eve was part of the rebellion of Satan, and it was permitted by the Lord... The Lord, Mankind and all earth is going to go through a Job experience that will last for many ages .... so that Satan can definitively be shown to be wrong and mistaken in his rebellion, throughout the ages of Man ( Our Plan of God post will help you understand these ages... No Law, Law, Grace, Millennial utopia etc ).
The fact that Satan is operating here under sovereign authority , and under the terms of a contract with God is convincingly demonstrated in the Genesis text, in the Book of Job, in Christs interaction with him during the Temptation in the wilderness ( He offers Christ the earth and Christ doesn’t contradict him by saying its not his to give... ), and in the book of Revelation, which lays out his ultimate fate.
Once Man sins, the enemy appears to have gained the upper hand. The Earth is cursed ( keep man from sinning by making him busy with working to eat .... poor earth... suffering for mans sake...) and Man now is infected by sin for all his generations, and lifetime - and will sin against, and be separated from God.
To limit the amount of Sin, the Lord is compelled to do....TWO things..
1. Put A limit to Mans life and Sin Before the Flood : “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and —-live for ever. —-“ he is banished from Eden.- Gen 3:22
2. And after it....: “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always -strive with man- , for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. “ - Gen 6:3 Please note, Adam DID NOT EVER eat of the tree of life, so he was mortal...but could potentially have lived forever with the Lords support, it’s when sin becomes rampant that the Lord is forced to curtail our lifespans even more.... from 930 to a 120 year maximum....
He also Promises never to ever eradicate all life altogether After the Flood : “ I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is —evil from his youth—-; neither will I again smite any more —every thing —-living—-, as I have done.” - Gen 8:21 The first-time rain wiped out birds and all land animals that were not in the ark. Only water creatures were relatively unaffected.
In the book of Revelation even though the 7 trumpet judgments we Christians will live through (!) are terrible, they only affect a fraction ( 1/4, 1/3 ) of the earth,sea, sun, moon, trees, men... only the seven last plagues ( for which we -won’t- ? be around - check out Rev 14:14 - 14:21 ) are truly horrifying where we see all rivers, and the WHOLE sea turn to blood, killing all the fish. They had it pretty good thus far, they can’t complain...
God stays with us, giving life, as sinful creatures, even though His Spirit is constantly at war with our selfishness ... every waking moment... knowing evil, we choose it pretty regularly.... ?
So, it is not Gods will for us to die ( in an overall sense ), our temporary demise is a result of a contract with the enemy, as well as a way for God to limit the amount of sin Christ needs to pay for....and when Christ came, that contract was paid in full!! The enemy is defeated, his fate sealed and defined, but he cannot give up or throw in the towel now.
He himself is a creature now bound by his contract to continue to rebel till the second coming of Christ ( end times ) and then be thrown in jail for 1000 years, when he has to come out and perform his song and dance one last time before he has to pay for his crimes ... which are Huge! He has no choice anymore.... ? — he is bound by the same contract ( dominion over earth and man for a season ) that God has honored despite all the pain and suffering it cost Him, His Creation, and Mankind. Defeated 2000 years ago, all he can do is work Gods plan.... while trying to thwart it...! (The Lord has his reasons for concealing the hour of Christ’s arrival and hides some things even now .... e.g. what 7 thunders say in Revelation 10:4 ).
Yahshua’s death and Resurrection proves that Yahweh Adonai knew what he was doing ... from the beginning!
(To our Jewish friends... we hope you agree that we are -not- using His Name in an empty fashion ... but glorifying it. Israel should be glorifying and exalting the Name instead of avoiding using His Name out of fear...)
A God that took such pains to create Life in all its diversity is not a God that can ever delight in death... required by His Justice, it is annihilated by His Grace...! Hallelujah! We , like Him, long for that perfect 7th day of rest , when we can again contemplate the beauty of His creation, and see that it is VERY GOOD!
Revelation 21:5–8 (AV):
And He that sat upon the throne said, “ Behold, I make all things new. “
And He said unto me, “ Write: for these words are true and faithful. “
And He said unto me, “It is done.”
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of -life- freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and —-all —liars, shall have —their part— in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the —second death. “
It is finished. It is done. Do not reject the giver of eternal life, Eternal Life Himself... understand how deeply He values truth... do not try His justice, because we can never measure up to so perfect a Being, but throw yourself wholly on the grace and truth revealed in Yahshua, the Christ!
Hallelujah!