Bible-1, Pentateuch-1, Genesis-1: Part 1

LESSON 1

PENTATEUCH I

GENESIS 1

PART ONE:

By Rev. G. E. Newmyer

We know God is Love, Light, and Life, but the Bible also shows God is All Powerful, All Knowing and All Present. These three terms are also known as Omnipotent (om-nip-o-tent – All Powerful); Omniscient (Omni-nis-cenct – All Knowing); and Omnipresence (omni-presence – All Presence) belong to God only. These elements tell us God is not surprised by any event, neither will we impress or excite Him, rather He knew about it before it was an event, thus faith pleases God, it doesn’t impress Him (Heb 11:6). God may ask us questions, as He did Adam, but the result is for us, God already knows, a vital concept when we speak of the fall.

There are also the basic tenets to the Christian knowledge outlined in the “Doctrine of Christ” (Heb 6:1). Hebrews 6:1-2 is not all the Doctrine of Christ entails, rather the six areas are the rudiments, or foundation for the Doctrine of Christ. Don’t Limit the Doctrine of Christ to these six elements, or you will miss a great deal. A Tenet is a basic element of information wherein the purpose, intent and performance of the matter are known, thus the Doctrine of Christ has Tenets. Theology is the Study of God, but doctrines are what we teach and believe. A tradition of man is something other people did in the past, we never questioned it, but we did accept it as “Scriptural”, then we performed it as a duty, when it was not. The next generation called the Tradition a Fact, the next generation accepts it as Doctrine; it then becomes a Stronghold coming against the knowledge of God. We find the same in the world today, Evolution as a cross-over concept has never been proven. It began as a thesis, then someone accepted it as “fact”, then it became “doctrine”. No evidence, no proof, yet it’s taught as Truth. Can it happen in the Body of Christ? Yes, today we seem to have more doctrines then some people have socks, but Unity calls for us to enter the One Doctrine of Christ already provided in the Bible.

The biggest division between members in the Body of Christ centers around the saying, “we have different doctrines”. There is only one Doctrine a Christian should have, yet we find any of us can be carried away by the winds of doctrine, which are fringe elements lacking the heart of the doctrine itself. Theology is our study of God (Theo – God; Logy – Study), but it may not be God’s study of God. Theology must be sensitive to the Truth, it must bend, or even break in light of Truth.

The six basics in the Doctrine of Christ are; 1) repentance from dead works, 2) faith toward God, 3) the doctrine of baptisms (pl.), 4) laying on of hands, 5) the resurrection of the dead, and 6) eternal judgment. In this we find there is a “doctrine” within the Doctrine, showing there are extensions or Tenets to these areas. However, how many of us know how the One Baptism found in Ephesians fits with the doctrine of baptisms? How many of us really know what a “dead work” is? Not a dead teaching, or a dead sermon, but a dead work. If Jesus said, ‘Ye Must be Born Again” why isn’t it listed among the six? Where is Grace? Where is Mercy? Where is Salvation? How come Paul said we are saved by Grace through faith, yet Grace isn’t listed among the six? These six areas are the foundational premises’ from which we are able to rightly divide the Word. If the Bible defined itself as the Scriptures, then the Word as Jesus, how can we divide Jesus Rightfully? If the Word is divided, then it has two aspects, one regarding Salvation, the other regarding Judgment, they are not Parted into two parts: the Word is opened so we can discern the differences between the two elements. Like a sacrifice we find Jesus was seen on the Mount of Transfiguration, yet seen in the Book of Revelation, yet the two are completely different visions. The Mount gives us Jesus of Grace, the Book of Revelation shows Jesus as the Son of man returning for Judgment (Matt 17:2 & Rev 1:12-16). The two representations are different, on the Mount the concern was the Head and Body of Jesus, in the Book of Revelation it’s the feet, double-edged sword, coupled with the fire of judgment, yet the same John saw both. Salvation is termed “the Day”, thus we are children of the Day, but the Night is set aside for Judgment, we are never to mix the things of the Day into the Night, or the Night into the Day (I Thess 5:5). Is it bad? It isn’t good, since just ahead we will find God dividing the Day from the Night, He intends for them to remain so.

Division is part of Unity, we are divided from the world to be in Unity with Christ. There is a Godly division and an ungodly division, wisdom discerns the differences. It’s the same as judged and judgment; judged is the pronouncement of sentence, judgment is the execution of the sentence (Rev 20:10). The prince of this world is judged, but the judgment comes on the last day (Jn 16:11). The devil was judged at the fall, defeated by Jesus during the temptations, destroyed by Jesus through the Cross, is last seen being cast into the lake of fire at the Judgment (Gen 3:14, Matt 4:11, Heb 2:14 & Rev 20:10).

Our study will contain concepts based on precepts, line upon line, premise upon premise, each building onto the other with the Doctrine of Christ as our foundation. Our desire is to open doors of knowledge, not rooms of understanding. Understanding God, or the things of God can only come from the experiences we have with the Spirit. Knowledge is the mental awareness of things, people, concepts, facts or words. Wisdom is the method in which we deal with people and events, Understanding is based on experience.

There are two types of Knowledge and two types of Wisdom, with many forms of experience, how we view them is important. When we read about the children in the wilderness, who do we think was dealing with them? God? Or the devil? Or Pharaoh? It was God, it’s obvious to us, but to them it wasn’t. What was God doing with them? Destroying them? Or delivering them? Delivering them, it’s obvious to us, but the children presumed God brought them into the wilderness to kill them. Their premise of “God Is” was “God is going to kill us”, which defines the premise of “God Is” must connect to the Reward for diligently seeking Him, indicating God is for us, not against us.

The children heard from God, saw His wonders, but they were unable to judge what God was telling them. God said one thing, they heard something else. God was speaking Deliverance, they heard destruction. Their preconditioned thinking was based on their belief, which turned out to be unbelief. The Word spoken to them was present tense, their faith should have pointed to the Promised Land. For us we believe Jesus is raised from the dead, but our faith reaches to be partakers in the First Resurrection (Rev 20:6).

The evidence of God being with the children was evident, but the testings didn’t make them happy, they were not pleased with the method God was using. God wasn’t entertaining them, so they attacked the man of God, in so doing they attacked God. Simply because something doesn’t please us, doesn’t mean God isn’t involved. Our belief must be “God Is”, or we will use our measure of faith against God, rather than in accordance with Him. In Hebrews 11:6 the phrase “He is” or as we know it “God is” is the Greek Estee a third person singular present indicative of the Greek Eimi referring to a present tense thinking denoting God as “I Am”, or to be present, indicating our belief knows God is with us, the event is something God allowed for our good, with the proper Belief our Faith then has a confidence enabling us to find the Reward God has for us. If we enter the event with “the devil is”, or  “we’re all going to die”, it’s hardly “God Is” belief. Absent God Is thinking we will form an illusion, or something we think is true and correct, but is really a fable. One such fable is the false concept of faith being an element sent to please us, then using the fable to justify ungodly acts. “I wanted to do it, I did it, I’m happy, since God loves me, and I’m happy, God is pleased, thus I did it by faith”. Silly? We know it’s natural reasoning excusing bad behavior, yet it’s done. We want something, we say we trust God, but we use our faith outside of “God Is” to bring it pass, we end forming illusions regarding faith, until the day comes when our faith develops into witchcraft. Illusions are the doormats to deception, yet deception is the calling card of the enemy. Discernment comes with Light, Light comes in the New Birth, it keeps us from doing dead works of self-righteousness in some feeble attempt to impress God, or ourselves. Amen?

The Book of Proverbs tells us we have to know Wisdom, in order to Perceive the words of Understanding, then we can Receive the Instruction in order to Give (Prov 1:1-4). Progressive? Yes, we find areas building one on the other to reach the purpose; from Knowing Wisdom, to Perceiving the Understanding, from words of Understanding, to Receiving the Instruction, then we are able to Give. If we use the wrong wisdom, we will not receive the instruction as God intended; rather we will invent our own determinations, ending confused, bitter, or wandering in a wilderness. We will still “give”, but we will give our opinion, or the opinions of others, yet an opinion is based on natural knowledge, it’s something we think to be true, but lack the Godly evidence to prove it so, thus we ask for God’s Wisdom by faith. Someone says something about someone, then adds, “well it’s the Truth”. No it’s not, it’s their opinion. In order to Give Godly instruction there is a Process we must go through. God hates the ways of the wicked, as He does hypocritical behavior, a hypocrite in this area would be one who uses the experiences of others as if they are their own. Opinions often twist the knowledge into some self-based area bringing harm, rather than edification. We are commanded to direct our faith in one direction, toward (in) God. We are not told to have faith in our faith, or faith in our ability, or faith in our talents. Faith is given so we can have something from God in order to please God (Rom 12:3 & Heb 11:6). Using our faith in some effort to make sure we are pleased, doesn’t mean we pleased God. Natural man presumes if he is happy, so is everyone else; a carnal Christian presumes if they are happy, so is God. When the children made their golden calf they were tickled pink, but was God pleased? No, when the Corinthians attacked Paul they were pleased with their endeavors, but was God? No, God tolerated, applied mercy, with correction, but it doesn’t mean He was pleased (I Cor 10:5).

If our faith is in God, it will be manifested and displayed during those times of testing. Knowing the signs of God’s Wisdom are important as well; God’s Wisdom is Pure, Peaceable, Gentle, Easy to be entreated (teachable), Full of Mercy, Good Fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy (James 3:17). This type of Wisdom is Peace motivated and activated, it’s never confused, or mislead. If we’re good warriors for God, we war from a position of Peace. The other wisdom is of the earth, thus it’s earthly, sensual and devilish, this wisdom produces wars of strive and envy, which lead to confusion (James 3: 14-16 & 4:1-4). Confusion is a battle initiated by a stronghold when Truth appears on the scene. The holder of Truth is never confused, rather confusion hides itself behind the mask of deception. Did Truth bring the confusion? No, Truth exposed the error, it was the error bringing the confusion. Therefore, confusion is always in the mind of the confused, not in the mind of the Truth bearer (or did we say that?). Perhaps we held an error for years, it became a tradition or doctrine of man we believed. Then Truth came, usually in the form of Scripture being taught, we became confused, finding our “belief” was unbelief. We reacted in anger, we didn’t care what the Scripture said, yet we knew better than to attack the Scripture, so like the children in the wilderness, we attacked the person God sent. A servant bows to Scripture, a stronghold makes the Scripture bow.

Opportunity is a word we will run into along this road of Grace, a missed opportunity doesn’t mean it’s lost forever. If God knows all things, then He knows when we will miss opportunities as well. God has worked those times into the plan as lessons for us, thus all lessons with the Holy Ghost build our understanding, as our souls become more spiritual in nature. We have no idea what tomorrow holds, but God does, He has made a way for us through all this.

If we are looking for intellect in the Wisdom of God, we missed it, the intellect of God comes in the Knowledge of God. God grants us His Knowledge and Wisdom in the New Birth, thus we have a God given teacher and guide within, but God also uses teachers to help us gain clarity. The Holy Ghost teaches by comparing spiritual to spiritual, the Holy Ghost is spiritual, the New Man is spiritual, if our souls remain carnal, we miss the learning. However, we also know First John says we have no need of a teacher, but First John is a teaching letter. First John tells us no one can teach us how to Love, they may define Love, or preach on it, but only the Unction (covering) of the Holy Ghost on the Body can teach us how to love. For the most part the teaching is by experience, usually when we are faced with unlovable. We prayed, “Oh God I want to walk in Your Love”, do we think it comes without experiences? Or without training? Anyone can love the lovable, it’s loving the unlovable which gains us the victory.

The Gospel of the New Covenant, is called the “Gospel of Peace”; therefore, it behooves us to find out what Peace is. If we walk by faith, we must also be able to stand in faith, which means we must have our feet shod (covered) with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace (Eph 6:15). James tells us the Wisdom of God produces Peace, Paul says we Stand with the Gospel of Peace. This type of Peace is our Peace with God, the knowledge of God having made Peace with us. It’s Comfort in the time of trouble, our High Priest (Jesus) is always making intercession for us, He is always there waiting for us to come boldly to obtain Mercy and find Grace in the time of need.

In Genesis we will meet Adam, he will give us much to consider, did he walk with God before the fall? Yes, his walk appeared to be just fine, but could it have been better? Yes, the fall proved it. Our walk with God may seem just fine to us, but could it be better? If so, we must grow in Christ. The first step is knowledge, giving us information to define why we have faith in God.

The deception of the old man presents false impressions, we begin to think we are either not walking, or walking closer to God than anyone else, or the biggest deception of all, we are the only one walking with God. It’s the old premise, “I hear from God”, as though no one else does. These false perceptions are pride based, they spell defeat, thus our walk with God always entails our desire to be closer to Him than we are: love demands it, the relationship demands it, our faith demands it, but truth never acknowledges there are many others with the same desire to walk with God.

Before the fall Adam was without sin, but was sin defined? Yes, when God said, “if you eat of the fruit of the tree you will die” sin was defined, as strange as it seems, once sin was defined the potential to sin was also present. Now a great dilemma, if death was  a factor, how was Adam to know what dying was? Something the Bible answers for us.

So did God cause Adam to sin? No, God presented Adam a choice; therefore, choice is a God granted gift. If there is an eternal Judgment in the Doctrine of Christ, yet we also find Jesus is the Author of Eternal Salvation, we find choice presented, Judgment? Or Salvation? When God presented Salvation, choice demanded for Eternal Judgment to be presented as well (Heb 5:9 & 6:1-2). God doesn’t send anyone to hell, they send their self by the choices they make.

We also know God presented the choice between Death and Life, but He said choose Life, thus He presented the Choice, but He wasn’t going to force Choice. Proverbs 18:21 does place death before life, for good reason. In the world we are stuck in dying we shall die, but through Jesus we have Life. God is not going to force the Cross on anyone, Salvation is by choice, thus it takes choice to leave death to enter Life.

What about iniquity? Was it defined as well? Yes, the first command was to multiply, a failure to do the commandment would have been classed as iniquity (failure to do something, while doing something else). Sin is a transgression, or doing something we’re not supposed to, but Iniquity is a failure to do something we’re supposed to, or being unequal. Iniquity is sometimes defined as “without law”, or “wickedness”, the aspect of “without law” doesn’t mean breaking a law, rather it means one who made themselves without law, a premise of being free of the Law of Moses, but rejecting the Law of the Spirit. The English word Iniquity comes from the Latin In (not) Aequus (equal), some concordances use the term “transgression”, but in order to Transgress you must have a law, in the case of Iniquity the meaning of the word removes it from the area. The Greek word for Iniquity in the New Testament is Anomia meaning Not equal. Brown, Easton and others define it as Not equal as well. The Hebrew word for Iniquity is Avon meaning Without law, correlating to the Latin, thus the person rejects the Law presented, but only after they receive a benefit of being free from another Law. Scots Law defines iniquity as Inequity, or someone who fails to be Just; Inequity means “lack of equity”, or failing to conform to acceptable standards. The term Unjust doesn’t mean “without Just”, it means one has the ability to be Just, but remains Unjust: much like the word Undo, in order to Undo, one must have the ability to Do. Therefore we find the Just live by faith, the Unjust do not. Jesus best defined the word Iniquity in Matthew 7:21-23 in His warning to the “workers of Iniquity”, as He said, “Not every one who says unto Me, Lord, Lord shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven: but he who Does the Will of My Father”. Clearly the division was made, they call Jesus “Lord, Lord”, but they were unequal, they did some things they were suppose to, but failed to do other things they were required to do (will of the Father, or Mercy). The “Lord, Lord” people cast out devils, prophesied, and did wonderful works all in the Name of Jesus, thus they had Authority by their use of the Name. None of them said, “we attempted to”, they all said they did. It wasn’t what they did, but what they failed to do. Casting out devils is not wrong, Jesus did it. Surely doing wonderful works is not wrong. It was the failure to do the least of the Commandments which made them unbalanced, or unequal. Mercy is a work, it’s not easy to apply mercy in the face of adversity. Because they were unequal, Jesus told them, “Depart from Me, you workers of Iniquity”. It wasn’t what they did, but their failure to do the “Will of the Father”. Jesus doesn’t call them, “Ye sinners”, but He does call them “workers of iniquity”. This same group are termed the Wicked as well, they love to do the fun things, but refuse to do what is required, yet before the Cross they had the ability to apply mercy. The earthly ministry was based in Mercy, Grace was not a factor until the Holy Ghost gave the gift.

This area is vital, these workers of iniquity operated within the “Name of Jesus”, showing they were of the Body since they had the authority, but worked at being unequal. The key is the working part, this is not something they simply forgot to do, or they were ignorant of, they actually worked harder at not doing, than we do at doing.

Understanding how Matthew is the only scribe pointing to the kingdom of heaven, as well as showing it’s the place where we find the bad and good fish, the wheat and tares indicates to us how there are the Just and the Unjust in the same field. Paul talks about the “vessels of honor”, as he does those of “dishonor”, the only difference is application of, or the refusal to give Mercy (Rom 9:21-24). Iniquity is not “doing nothing”, it’s a failure to do something we have the power, authority, and are commanded to do, it’s also based on accepting the benefit, but rejecting the obligation connected to the benefit. In this case we find they asked God to forgive their sins, they freely received the Mercy of God, but they work at not giving it, rather they slander, attack, lie in wait to deceive, consider themselves some self-appointed protector of Jesus, by attempting to rid the Body of everyone who doesn’t agree with them. However, we also find iniquity will lead to sin, thus the devil found iniquity in his heart, then he caused the sin of Adam, thus one does lead to the other.

The Least Commandments are not inferior, rather they are Least we should do, they were given by Jesus on the Mount of Olives as Mercy based, for those who freely received. It’s important to keep in mind how Iniquity is not a mistake, or lack of knowledge, it’s a set pattern of work at not doing something we are required to do. The “Lord, Lord” people did what they wanted to do, not what they were required to do. They became “inadequate” in one area by working at it, thus they are “not equal”. Not because Jesus made them so, it’s because they made themselves that way, we have the keys. John tells us there are those who deny the Father and Son, the Father standing for Mercy, the Son for Grace (I Jn 2:22-23). The “Lord, Lord” people did things to appear popular, but failed at the will of the Father, thus they became “antichrist” in nature (I Jn 2:22 & 4:1-4).

God defined Iniquity this way, “Yet the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal, but as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall die thereby” (Ezek 18:25-26 & 33:17-18). The righteousness here are associated to the Commandments and Law, but we can see the Unequal aspect is defined by God as Iniquity. Judas was known as a worker of iniquity, he was also termed the first “son of perdition”, the 30 pieces of silver were known as the “reward of iniquity” (Acts 1:18). In truth Judas “did something”, but in the doing he twisted his position into something it was never intended, his lack of Mercy toward Jesus was obvious.

Paul shows the Wicked are those who hold the “mystery of iniquity”, if one was to study the term “Wicked”, they would find God speaks more of them, than He does the Just. We can add Hebrews 10:38-39 to this, since the word Iniquity means “unjust”. “Now the Just live by faith, but if any man draw back My soul shall have no pleasure in him, But we are not of them who draw back to perdition, but of them who believe unto the saving of the soul”. Here is a division between the Just who believe unto the saving of the soul, and the unjust who draw back to Perdition. If they draw back, they were in a higher position, if they enter perdition they were re-born back to perdition making them sons of perdition. They had the opportunity to believe unto the saving of the soul, but refused to. Hebrews 10:38 gives two steps to failure, first they “draw back”, or move in a sneaky manner back to perdition, but it also means they fell from their present position, thus they are unequal. How does this fit with being in the hand of Jesus where no man can remove us? No other person can remove us, yet Jude shows these are they who separate themselves (Jude 18-19). No devil, or person can remove, Jesus is not going to remove us, but Paul makes it clear our own unbelief will cause us to remove ourselves (Rom 11:20-21). The last verses in Mark are not a discourse on baptism, they tell us we must continually believe.

This also connects to Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please God”. Therefore we put the verses together finding the Just Please God because they coupled their belief and faith unto the saving of the soul, which means they trust in God to bring to pass the Promise of Grace, as they remain in Mercy and Grace to reach the goal.

First John shows two brothers, both say they walk in the Light, but one has the evidence of the Light displayed in his nature, the other does not because he hates his brother. If one hates a brother it shows they have failed to walk in mercy; rather than forgive their brother, they slander him. By the one brother hating he did something, yet by hate he also failed to do the Commandment, “love one another as I have loved you”, thus iniquity is not the same as doing nothing, after all they are called the Workers of iniquity.

James says the tongue is a world of iniquity (James 3:6, different Greek word, same thought), for with it we bless God, yet curse man (James 3:9). Clearly the tongue does something if it curses man, but it failed to do what it’s suppose to do, which is bless both God and man. It would be Unequal, or leaning one way, but refusing to lean the other. The word Iniquity can be misconstrued as “sin”, but sin is act breaking a law, or “transgressing”, often it means missing the mark, whereas the workers of iniquity have made themselves “law-less”. In II Thessalonians we are told the “son of perdition” opposes and exalts himself “above all called God”, associating it to the “mystery of iniquity” (II Thess 2:3-7); this son of perdition is doing something, but he also is defined as the “Wicked” or “without law”, thus helping define the Wicked as the sons of perdition, or the workers of iniquity. They work at not being in the Law presented to them, but made themselves free of the Law of Moses by accepting the Cross. Therefore, the simplest definition for iniquity is a failure to do what one has the ability to do within the confines of the requirements presented by God for the position they are in. Jesus used a parable to show what “thank” (Greek Charis – Grace) do we expect for doing what we are expected to do? This would negate the tendency to fall into iniquity, there are times when Mercy is a difficult task, but the Father forgave us based on our forgiving others.

Never confuse a worker of iniquity with a backslider, they are much different. A backslider lacks a foundation, they never placed their belief in “God is” thinking, they felt the devil was, or God couldn’t, weakening their foundation, when affliction or persecution came, the slipped away.

Peter failed because he overestimated his ability, Judas committed iniquity by doing something unequal to his calling. A backslider would be the a sheep who wanders, a worker of iniquity still remains as the self-transformed, they are still very active, but they fail to be equal. A backslider is lost, the Wicked are goats in sheep clothing.

Was Adam told to have faith in God? No, but his heart should have told him God was Just, what God said, God means. Every person is given the measure of faith, Adam fit the “every”, just as Abel or Moses (Rom 12:3). It’s evident everyone has been given the measure based on the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews. If only the Body has faith, what were the Old Testament saints using? There is a difference between the measure of faith, and the Faith of Jesus. The Faith of Jesus is proven, it was His faith not ours bringing to pass the Cross and Resurrection, the New Man follows the path left by the Faith, thus we are called of “the Faith”, referring to the Faith of Jesus, not our measure of faith (Heb 11:39 et al). However, we find no mention of Adam having faith, rather the first human recorded as having faith is Abel (Heb 11:4). If everyone is given the measure of faith, can they misuse it? Or perhaps not use it? We know we can have faith in most anything, even the world. Therefore, Jesus gave us the Commandment, “have faith in God”; if having faith in God was automatic, why even tell us? Because it’s not automatic, some have faith in their faith, some have faith in their denomination, some in their abilities, some even have faith in their religious behavior, but the command is to have faith in God. Faith is not a religious viewpoint, it is an active power designed to reach the Hope God set before us.

Each person has a calling in the Calling, it takes the Spirit to bring the ability to the calling. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word, but simply hearing doesn’t end it. Once Faith comes, it must be received, then acted upon before it can be applied. Paul talks about receiving faith, James talks about the testing after we receive. The Book of Romans shows us the foundational aspects of our faith, as it centers on the justification process by the Spirit through the Righteousness of God, rather than having faith in our self-righteousness. As we saw we are being Justified by faith, by Christ, by the Spirit, yet the Plan in heaven says we are justified (Rom 3:24, 5:1,Gal 2:16 & 2:17). Galatians 2:16 says we are justified by the Faith of Christ, rather than our measure of faith. It’s important to make the distinction, if we think our faith can destroy the devil, raise us from the dead, or get us into heaven, we are sadly mistaken, the same mindset is see in the traits of Lucifer  (Isa 14:13-14). The Faith of Jesus has proven the course, our faith in God is still reaching to the Hope, thus the same Spirit who raised Jesus (past tense) will raise us (future tense). Our measure of faith is vital, but it doesn’t replace the Faith of Jesus.

Our faith in God keeps us from attempting to establish our own righteousness, or doing deeds of the flesh to establish our personal self-holiness, or going about in some self-justification process thinking the Witness is not necessary. Simple faith is a confidence in God’s ability to accomplish for us, what we are incapable of doing in a Godly manner. Our faith holds a confidence in God, we put our trust in God to accomplish the task, thus God gave us the Spirit as our Seal of assurance of being in Grace. In the Doctrine of Christ this concept it’s called, “Faith toward God”, the word “toward” is the Greek Epi meaning to rest upon, or in, it mandates direction.

What then is the difference between Obedience and Self-Righteousness? After all we are told to do many things, seek the Kingdom, put off the old man, put on the new, walk in the Spirit, as well as many other things. The Law of Moses had many things to do as well, so what is the difference? Self-righteousness is based on one deed, when the deed is done, the self-righteousness is also done, meaning it must begin again; thus they kept each sabbath day, not just one. They have to give many sacrifices, not just one, because self-righteousness is of the flesh, it was dead before it began. However, the Righteousness of Jesus is based in Life, it never ceases, thus Jesus gave one Sacrifice for all time. Our Obedience is by faith, not the flesh.

The doctrine of baptisms defines the various baptisms, in Acts 19 Paul said the Baptism of John was good, saying the people “should” believe, but it ceased with John was cast into prison, becoming ineffective when the people had the evidence To Believe. Paul asked the disciples, “by what baptism were you baptized Since you Believed?”. When he heard “John’s” he knew there needed to be another water baptism. John baptized in his own name, we baptize in the Name of Jesus. No one enters the “Body of John”, but our token of water baptism accepts the mercy of the Father, then introduces us into the Body of Christ. After Paul watered baptized the disciples, he laid hands on them, then they received the gift of the Holy Ghost. What baptism did John do? Well, he did one and preached another, if we mix his doing with his preaching we would form another stronghold, making it a tradition, then later it would become a doctrine of men. John did baptize in water telling the people to repent, but he preached Another would come after him who would baptize us in the Holy Ghost and Fire. We know the Other is Jesus, in John’s Account we find the disciples of Jesus did baptize others in water before John was cast into prison, but Jesus didn’t baptize anyone, the time for Jesus to baptize would be after the Ascension, not before (Acts 19:1-5, Mark 1:6-8 & Jn 4:1-2).

When we are baptized in the “Name of Jesus”, or “In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” it’s still one Name (authority), it’s was our token or signature of acceptance into the Body by the Mercy of the Father. We believed and Identified with the death and resurrection of Jesus, it doesn’t mean the Water is the death and resurrection. The water didn’t save us, Jesus wasn’t buried in water, if it wasn’t identification, then our baptism would be in dirt, so we could be resurrected. After all wouldn’t it be better to be baptized in dirt for the death? Water is a metaphor for Mercy, our water baptism is vital, but it’s not all the baptisms we go through, thus we find the Doctrine of Baptisms joined into the One Baptism. The Greek has several words for the word One, there is word one meaning without parts, but there is also one with parts. A car is one car, but it’s made up from parts, thus the One Baptism is not only made of parts, but we find the Greek word Pas in many manuscripts, meaning Place. Therefore, the only baptism we do is in water by the Authority of Jesus, we don’t do the baptism of John. Thereby we find the phrase, “in the Name of Jesus only”, separates the baptism we do from the one John did. The significance points to the Body of Christ being the only God granted element on earth who has the authority to water baptize anyone into the Body of Christ.

From Acts 19 we find what being baptized in “the Name of Jesus” is all about. If it was merely saying, “In the Name of Jesus”, why didn’t John say it? Because John baptized in his own name, the Authority for us to baptize in Water didn’t come until after the Resurrection, yet the Power came after the Ascension. The Name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matt 28:19) is one Name, not “names” as many, thus the Authority of God was granted to Jesus, Who in turn granted it to His Body; thus in Hebrews we find the only voice of God on earth is by the Son (Heb 1:2), usually through the Spirit of Christ in us. The Name of the Father (Mercy), Son (Blood – Grace), and Holy Ghost (Grace – Spirit – Born Again) are combined in the Witness, thus Jesus came by Water and Blood. The Father didn’t change His Name to Jesus, rather it refers to Authority. How important is it? Mark 16:16-18 tells us if we are baptized and continue to believe, the saying “shall be saved” applies. Our Water Baptism identified us to the Body, it was a “Token”, or Sign of our acceptance of the Body, the person who baptized us accepted us into the Body based on our confession of belief. If we are not joining to the Body of Christ, then we took a bath, did the back stroke, got wet, but we were not baptized. Any religious system can say they are baptizing, but without the Authority of God it means nothing. So, if someone said, “in the Name of Jesus”, or “In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost”, does it make a difference? No, it’s still the one and only Name (Authority), after all in the phrase “Father, Son and Holy Ghost”, we find the Son. Evidence? Are you in the Body? Then it worked.

The only requirement for us to water baptize anyone (other than the water) is for them to say they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The candidate is not commanded to be baptized, but we are commanded to baptize them. So, was Adam baptized? No, John came doing the baptism of John, thus it stopped when John was cast into prison. The Law and Prophets were until John, thus baptism was introduced by John, but his ministry was to be a witness to the Word of God coming in the flesh. All this is to show we have a better Covenant, one much better than Adam even dreamed of. Even if there was baptism before the Resurrection, it became ineffective, as did John’s, proven by Paul’s statements and actions in Acts 19:1-7.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1). Some of us read it backwards, thinking Faith produces the unseen, it’s not what the verse says. It tells us faith can be seen, just as James shows, but it comes from the unseen. What is unseen? Hope laying ahead for one, another is any promise God gave us yet to manifest, of course the New Man whom we cannot see will guide our faith. The New Man is the Kingdom of God within, Jesus said the Kingdom of God does not come with observation (Luke 17:21-22). Faith then is a Now confidence being projected to a future hope, but belief is also a Now element based on prior information, experiences, knowledge or awareness. Both join in the Now, yet belief is not the unseen, but it does provide a platform of knowledge to guide our faith, thus Jesus said “have faith in God”, since it’s a past tense statement, it fortified our belief, giving our faith a direction. If we were not told, “have faith in God”, we would send our faith in all sorts of directions. However, in Hebrews we find the children could not enter God’s Rest because of unbelief, not because of a lack of faith. We view Hebrews 10:38-39 where we are told about the just who believe unto the saving of the soul, so it seems future tense, how does it fit? The phrase “who believe” show us this saving process is always in the NOW, it’s not, “I will get it together tomorrow”, or even “I had it yesterday”. The word Believe is the same Greek word translated as Faith, so what does it mean? It couples with Hebrews 11:6, our belief must entail God Is purposed to save our souls, our faith then reaches to the result, in the process of Justification we add Patience, meaning we stay the course. The word Salvation is not the Greek Sozo, or Soteria, as one would think, rather the Greek word means To redeem a purchased possession, Jesus paid the price for us. The prize in all this is our souls, God desires for them to be saved, the devil uses them in some evil competition against God. The devil could care less about us, all he wants to do is stop God.

Adam was in the Garden, yet because of his failure he was cast out, never able to return, is it the type of “glory” we seek? Hardly, for us we were on the outside, desiring to leave by entering the Kingdom. However, for years we had faith in all sorts of things, from the sun coming up to the salary the boss hands out. As Babes in Christ we played with this new found “faith”, but there comes a time to grow up. Faith becoming a “self-tool” often leads into witchcraft, but faith in God brings us closer to God. Interesting aspect of faith is how it’s foundation is belief, faith tells us we must Believe God Is, then our faith points to the Hope of God being a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, indicating before faith can be effective, our belief must be in order.

Assumption comes after the fact, presumption before the act. Assumption would be doing something, then thinking God will honor it. Lying would be saying God told us to do something, when God didn’t “saith” a thing. Presumption is acting on what we think to be a God based idea, yet we either haven’t heard from God, or we are ignoring what God just said, or we are using something God said prior, or something God said to another people. David prayed to be delivered from the sin of presumption, the children in the wilderness fell into it. God told the children to Go, they said No, then God said, fine No, then they said Oh we will Go, God called their acts presumption. They had one word, rejected it, had another, rejected it by going back to the first, presuming God would honor one word, while rejecting another. Once they had the proceeding word, it’s the one to follow. We can have a word God gave to a people of another generation, then a Proceeding or Prevailing word for now, if we reject the Prevailing word, yet do the prior word thinking we are being obedient, we’re not, rather we have committed the sin of Presumption. It was the exact situation Paul ran into with the Galatia, the Galatians felt by doing something God gave another people they would be closer to the Lord, but in truth they were about to fall from Grace, by doing something not associated with Grace.

Self-confidence is the same as the “pride of life”, the world not only tells us to have self-confidence, they rebuke us when we don’t; however, it’s the world. Confidence in the self is the complete opposite of faith in God; self-confidence is faith in the power of the self, hardly denying it. Faith toward God is a command regarding direction. “Yeah, but don’t we say Go to the mountain?”. Yes, we say, but we don’t move it, God does, we still have faith in Him to move it. Ahh, we said, thus we believe in what we said, but the faith issue is in God’s ability to move the mountain. Instead of jumping into some act of self-confidence with the shovel of presumption, we stand in our belief of what we said, projecting our faith toward God to remove the obstacle. Abraham will prove the point, although the man did acts, they were acts of obedience based in his belief. He knew God was able to bring Isaac as the promised son, a faith issue after the Covenant was established. Did Abraham say anything? Yes, as he did many things, but his obedience was based in his faith. Yet, obedience didn’t bring faith, it was his faith bringing the obedience.

Presumption is often making up our own command, obeying it, then presuming God will honor our act, thus it’s not of faith. The Fall will prove the point, they heard from God, but rejected what God said  by making up their own rules.

The Plan was firm in heaven, God merely placed the Plan into action by speaking it into existence, yet Adam tested God’s plan. In the Genesis account the earth and the elements obeyed God, yet the earth didn’t have faith, but it did yield when God spoke. We will also see there was a obvious time span took place, the span was also in the overall plan. The seeds were in the earth, many things, including some animals were called forth, yet others were created. It’s a question in itself, the seeds were in the earth, then they came forth as plants, but Jesus said a seed must die before it can come forth (Gen 1:11 & Jn 12:24). It’s a principle of God, if the principle is not true, Jesus was not Resurrected, since Jesus applied the principle to the Resurrection. Therefore, before a seed can become a plant the seed has to die, in our case we impute the flesh dead on the Cross.

Adam was the only creature to receive the “breath of life”, but he was not the only “living soul”. What say thee? The whales were the first living souls, as we will see, but they didn’t have faith, nor were they granted a place of authority, no whale ever built a “sea car”, or a home for aged whales, because God never breathed into them. The correlation shows both Adam and the whale depended on life outside of their environment. The whale is in water, but has to surface to breath. Adam was in the Garden, but his life was external (Tree of Life). When Adam was separated from the Tree of Life, his existence was dated and timed. Take a whale out of water, they will die. Adam received much, but we may find we have assumed he received something he didn’t. The sea didn’t have faith, but it did bring forth animals when God told it to. Was the issue faith in God? No, but it was Authority speaking to an element as it obeyed, meaning the earth has no choice, it hears, it does.

The opposite of obedience is rebellion, rebellion is the use of a lower authority to overthrow a higher authority. Usurping Authority is not the same as rebellion, when one usurps authority they are using the authority of another without the right to do so. If the bees told the earth “bring forth the flowers”, it would be usurping authority. If the flowers rejected the word of the Lord, then came forth as bees it would be rebellion.

By now we understand there only two types of faith, neither relates to ones religious conviction. “What faith are you?” is a concept not in the Bible, it’s a worldly thought to identify someone’s religious persuasion. The Bible tells us there is the measure of Faith (Rom 12:3), then the Faith of Jesus (Gal 2:20 et al). Jesus as the Son of man faced the Cross, thus He knew all things intuitively, but nonetheless no human ever defeated death, not Adam, Moses, Aaron, David, no one. “Well now friend I think those verses say faith of Jesus, really mean faith in Jesus”. The evidence of the faith of Jesus is found in Romans 3:22 as compared to Romans 4:12 and 4:16. Romans 3:22 says “faith of Jesus”, Romans 4:12 and 26 say “faith of Abraham”, thus if we read 3:22 as “faith in Jesus”, we must also read 4:12 and 16 as “faith in Abraham”, yet the verses concerning Abraham’s faith relate directly to the man having faith. When Jesus went to the Cross He said, “Father why have You forsaken Me”, we tend to think it’s accusing the Father of leaving Jesus, but it’s a question. The answer is of course Jesus had to face death and defeat it for us as the Son of man by faith, which faith was looking toward the Resurrection, thus we are told to have faith as well. In Luke 23:46 Jesus said, “Father into Your hands I commend My Spirit”. The word Commend means to hold as security until a certain work is completed, the statement is faith based. Grammatically speaking the term “faith of Jesus” is called the Objective Genitive, which means the possession of the pronoun or verb belong to the subject. Possession is one of the rules of Translation, one does not change the possession of a object from one subject to another, they must remain intact. A prime example is James 2:1, as we see “have not the faith of our Lord Jesus”, in order to get around the verse, we find some just remove it, which is a sign of a cultist translation. Our faith is by measure, yet the Faith of Jesus defeated death, hell, the grave, then destroyed (made ineffective) the devil. Sound interpretation shows Jesus has faith, a faith proven by Him sitting at the right hand of Majesty on High. How can Jesus expect us to have faith, if He didn’t?

Hebrews chapter 11 lists all sorts of saints who had faith, they gained a good report, as great as their faith was, it still was not able to obtain the Promise (Heb 11:39). Paul tells us the Promise is the Holy Spirit, the New Birth, thus in order to gain the New Birth one had to break the bounds of death and the grave, something only Jesus did. Our measure of faith is vital, but it will not defeat death, it will not open heaven, because the Faith of Jesus is proven, we have faith in God to accomplish the same tasks Jesus did. By the Faith of Jesus we are granted access and boldness to the throne (Eph 3:12), by His Faith we know our Faith in Him will get us through this (Gal 2:16, 2:20 & 3:22). How? He has already defeated death, the New Birth puts the same Seed of confidence in us. The Greater He is Greater because He is a result of the Resurrection, the same Spirit who raised Jesus will raise us (Rom 8:11). The Spirit of Christ is the ability, our faith in God assures us we trust God to complete the purpose for us, even the salvation of our souls. It’s the Faith of Christ granting us the ability to be Justified by God (Gal 2:16).

Paul and others referred to the Christian walk as “The Faith”, or the “Way”. There will be a falling away from “The Faith”, but it doesn’t mean there will be a loss of faith. Falling from The Faith would be falling from the Faith of Jesus, by refusing to recognize it. Paul said from faith to Faith (Rom 1:17), he also told us faith came with Jesus, yet he also pointed to the faith of Abraham (Gal 3:22-25). Galatians 3:22-25 tells us to have faith in Christ Jesus, yet Jesus said to have faith in God, the Doctrine of Christ says to have faith toward God, yet in the same verses in Galatians we find, “the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them who believe” (Gal 3:22). The Faith of Jesus did obtain the Promise, the measure of faith was never designed to (Heb 11:39). If we understand God, we can also understand why the measure of faith is by measure, it’s a gift, but limited to the natural realm, the Faith of Jesus is not limited.

In the Genesis Beginning we don’t see Faith as an issue, but in John’s account we find another Beginning wherein Belief is at issue. Is there a division in the Beginning, does it relate to Beginnings? Did God need faith to begin the Beginnings? No, He saw the end before the beginning, thus He had it in hand, He was not hoping Light would come, He knew it. John’s account in the Gospel has been termed the “faith account”, but the word Faith never appears in the entire document, however he uses the word Believe in one form or another more times than did Paul in all his letters, including the Book of Hebrews. Sound faith is based on belief, acquired by knowledge, without belief in God Is, faith doesn’t have a chance, the first time adversity hits, our faith takes a walk, anger or disappointment begins to rule our minds. Puny faith shows off in the storms, rather than completing the call. Great Faith hears and obeys, regardless of the adversity it faces.

The Book of Hebrews will ask a very interesting question, If God finished the work, why even Speak in another place about the Rest of God? If the Sabbath day was so important, why not speak to Adam about it? Or Noah? Or Abraham? Of Isaac? Or Jacob? Or Joseph? If the Law of Moses or the Ten Commandments granted man life why didn’t Abraham know about it? Adam failed once and was cast from the Garden, Moses hit the Rock when he was told to speak to it, based on his error he missed the Promised Land. Yet, we miss it nearly everyday, but we’re still in the Kingdom. By our faith? Nay, but by the Faith of Jesus; whose Faith is proven and completed, it’s not a matter of having the faith of Jesus, it’s the proof He has obtained. Our faith is in the Lord for Him to complete the same victory in our lives by the same Spirit who raised Him from the dead.

All this still plays a part in our fellowship with Jesus, if we confuse Power with Faith, we will demand things, rather than pray for them. Jesus equated us to the Ground, the Word (Jesus in us) as the Seed. It points to a division, the Seed is not the Ground, and neither is the Ground the Seed, neither is the ground the Seed, or the Sower. Neither does the Seed Plant itself, yet it’s growth is dependent on the ground with the type of water being used, not on the Sower. The Seed (Jesus) had to die, in order to bring forth fruit, a principle established before the foundation of the world. In our case we must die to the self before the Seed can grow.

The Sower sows on all sorts of grounds, some receptive, some not. Hard ground is not conducive to Growth, neither is bitter water beneficial to the Seed. Soft ground is easily entreated, Mercy is always sweet water. We can see how the Ground can Hear, yet be so hard it will not receive the Seed unto Growth. The Seed lays on the ground until the birds pluck it away; therefore, faith came, but it wasn’t received, if not received it can’t be acted upon, if its not acted on, we won’t grow. How can this be? Faith comes by hearing, but the hearing by the Word (Greek Rhema – Rom 10:17). The Hearing ear is willing to receive the Truth, even if it hurts, or even if it exposes a faulty thinking we’ve maintained for years.

When our faith allows the Seed to take root and begin to grow, then we stop going about attempting to impress God with our acts of self-righteousness. We understand the  New Man is created (or formed same Greek word) after God’s righteousness and true holiness, our faith in God extends to the ability of the New Man to get us through this (Eph 4:24). We find the purpose of our faith is the salvation of our souls, the Just live (a day to day progression) by faith. We can’t save our own souls, we can’t become Justified in God’s eyes by our own efforts; however both are possible through God. “So it means we do nothing, right?”: it means there are things we do, there are things God is doing, but we don’t cross the line to tell God what to do. There is a vast difference in working to obtain, and doing deeds because we have obtained. Just as there is a difference between seeking to please God, and seeking to impress Him. There are things we are suppose to do as residents of the kingdom of heaven, there are duties we are suppose to do as kings and priests in the Kingdom of God. Jesus told us to seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, then the Things will be added (Matt 6:33). Two sides, something we do, something God will do, but what happens if we cross over the line and seek the things? We violate the covenant, as well as telling Jesus He isn’t getting us the things soon enough, or we think we can do better. It is best to know what we are to do, then do it. We are told to deny the self and pick up our cross, thus Jesus isn’t about to pick up our cross for us, He already picked up His. So, what is deny the self and picking up our cross relate to? Death, we take care of the death part, Jesus will take care of the Life.

However, we know it’s God’s desire for all to come to the saving knowledge of the Gospel, yet we also know some of the Seed falls to the way side, or to the side of the Way as the fowls consume it before it can take root. Was the Seed given? Yes, but the ground wasn’t willing to yield to the Seed. Did the Seed die? No, the Seed is Life, being a product of the death of Jesus on the Cross, but it must be received by the Ground before Life can benefit the person. Genesis will teach us how to prepare the ground, as well as how difficult it is to work with rebellious ground. The earth was there, the seeds were in the earth, God called the seed forth, then the seed became productive. One plants, another waters, but God brings the increase. The earth yielded without a fight, struggle, or debate, yet it lacks faith. What then could be our excuse?

We are told faith is the substance of things hoped for, the very evidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1). James tells us we can see the faith of a person (James 2:18), thus the manner of faith displayed shows us the source. If someone is using their faith to please their self, the source is self-based, if they are using their faith to reach for the faith of Jesus to please God, their source is God based. The Process of faith could be seen as: Unseen producing – faith – reaching for the hope – displaying the source of faith. All working together to bring the result, thus faith without a Godly foundation, or a hope set before it based on a God given Covenant is dead. All this shows by Faith Jesus destroyed the devil through death, we enter the Faith by our measure of faith, never cast one away for the other, they are designed to work together (Heb 2:14 & Gal 2:20).

We now enter the Pentateuch, the English word Pentateuch (Pen-te-took). comes from the Greek word Pentateuchus, which is a compound word meaning, Five (Penta) and Scroll (Teukhos), or Five Scrolls. However, this is the Greek, or Gentile rendering; the Jews knows the first five books as the Torah, the word Torah means “Instruction from a sacred source”. For the most part a Jew will use the first word of the Book to identify the book, we use the context of the Book, or the Scribe, or the Prophet involved to identify the Book. The Jews feel by using the first word they are not giving the person who penned the work more credit than God who gave the utterance. The Jews correctly see those who penned the words as “scribes”, God as the Author. Confusing the scribe for the author can produce a problem; one can assume John was giving us his opinion, or Mark his, or Matthew his, or the four accounts were merely the separate ways these men saw things. However, if we hold to the basic premise, all Scripture is God inspired, we can be affirmed in knowing the Author is the Holy Ghost, the person is the Scribe.

The Jewish religion holds three pillars, the Torah, Circumcision and the Sabbath. The Torah contains the Law in the first five books of the Old Testament, not the entire Old Testament. Circumcision of the flesh is found in the Law as a token toward the Abrahamic Covenant. Keeping the Sabbath Day is the sign (token) for keeping the Law of Moses. One can pay tithe under the Law, yet if they don’t keep the sabbath day they are a Covenant breaker. The sabbath day also connects the Ten Commandments to the Law of Moses, since the sabbath day appears in both.

When one reads the Ten Commandments one thing is obviously missing, Where is circumcision? Wasn’t it a “sign of the Covenant”? Where does the Covenant of Noah fit into the Covenant given Abraham? Or does it? A token or sign is something giving someone a right to some Covenant.; we are “sealed by the Holy Spirit”, which is God’s Token regarding the New Testament, but we are also water baptized, which is our Token of acceptance toward the guides and conditions for entry into the Body based on the Mercy of the Father. Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Ghost and Fire, which are His tokens given to us. Tokens are like signatures on a contract, they are acceptance of the conditions of the Covenant, or granting one the ability to carry out the Covenant.

The Torah details the rules in the Noah, Abrahamic, and Moses Covenants. The “sign”, or “token” meaning one who held the sign or token had a right to enter the covenant, but it doesn’t mean one was automatically taken into the covenant. In our case we accept the entire Scripture both Old and New, but we are circumcised at heart, not the flesh. We are also sealed by the Holy Spirit, yet we can Grieve the Holy Spirit by Whom we are sealed (Eph 1:13 & 4:30). The Tokens mean entering doesn’t show we are automatically secured, as the Letter to the Galatians shows (Gal 3:1-3).

The Christian also has three earthly pillars and three heavenly pillars, all of which are connected. The Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost as One bear the Record in heaven, the Water, Blood and Spirit (New Man) agree as One Witness on earth. Isn’t it interesting neither the flesh or the soul are noted in First John 5:7-8? The flesh we could understand, but the soul is the purpose, or treasure in all this. The “treasure” cannot save itself, but it can be saved by the Word (Jesus) in us (James 1:21). It’s when we think our souls or minds are the Word, we get into trouble (Jn 1:1-8). The Record holds the Predestined Plan God has for us, the Witness forms us into the Plan. If God desires all to be saved, then God has established a means for all to be saved, are all saved? No, yet if it’s God’s desire, then God has made room, but God’s reality can differ from His desire.

Although the Jew doesn’t know it, all three pillars of their religion point to the Christian experience. We hold to the Word of God as the Logos and Rhema (Christlogic referring to Jesus and the Spirit; Jn 1:1 & 6:63), but is the Word the Bible alone? We found out the Bible defines itself as the Scriptures. To presume the Bible is the only Word of God means the Father, the Bible and the Holy Ghost bear record. If it’s the case, where is the Son? Why would we want to make the Bible the only Word of God? Control, we can control the written document, even change it, but we can’t control the Seed of God in us. We can also deny the New Birth, presuming if we can read the Bible we have Life, then we can interpret the Bible to mean anything we want. Dangerous? Very.

The Bible speaks of life, it doesn’t impart it. The Word (Jesus) is life, Life is imparted in us by the Holy Ghost granting us the Seed. We need the Bible, but the Pharisees had the Scriptures, but didn’t understand themselves. Jesus told them they presumed they had Life because they read about it, but they didn’t have the Word abiding in them (Jn 5:38-42). Some of us make the same mistake, we think we have Grace because we read about it. We can read about planes, it doesn’t mean we can fly. We need the Bible, but we need the Word in us bringing life to the Scriptures. Therefore, we must have the New Man, the Spirit of Truth, Another Comforter in us in order to have the Word in us. The New Man uses the Bible to guide and instruct us, but without the New Man guess who will guide and instruct? The old man, but he uses the knowledge of the world.

To the Jew the signs of their Covenants are physical in nature, to us we have the unseen establishing our faith. Our Torah (Book of the Law) is written on our hearts by the New Man, but we accept all Scripture, whether in the Old or New as God inspired. Belief is based on something of the past we accept as Truth, none of us were around with Abraham, Noah, or when the earthly ministry took place, but we have a document based on God’s integrity. We read, we have not seen, yet we believe, thus we are Blessed (Jn 20:29). The confirmation then comes from within, the unseen foundation for our faith is proven by our belief in Jesus by the Spirit.

The Jew may look to the Torah as God inspired, but they view the prophets as Agenda. Agenda means “by opinion”, rather than debate about what the prophets said, they simply say, “Agenda”. However, it removes the wording “all Inspired”, indicating they hold the Torah is God inspired, yet we know the prophets were speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. if we leave any of the Bible open to private interpretation, we leave it all open. Compromise is the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which means “victory over the people”. Compromise allows us to take some good and some bad, then call it all good. The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes accepts social accepted behavior as the norm. There are those who attack the Bible; however, the proof is in the evidence. If God uses some Scripture to draw someone to the Cross, then He must honor what is written. We never get into “translation bashing” contests, we look at the result to determine the cause. If someone demon possessed came to us, and we said, “come out in the Name of Jesus”, if the demon came out, obviously the devils knew we held the authority found in the Name of Jesus. Where then did we gain the knowledge of the Name of Jesus? The Bible.

For the Jew any change in the person is done by the person, which is self-righteousness, but to the Christian the proof of having the Spirit is the change made in us by the Spirit. Rather than say “I won’t do it”, we find ourselves saying, “I don’t want to do it anymore”. The Shadow in the Old Testament has some like terms, but the definitions are different. They had circumcision, and so do we. They had their sabbath, and so do we, the terms sounding the same, but they are very different in deed, purpose and definition. Our circumcision is of heart done without hands, our rest is in Jesus, our priesthood is much different, our method of being king is also much different.

In all this we find the Jewish Torah has shadows, but we have the Image. For instance we see the Tabernacle as a shadow of Jesus, but without knowing about the Tabernacle, or when and where it was established, we will miss some of the finer points of Jesus. Knowing about the Temple is just as true, without knowing there are mass differences between the Tabernacle and Temple we will miss the greatness of either.

Genesis will begin with the Beginning, but in John we find another Beginning, one connecting to the Beginning in Genesis, yet it doesn’t become the Beginning until Jesus came as the Word made flesh (Jn 1:1-14). There are two aspects of Creation, if not there couldn’t be a New Creature in Christ. We will find the Beginning of the New Creation was Last, but came First in the Plan of God, thus the New Creation becomes First in the Plan of Salvation. Man thinks Judgment must come before Salvation, today some in the Body think in like manner; however, Salvation came before Judgment, God’s plan is always to save the Just (Righteous), before Judgment falls on the Wicked.

However, in the Beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the purpose of the Word becoming flesh is Salvation (Jn 1:1-14). We also find when Jesus came, so did The Light, if it’s the case what is going on here in Genesis? (Jn 1:5-11). So, does it mean there is no Judgment? Hardly, eternal judgment is one of the six basic rudiments to the Doctrine of Christ. If all things are done, is judgment finished? God’s part maybe, but the “time” for Judgment is yet to come. How do we know the difference between the time of Salvation and the time of Judgment? It’s as different as Day and Night, but how do we know the difference between Day and Night? Perhaps we will find the answer to “work while it is yet Day, for the Night comes when no man can work” right here in Genesis (Jn 9:4).

God’s plan of creation was precise, God has a purpose in all things, yet we also find there is an aspect of God based on “just because”. It doesn’t mean God didn’t have Purpose, the Just Because of God is based in His Love for us, the Purpose is still our Salvation. God doesn’t do a thing without purpose, since it would make Him vain (without purpose). Each item in the Creation plan has Purpose, even the earth being found void and in darkness has a purpose.

However, God’s Love is not manipulative, if man elects to reject God and go to hell, then God will allow it based on His love. Sounds funny, but if we think of how much God loves us, we also know how void He is of any act of manipulation, it becomes evident He grants man a free will to accept or deny the Plan of Salvation. Free election keeps us from thinking God is going to reject us based on some predestined plan even if we beg, pray, or ask and ask to be saved. Predestined simply means God has a plan of victory, but we must enter the Plan by the Witness to make it effective in our lives (I Jn 5:7-8).

We know if we tell a child not to do something, it drives them nuts until they do it. One might wonder if God telling Adam not to eat of the fruit, wasn’t tempting Adam to do evil. Can’t be, James tells us God cannot tempt us to do evil, nor can we tempt God to do evil. Granting choice and tempting someone are far different. God gave Adam two Commandments, one Adam was suppose to do, the other was a do not. The do was to multiply, the do not was not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therein we find balance and choice; we will find God is Equal, the very premise demands for us to understand if there is Eternal Salvation, then there is Eternal Judgment.

The Tree of life was Adam’s, but it was not in him, it was in the Garden and became his association to God. As long as Adam and the Tree of Life were in the same area, then Adam could walk with God in the cool of the Day. If Adam separated himself from the Tree of Life then he also accepted death meaning he was separated from being a “living soul”. Causing God to ask, “Adam where are you?”. God was not blind, rather Adam had removed himself from the “sight” of God. Jesus brought us Light (clarity), so we could become Light in order for God to see us as sons.

The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was Good, it had a purpose, the purpose was not bring about the fall, although it was used to. The evidence will show Adam failed to do the do, but did the do not.

The teaching of James regarding how it’s impossible for God to tempt us to do evil, because there is no evil in God opens all sorts of areas. John also tells us God is Light, meaning there is no darkness in God; so, where does darkness come from? The removal of Light, usually does it. Darkness is not a creation, it’s the result of the removal of light. Sin is not a creation, it’s when the person involves themselves in the things of darkness. Isn’t it strange how darkness was on the face of the earth, before Adam was formed and created? There had to be a purpose and reason, especially when we find the flesh of Adam was formed from the dust.

In order for any temptation to be complete there must be two elements, a lust in the one being tempted, and a lust in the one doing the tempting. We know God said the children in the wilderness tempted Him some forty years (Ps 95:10 & Heb 3:9), we also know the Spirit took Jesus into the wilderness for the specific task of being tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1). So then, was Jesus tempted? The temptation came, but since there was no evil in Jesus to make the temptation complete it became a test for Jesus, yet remained a temptation of the devil. The one issue tends to show Jesus as the true Son of man by displaying there was no lust in Him to be tempted. The same three elements of temptation the devil uses at the tree, he will use on Jesus, but the results will be completely different.

We can’t tempt God to do evil, but it doesn’t mean there is no lust in us, it means there is no lust in God to complete the temptation. God will “test” us, but if we have a lust in us, the same test can become a temptation if we use it by the lust. So did God tempt us? No, we found we can take a Good gift, then twist it through a lust to make it evil (James 4:1-4 & Jude 4). Discern, don’t burn.

The examples in the Shadow become teaching examples, the Book of Hebrews  warns us not to fall into the same exampled of unbelief as the children in the wilderness. Paul told the Corinthians these things happened as examples for us. God made sure they were recorded, so we could benefit. The Jews have no trouble with the concept of being the chosen people of God. God told them, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). Ahh, of the earth, so there is another group belonging to God not of the earth, wonder who they could be? The only nation, sounds really neat, until we get to the rest of Amos 3:2, where we find, “therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities”. In our case we find, “I will forgive your sins and iniquities”. If we desire the blessing of natural Israel, we must also accept two other things. First we must admit as sinners we were subject to the punishment of God, rather than His Salvation. Next we must accept the precept of being surrounded by enemies all the days of our lives. There is some good news, from Amos we find there are two groups of people on the earth, the Jew and the Gentile; however, the Christian is neither Jew or Gentile, nor is their kingdom of this earth. Ahh, we found the illusive third group. The Christian is the sojourner telling others about their Kingdom as they bring gifts from their King. So, what is the role of the Jewish people? Since God has two sides of the Cross, one for Salvation, the other for Judgment, it stands, He also has two groups reflecting those areas. The Christian points to the Salvation of God, the Jew the Judgment of God. How is the Judgment reflected? Those who persecute the Jews are the enemies of God’s Plan of Mercy, making them subject to His wrath.

The Law of Moses are the “books” God will use to judge the Jews by (Dan 7:10 & Rev 20:12), but Mercy will be the judge of the Gentile. What about us? We are judged by the Spirit to be free of the wrath of God. Jesus returns to Judge as the Son of man, thus the least Commandments will be the scale He will use. We find Jesus saying, Work while it is yet Day, for the Night comes when no man can work. Something to think about in view of what we call the “Rapture”.

Some contend the concept of the “Rapture” was introduced by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in 1827; however, Darby merely gave his views on the Latin word “Rapture”, found in the Latin Text of the Bible. Paul called it a “catching away”, John called it the “Door”, but the word Rapture itself is Latin, thus no one is going to find it in the English language Bibles. There is more than enough evidence to believe there will be a division between what Jesus called the Day and the Night, the division begins here in Genesis. Some contend the Trinity is not real since the word Trinity doesn’t appear in the Bible, but we can’t find the word Responsibility in the King James either, so does it mean we are not responsible?

There are two Adams in Scripture one is earthly, made of the earth, as a natural living soul. The other is heavenly, as a quickening Spirit. So, how does it fit with “let us make man in Our image”? It does, as we will see. Paul tells us Adam was a living Soul, yet Jesus a quickening Spirit, but he also says “first Adam” was natural, the “second Adam” spiritual. The metaphor Adam points to a Beginning, the first Adam was earthly, natural, but if he was natural he was spirit or spiritual, but he was also without sin before the Fall (I Cor 15:44-52). The Second Adam is from Heaven, Spiritual in nature, continually without Sin before or after the Fall taking place. Which came first for man? The natural, then the spiritual (I Cor 15:44-51). Therefore, we find the Cross of Jesus is a Beginning place, where we begin our change from natural to spiritual, but we must travel the path to the Grave, then to the Resurrection to achieve the declaration of being sons of God (Rom 1:3-4). Paul tells us we must believe God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:9). Why not believe in the Cross? Or the earthly ministry? Or the many miracles? Because the same Spirit who raised Jesus will raise us, thus our belief centers on the Resurrection of Jesus, but our faith reaches to being Partakers in the First Resurrection (Rev 20:5-6). Without the Resurrection, the Cross would be a vain act, thus the Resurrection is our proof of Life beyond the grave. To assure us it’s real, we gained the Holy Spirit of Promise.

There are two positions for us after we receive the Cross; life, then to have it more abundantly (Jn 10:10). Just as we find we come to the throne of Grace to Obtain Mercy and find Grace, just as we find the Bread and Wine, we find Mercy and Grace. Direct Mercy came by the Cross based on the words of Jesus, “Father forgive them”, but those words become effective for us when we, “forgive, if you have aught against any: so your Father also which is in heaven May forgive you your trespasses, but if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses” Mark 11:25-26 et al).

Life is found in God’s Mercy, Life more Abundantly is found in Grace, yet Mercy is the power used by the Spirit to keep us in Grace. Therefore, the Cross gives us Life through God’s Mercy, the Resurrection (Spirit – Rom 1:3-4) Life More Abundantly in Grace through the Blood of Jesus. We are saved from the world to enter the salvation of our souls: thus we find two elements in Communion, Bread, which we are, then Blood which we are sprinkled with (I Cor 11:28 & I Pet 1:2). This life more abundantly is something Adam of the earth was not privy to, there is more yet regarding this Adam we will learn about.

There are times when we tend to give certain people more credit then God gives them, Adam seems to be one of those. Adam was good, created by the hand of God, but so is your soul. Adam’s flesh was also formed of the dust of the earth, although Adam had the Breath of Life, he fell. Jesus on the other hand never failed, He gained all which was lost, plus much more. Which Adam would you desire to associate with? It better be Jesus if you want to win this. Adam faced, “in dying you will die”, yet we face, “in life so you can have it more abundantly”.

The Genesis account will show us God rested from all His works, yet there appears much work being done after the Sixth Day. So, did God fail? Did God have to revise the Plan? Or did God not know the future? Is there more to this, than the natural eye can see. Was the “work” God did for a specific Purpose in the Plan, leaving another work for the Son to do (Jn 5:17)? Was there rain in the first days of creation? If not, where did the rain come from? Did God run around in the time of Noah with a heavenly eraser? If all was done by the Sixth Day, why did God have Abraham circumcise on the Eighth Day? If there is an Eighth day, does it mean God didn’t rest on the Seventh? If God rested on the Seventh, why even begin with the Eighth day? When something is finished, is it completely done? Or does it mean an aspect in overall operation is finished? The Genesis account gives us insight to the overall plan of God, showing God changes not, God’s nature is always the same. We don’t have to worry all of sudden changes paths on us; God is a Constant, there is no wavering in Him. On the other hand we know man’s emotions are variables, love you today, beat your brains out tomorrow, thus God is not a man, and man is not God. Therefore, God deals with us through His Love, yet it doesn’t matter if it’s blessing, salvation, or judgment, He still deals with us through His Love, simply because He is love. Man loves, God is love, much different. Even the Judgment is a product of God’s Love. What? Yes, wrath or judgment without love is demonic. However, thank God, we are not appointed to His wrath (I Thess 5:9).

The Torah is a shadow of something, yet being a shadow it’s like unto a Negative, we find opposites between the Law of Moses and the Law of the Spirit. For instance the Law of Moses called for the priests to sacrifice animals, but the New calls for us to give ourselves as a Living Sacrifice, which is our reasonable service (Rom 12:1). The Law of Moses depended on man’s efforts by self-righteousness, but the New depends on God’s righteousness working in the Born Again Believer (Eph 4:24). The Old called for man to enter a structure to find God, the New shows we are the structure wherein God dwells (I Jn 4:1-4). The Old called for a circumcision of the flesh, the New calls for a circumcision of the heart not done with hands. The Old called for a “day of rest”, the New gives us God’s Rest.

We understand the Sacrifice of Jesus is the center point of our faith, but there are other sacrifices we must give. Jesus gave His Sacrifice gladly, some of us give ours with reluctance. Jesus suffered on the Cross, but held His Joy. Joy is not always laughing your head off, it’s looking to the result as we count the cost worth it. If we balk at counting the cost, we will become bitter and hateful in the midst of adverse events. If we think the cost is too high, we will fall into self-pity, or depression in the face of adverse events. If we know the cost was our reasonable sacrifice, we will maintain our joy, regardless of the event.

What would be a phrase of someone who thinks the cost is too high? “This isn’t unfair”. Some assume they are singled out for punishment, yet faith tells us we are being raised from darkness to pure light. The children in the wilderness will be a great warning for us, they were in bondage under Pharaoh, then set free with signs and wonders, they crossed the Red Sea by faith, but left their faith on the banks. Their failure was in their refusal to believe, causing them to murmur and complain, they kept the day of rest, but never entered the Rest of God, because of their unbelief.

Faith is narrow minded, it never views the vile, yet it doesn’t ignore it either. Faith focuses on seeking the Precious knowing it’s in the hand of God. The children in the wilderness only sought God in the face of danger, for the most part they caused the danger through their unbelief. Jude would have us remember, how the Lord having Saved the children, destroyed those who believed not (Jude 5). Being saved from the world is not a sure guaranty of making it to heaven, but it’s a beginning on the path of Grace.

The Law of Moses came from God, thus Paul said the Law of Moses is Holy, yet at the same time he warned us, if we use any deed therein to gain favor from the Law, we will fall from God’s Grace. Often it’s not from Whom something came, but to whom it was intended. The Law of Moses has a place or realm of effectiveness, take it from it’s realm, then attempt to apply it in a realm it was not intended we make it witchcraft. Paul tells us the Law of Moses with it’s foundation of the Ten Commandments are nailed to the Cross of Jesus (Col 2:14-16).

Viewing any Law one cannot mistake the one sending the Law, as the one doing it. When the Government powers make a law regarding the punishment of terrorists, it doesn’t mean the Government is a terrorist. The Law came from them, but was directed at a particular group; the Law of Moses is the same way. It came from God to Moses, but it was designed for a people who needed a self-based incentive in order to obey. God will tell Jeremiah the sacrifices in the Law of Moses were merely tools to get the people to obey (Jere 7:21-23). Everything created by God is “good”, so why did God all of a sudden say, “it’s unclean”? To gain Obedience, the children lacked belief, much less faith, but if they would just obey, then God could bless them through the Law of Moses; however, anything not done in faith is sin. How can this be? When Faith came by Jesus all things changed, there was a New Beginning with its own special Creation, Law and Priesthood.

The nature of the person who does the Law of Moses is defined by Paul in First Timothy 1:9-10, if one’s nature fits the definition, they are to do the Law of Moses, if they do the Law of Moses, they fit the definition. The Law of Moses defined sin, then applies the punishment, but it also grants someone long life on earth, but it couldn’t rid the person of the sin nature, it couldn’t grant them entry into heaven, it couldn’t grant them Grace, or Salvation, it couldn’t save their souls, it couldn’t even get them to the Bosom of Abraham. Why? It wasn’t designed to, it was designed to find man guilty, then give man a way to balance the scale, yet man was still subject to the law of sin and death.

The Law of the Spirit is different, it doesn’t balance the scale, it does away with it, Behold all things are New. The Law of Moses was Behold all things are balanced, for now, it couldn’t grant mankind a Nature conducive to heaven, but the Law of the Spirit is based on a providing us a heavenly Nature by the New Birth. The Law of the Spirit takes effect for those who receive the death of Jesus in their place, then receive the Spirit as they accept the responsibility of the First Resurrection.

Two Laws, both from God, yet sent to completely different people, for completely different reasons. Why would Paul get so upset over the thought of someone who said they were Christian doing some deed from the Law of Moses to gain favor? Because being a Christian means they are Grace motivated, Salvation minded, thus they have completed the purpose of the Law of Moses by the Cross of Jesus.

For us the Torah is a text book regarding how God set forth the Plan, for the Jew it’s different, it’s the very heart of their existence. There are two other Documents used by the Jew, one is called the Shebiktav, or Mikra, it’s written as well, but there is also the Oral Talmud, or Sheb’al Peh. The two Talmuds are termed the Jerusalem Talmud, and the Babylonian Talmud, they are commentaries on the codes of the Law. The Law doesn’t address demonic activity, things in the afterlife, or spiritual matters, because it was not directed to those areas, thus the Sadducees rejected the resurrection, since it was not specially found in the Torah.

The Jerusalem Talmud was written by those who remained in Jerusalem well after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The Babylonian Talmud was written by the rabbis who were forced to leave their homeland in the dispersion, thus both came into being after the Cross, not before, neither concern our view of the Old Testament. Since both Talmuds came after the rejection of the Cross by the religious leaders, it makes little sense to study them; however, the Old Testament leads one to the Cross, making a great deal of sense to study it.

Even the Jewish scholars know there is a knowledge of God from God, they also knew man cannot understand the mysteries of the Bible without knowledge, yet they also admit no human can have God’s knowledge. Lacking God’s Knowledge, they are left with Agenda; therefore, we find Agenda is a result of lacking the knowledge of God. Since the Jew holds man in and of himself cannot know these mysteries, they never hold anyone accountable to Agenda, but they do hold man accountable to the points of the Law. In the various Letters of Paul we find him making reference to “mysteries”, since in his life before Christ he was a Pharisee, as such he believed in the resurrection, we can understand his life after he received the Spirit opened these mysteries; a good deal of the mysteries we will view in a few seconds.

Peter tells us the holy men of Old were moved by the Holy Ghost to write the words, but it doesn’t mean the holy men of Old knew what they were writing (II Pet 1:17-21). Prophesy is always In Part (I Cor 13:9), the Prophets of Old gave us many “in parts”, but the Spirit defines the parts as they relate to the total (I Cor 2:13). We find the Holy Ghost will take the same verse giving one person an interpretation for their event, another person an interpretation for their event, yet He will not change the context of the verse, merely the application.

Interpretation and Translation are much different, a Translation is taking words from one language then putting them in another, without changing meaning, possession, or tense. The Interpretation is the Author telling us what they had in mind when the words were written. If we want to know what was in the mind of the artist we don’t ask the person who framed the painting, we ask the artist. The same is true with understanding the Bible, no amount of natural intellectual knowledge regarding the Bible will bring us the interpretation, nor will it give us the Proper insight regarding events. Natural intellectual endeavors attempting to tell us what the Holy Ghost was doing become a vain attempt at “private interpretation”. Someone could be up to their ears in a testing, yet hear someone tell them, “I tell you what I would do”, who cares? That‘s not ministry, it’s opinion. The same is true when man attempts to use earthly knowledge to interpret the Bible, it ends in natural reasoning, the same person will use earthly wisdom in dealing with people and events, the end thereof is natural (James 3:15). One thing is for sure, God never said, “Oops”.

The Law of the Spirit is the governing element for those with the Spirit, the Hebrew word Halacha means Law, it’s the Halacha of Moses for the Jew. However, this same thinking introduces intellectualism as the governing agent to determine what God was saying, but the Law of the Spirit uses the Interpretation by the Holy Ghost through the Wisdom of God by the Word of God in us. The endeavor takes a change in Nature, under the Law of Moses the nature was the sin nature, but under the Law of the Spirit the Nature is Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).

We can’t presume “knowledge” in any degree falls under the heresy of Gnosticism, after all God did say we are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). “Yeah, well Paul said knowledge puffs up”. Really, where did learn that? “From my knowledge, oops”. Paul is talking about the use of the knowledge without love, thus the absence of love tends to use knowledge to belittle people, or exalt the one with the knowledge, ending in pride, yet he also said, we all have knowledge (I Cor 8:1-7). The problem wasn’t knowledge, it was knowledge without love.

The use of Natural Knowledge to save our souls was called Gnosticism, a defined heresy in the Book of Colossians, but knowledge is not evil. Things are not evil, it’s the lust in the person making them evil; using Knowledge to enhance the self makes knowledge evil. Gnosticism trusts in the knowledge of the self to bring the self to a point of being holy, not only is it heresy, it’s stupid. The idea is to deny the self, not use it, Gnosticism used the self to save the self, much like the blind leading the blind (Matt 15:14).

The Bible has words of God about God, about God’s people, or about the enemies of God. When we read, we gain knowledge of those events, but it doesn’t mean we have God’s Knowledge. Is the Bible “the knowledge of God”, or is it “a knowledge About God”? The latter, the Holy Ghost brings us the Knowledge of God, the Bible speaks About God. One can read the Bible presuming it’s okay to sacrifice our children, or it’s okay to kill the uncircumcised, which we know is wrong. One could read something in the Bible then say, “well I got faith now, I can do as I please”. We know it’s wrong as well, everyone is led away by their own lust. We must allow the Spirit in us to discern the applicable areas so we can be free under the perfect of Law of Liberty.

The Bible is Truth, so does it mean everything quoted in the Bible is Truth?  No, of course not, since the devil is quoted, yet there is no Truth in him. The devil said something, the Bible tells us what he said, thus it’s true he said it, but what he said is not true. We must see who is talking, what they are talking about, the event, the listen to find what the Holy Ghost is saying.

Since man without the Spirit is bound to the natural intellectual level, Agenda becomes a primary source for man’s natural reasoning. Agenda is a “I think based on my studies” principle, leaving no room for the interpretation by the Holy Ghost. The end times for the Jew is a mixture of Agenda with natural knowledge, yet for the most part they have a better understanding of those times than some of us.

The intellectual view by the Jew regarding the Law brings the Law into a vast Commandment bucket containing more Commandments, than man has days in a year. According to the Jew there are 613 Commandments in the Torah, the first is found in Genesis 1:28; “Be fruitful multiply and replenish the earth”. This Commandment was the basis for the self-determination reasoning allowing for one man to have many wives. Accordingly they felt completing the Commandment was more important than holding to the one wife, one husband principle. Although they know God began with one man and one woman, the Commandment said “multiply”, thus the natural reasoning made it permissible for a Jewish male to have more than one wife. After all, how could a man multiply with only one wife? Even nature shows a bull has many cows, ahh, natural reasoning. They failed to see even Adam remained with the one wife God gave him, thus Jesus taught us before God said, “Replenish the earth”, God also created him; male and female created He them (Gen 1:27). The commandment was directed to one male and one female, not one male and many females. God did not create male and females, rather He brought forth the Woman from the Man, so the Two could be One as they were in the Creation, God’s intent is Just, mans manipulation of God’s purpose is not.

This gives us a clue to the Image of God, not saying Adam was the completeness, but the concept was presented in the beginning when the plan was opened; therefore, we find the person with the New Birth is the Image of God, making Adam a walking prophecy pointing to God’s intentions, yet Adam was also the Beginning. It’s clearer when Paul tells us Adam was natural, then the process of being the Image is to be Justified, but to be Justified one needs to be Born Again. Genesis 2:6-7 are profound at best, laying out a premise we must explore. To assume Adam was the exact Image of God leaves great holes in the theory, for one God is Spirit, Adam was natural and flesh. No where do we find Adam had faith, Adam lost his position as well as his relationship with God because he didn’t believe in what God said, thus to assume Adam was the Image of God, also presumes God doesn’t believe. We term Hebrews Chapter 11 the “table of faith”, yet the first recorded human with faith is Abel, not Adam (Heb 11:4). If Adam was “the exact image of God” why don’t we find Adam as the first human with faith? After all, doesn’t it take Faith to please God? Does it mean God made a mistake in the creation of Adam? Hardly, the premise would be foolishness birthed, growing into the full ear of stupid. Is there a mystery in Genesis explaining this? Yes, one we will see over and over again. We will find some very interesting Hebrew words in the first chapters of Genesis, some of which open the mystery to the Image of God.

The Genesis account shows the female came from the male as his “help meet”; the New Birth proves our Help Meet in our Bosom is the Greater He (I Jn 4:1-4). Unless one has the Greater He in them, how are they going to discern anything? When we asked for the Spirit of Christ to bring us into the New Birth, God made sure no counterfeit could take place. There are those who counterfeit the result of the experience, but no devil, or man can counterfeit the New Birth in us. The New Birth produces a change in nature by producing a New Nature, it begins with an outward transforming by the Mercy of God, but an inward transfiguration by the Grace (Spirit) of God. If we ask for Bread (Body of Jesus), will God give us a Stone? If we ask for the Fish (metaphor for Spirit, or the Blood of Jesus), will God give us a serpent (metaphor for the devil)? Of course not, it’s not God’s nature or purpose, when we ask, we ask in faith, which means we are honest in our desire to walk in what we asked for, knowing God will grant us the Holy Spirit when we ask.

Wait, I thought the fish were in the Sea? True, God so loved the world (sea) He gave, yet we know there are Good Fish in the net as there are Wheat in the field who are the children of the kingdom, but in the case of the Spirit, the metaphor is one, not many, the metaphoric sense points to what grants the fish the ability to be Wheat, or as we know it, Born Again. We also know there are bad fish in the net, as well as tares in the field, discerning which is which is a spiritual endeavor.

The very foundation of the phrase, “ask and you shall receive” points to the New Birth. We asked for the New Man (Spirit), we received, then our faith holds to every step we take centered on the purpose of our faith, even the salvation of our souls (I Pet 1:9). We also know there is a process involved, thus we must have patience coupled to our faith knowing the Word in us is working and growing. “It sounds like a mind game”. Not so, a mind game doesn’t have the foundation, faith does. It’s the same when we accepted the Cross of Jesus, did we die? No? You think not? If you received the Cross of Jesus, you received His death when you imputed the old dead by His Cross. Did you touch the Cross? No, how do you know it wasn’t a mind game? Because you know the Cross is real, you believed the Scripture, the Holy Ghost touched our measure of faith pulling us to the very face of the Cross, then we knew it was Truth. Mind games are based on self-premises, faith is based on something God promised, or did, supported by a belief in the what God has done.

The 613th Mitzva (commandment) is found in Deuteronomy 31:19, which reads, “Now, therefore, write you this song”. Therefore, the Jew assumes it is required for every Jewish congregation to own a Torah Scroll. What does a song have to do with the Law? Did they miss it? Does this mean the Jews are wrong? Does it mean God cast them away, never to consider them again? Not at all, God said He would recover the Remnant when He puts His hand a Second time to Israel (Isa 11:11-14). The prophecy for the particular Remnant came from God at the judgment of the fall, they are known as the “Remnant of the seed of the woman”, not the “Seed”,  What? Wow? Hold on, the word Remnant means An element from a larger element to finish something, much like the 144,000 being removed from the thousands. Of course the Body of Christ is established on multiplication as ten thousand times ten thousand (Rev 5:11). Sounds like the Day and Night has a division doesn’t it?

The Jews are still the chosen among the families of the earth, whereas we are the called and chosen in the Kingdom of God. In order to grasp the New Testament we must know the Old, in order to understand the many concepts Jesus taught, we must know the type of thinking the religious leaders held at the time of the Cross. If Jesus said, “You have heard of them of old”, wouldn’t it nice to know what those of Old said?

The Old Testament is broken up into three sections by the Jewish community, the Law, the History then the Prophets, with History and the Prophets falling under Agenda. One thing becomes evident, when we see the acts of the prophets we never see where they did the Law. Does it mean a Prophet is above the Law? No, it means God has a purpose in His division, the purpose shows the Body is established on the Apostles and Prophets of the New Testament, not the Law and Prophets of the Old Testament. It may not seem like a big deal, but the office of the Apostle is to bring Commandment, and begin bodies in virgin areas, the Prophets brought doctrine and direction, they didn’t make doctrine, they delivered it (Acts 15:32).

We must also take into consideration some important Bible principles; can one have the Spirit, yet be carnal? Paul answered it by telling the Corinthians they were carnal, yet he also said they had the Spirit (I Cor 3:1-3 & 3:16). What problem did the carnal mind produce for the Corinthians? They were unable to understand spiritual matters, even when those matters were explained in great detail (I Cor 2:13-14). Could Paul simply say, “you are carnal, and not of the Body”? No, neither could he say, “I’m sick of this, I’m no longer of the Body, I will begin my own”. God places us where it pleases Him, it may not please us, it may not be comfortable, but it is always profitable. Therefore, the letter to the Corinthians along with Romans 8:1 shows us there are some in the Body who mind the flesh, others who mind the Spirit. Those who mind the flesh equate holiness to the appearance of the flesh, those who mind the Spirit follow the Spirit. The proof would be the Corinthians, who fought over who baptized them, rather than why they were baptized (I Cor 1:10-14).

There is a Holiness found in Salvation, a Holiness found in Judgment, perhaps some of us are looking for Judgment to satisfy a vengeful lust of revenge, but what we really need is a Heart Transplant to seek the Holiness of Salvation. We also read about the Kingdom of God within, yet it’s also to come. Can both be correct? Yes, the evidence of the Kingdom of God is the Spirit of Christ in us, thus the Kingdom is inside of everyone who is Born Again. Yet, the Kingdom will not be complete until the Judgment is complete, as found in Second Timothy (II Tim 4:1). Therefore, we find a holiness in Salvation for the children of the Day, a holiness in Judgment for the children of the Night, just as we find the Kingdom of God within and the Kingdom of God to come. Who is the center of all this? Jesus, the sustaining Light, thus we will find a Light for the Day, and a Lesser Light for the Night. The Light has come, the Light of the Day is now, the Light of the Night is yet to come (Rom 13:12), but all three are spoken of in Genesis.

THE BEGINNING

The last Book in the Bible is the Book of Revelation, therein we read, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), if it’s the case where do we find the Lamb Slain? Where is Jesus in the Beginning? Are there clues to these matters in the Beginning? Could be; just perhaps, God had a plan all along? Okay, what about John’s Account, doesn’t he say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”? (Jn 1:1). Then John tells us the Word became flesh, so where is the Word here? Could it be, just perhaps we will find all these things in Genesis?

The Hebrew name for Genesis is Bereshith (beginning), we obtained the name Genesis from a Greek word meaning Beginning, but the Beginning of What? The Beginning is not the Beginning of God, rather it’s the beginning of God’s plan for the redemption of man. Is it the Beginning of the earth? Yes and no, Genesis 1:1 says, “in the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). Clearly God created, but what does “created” mean? We will find Hebrew words used for “create” and “form”, they are very different terms. The Hebrew Bara means to create, or make something from nothing, the word Nothing means just that. However, to Form or Make means to make something from something, which is either the Hebrew Yatsar or Asah (made). Using the Hebrew language we find man is incapable of creation, but he does form things from the things created.

We must look at Genesis 1:2, behold we find the earth in existence, but take a look at the condition; it’s void, which means useless, or in a state of non-function, with darkness upon it, yet First John tells us there is no darkness in God, James tells us it’s impossible for God to tempt us unto evil, since there is no evil in God, thus showing the darkness is not of God. How then can the earth be in darkness and useless? So, what makes the darkness? The devil? No, it can’t be since he didn’t become the devil until the fall (Ezek 28:13-16). Wow, look at this, before sin we find the earth was already in darkness, how can this be? In verse 2 some feel the Hebrew verb Hayah indicated a judgment between verses 1 and 2, adding the wording “without form and void”, others render it “unformed and unfilled”, which is still void, or useless. Rather than a Chaos on the face of the earth the text shows there was nothing worth anything, yet it’s obvious there was water since the land masses were not on the surface, there were also dead seeds in the earth, this is evident when we find God calling the seeds from the earth. How did the seeds get there? How did the water get there? Whether we like it or not we have to explain this condition found in Genesis 1:2. We know it can’t be a type of Judgment, since Judgment comes after Salvation, thus before there can be Judgment the objects judged must have souls. Therein lays the division, the “living soul” of Adam, he will be the first to make the choice to sin, in so doing he will bring about “death as a result of sin”, producing the Law of sin and death. Even roses die, but they don’t sin.

For years the stronghold in the Body was the thought of the earth, as well as the universe being created by God some 7,000 years ago, then someone found some bones, leaving us with egg on our face. Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 tell us a very important aspect about God’s Love, as well as God being all knowing. John 3:16 tells us God so loved the world, but what was the world like then? Full of destruction, sin, and darkness, but God loved the “people” in the world, thus God saw the potential of Christ for a people who had yet to accept Christ. God’s foreknowledge is not God guessing at the future, it’s God knowing the future before there was a beginning. The purpose for creating Adam wasn’t Adam, it was Jesus appearing as the Word taking on flesh for mankind (Col 1:16).

We find another type in all this, the earth looks dead, no life at all, it’s useless, yet from the death, God will bring forth Life as He puts the Plan of redemption into action. The Lamb being slain from the foundation of the world also includes the evidence of the Resurrection in the Plan. We have certain principles God has established, if God changes a Principal, then God is not God. Genesis clearly shows God calling forth the seeds from the earth (Gen 1:11-12), yet Jesus told us the principle was for a seed to die, then come forth, the principle is the basis for the Resurrection (Jn 12:24). If we are crucified with Christ, yet God changes a principle, then are we really crucified? Our confidence in God is knowing He changes not. True power is having the ability to do something, yet not doing it for the Good of all concerned, we have firm principles in God, allowing us to Trust in Him.

Another aspect is knowing God could have done many things, but He didn’t. Some of us hold unforgiveness against God. We find God could have stopped the fall, but He didn’t. God could have stopped Cain from killing Abel, but He didn’t. God could have stopped the flood, but He didn’t. Of course He could have stopped the Cross, but He didn’t. God could have done many things, thus saying, “God you could have stopped this” is really a display of a lack of belief in “God is”, rather we change it to, “God could have”, indicating blame, rather than honor. Confidence in God is an element of faith, it’s not all faith is, but it’s nonetheless an element. Confidence in God’s knowledge accepts the Will of God, even if it doesn’t make sense to us. It’s also true those who don’t accept God will be destroyed, but they will be destroyed because of the choices they make, not because of God’s choice. We can’t say, “oh well, they were a good person, even if they hated God, they will make it”. How can you be “good” yet not walk with God? Being nice and being good are different; being likable is also different from Good: being a pleasure to be around, is different from Good. There are none Good but God, all good gifts come from the Father of Lights (James 1:17).

God does nothing in “vain”, yet “void” is the result of some vain act, thus we find evidence of something happening to turn the earth into something void and dark. God always has purpose, thus a lack of purpose is also “vain”. God will not create something in vain, since it means “without purpose”. We have to consider the evidence in the Bible first and foremost, yet the evidence also shows how God had the Report and Plan in hand well before He said, “Let there be Light” (Isa 46:10). God is still the Alpha and Omega, not the Alpha or Omega, nor is He the Alpha then the Omega, nor is He the Alpha today and the Omega tomorrow, He is Alpha and Omega at the same time, at all times. God didn’t just happen to come across the earth, then say, “Wow, the place is void, the light is out, got to do something about it, Hey Mike check the light switch”. We as humans with flesh, know the flesh has a beginning then an end, but none of us have the end in hand while yet in the beginning, thus we have an alpha, a middle, then the omega; whereas, God is Alpha and Omega at the same time. We do have something which is Alpha, but no Omega; our souls, they have a beginning, but no end. On of the six basic rudiments in the Doctrine of Christ is our knowledge of Eternal Judgment (Heb 6:1-2), which also proves there must be Eternal Salvation (Heb 5:9). The Cross has two sides, one is the Day, the other is the Night, this is the Day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it, for it’s unto Salvation. The Night comes when no man can work, it’s set aside to make the enemies of Jesus His footstool. All this is Purpose, thus a god without Purpose is called an “idol”. Therefore, the earth had a purpose before God said, “Let there be Light”, one not evident to Moses, or Abraham, or even to Peter and Paul, but one evident to us today. Genesis gives us some graphic differences we must explore and will.

Daniel was told as knowledge increased, man would begin to run to and fro (Dan 12:4). This point in creation leaves room for something to exist, yet has nothing to do with redemption, but does have to do with free moral choice based on increased knowledge. Today we find various sides to the dinosaur issue, one is the false concept of evolution, which fails to really answer the question, “Where did the dinosaurs go?”. Another is the Christian scientific view, really it doesn’t address the question of dinosaurs, but does show there is no cross evolution evidence. Another claims Adam and those who followed walked with the dinosaurs, but there are many problems with this concept. First there is no mention of dinosaurs in Genesis 1, next the flood was about 1,000 years from the fall, meaning if there were dinosaurs around they would have been included in “of the beasts who are not clean by two, the male and female” (Gen 7:1-3). Another concept agrees with the Christian scientific view, it also shows the time space between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 proves God saw the advancement of man then provided another choice, fossil remains for fuel. It does not agree with the so-called “Gap theory”, but it does take into account Bible evidence, as well as factual evidence. The premise of sin and death was not at issue until Adam the “living soul” made a choice to sin, there is no question there. However, God did call the seeds from the ground, thus the flowers don’t sin, but they die, yet the first created being who had choice to sin was Adam. To us this is Hope upon hope, if God back in the Beginning made sure man would have choice based on fuel, surely He made sure we would have enough Grace in these trouble times to make it.

One can disagree with all the views, but certain questions remain regardless of the view, “If Noah was told to take two of every animal, where are the dinosaurs?”. If we have bones, we have evidence, there has to be an answer. We can’t say well maybe God just made it appear as if there were dinosaurs, however, it makes God deceptive in nature, hardly an attribute of God. The real question remains, “If everything produces after its own kind, yet God called the plants from the earth, then the seeds were dead before Adam was created, how does death fit into the equation?”. The Law of sin and death is a combined element, it points to committing sin to produce death, but in order to sin there must be a Commandment to violate, with a punishment equating to death. Merely failing to exist doesn’t mean sin and death is the cause. The key to this is the soul of man, the soul makes man, man, yet it’s the element science cannot find. God created the soul of man from nothing, it still can’t be seen with the naked eye, yet it makes the distinction between man and all other elements created or formed.

What “image” is Adam, and why does God make a point of it? We find the “face of the waters” refers to the external, or surface element, when water is without heat turns to ice; the word does not mean the interior, only the exterior (face) pointing to a surface hardness, thus between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 we have what appears to be a massive time gap, mistakenly referred to by some as the Gap Theory; however the Theory adds the fall of Satan between verses 1 and 2 as a great judgment to bring about the darkness. Yet, it can’t be the case, since Ezekiel 28 tells us the cherub who was anointed, and in the Garden, but the Garden isn’t a factor until after the Light appeared. The Hebrew word Maukkah (purpose, protect or embellishment) is translated as Covering, Ezekiel 28:14 is the only place the Hebrew word is used, the verses around it indicate the Anointed Cherub who Covers was in the Garden with a purpose (Ezek 28:12-16). The Jewels in the Garden refer to various things, metaphorically they refer to people. Those we bring to the Lord are jewels in our crown of life, thus the Jewels were the Cherub’s purpose, but he twisted his position by finding iniquity his heart, which simply means when choice was introduced into the Garden, the cherub found he could make choices as well. All this shows the Cherub did not fall before Genesis 1:2, but later was found in the Garden. This also explains sin and death were not a factor until the fall, sin and death were introduced when God said, “In the day thereof”.

The word “face” in both the phrase “face of the deep”, and “face of the waters” is the same Hebrew word, so was it the deep or the water? The word Deep is the Hebrew Te-Home often referring to the Abyss or Grave, both relate to death, indicting death had taken place. The word for Water is always referred to as water or waters either physically or metaphorically. Therefore we find the darkness and such went down to the depths of the earth as death, there was nothing alive. The face of the waters would be the surface of the waters, at the time there was no surfaced dry earth, since the dry land does not appear until 1:9, showing this Face of water covered the entire earth. Yet, we know Death by Sin was introduced by Adam, but does it mean there was no death prior? In Genesis 1:11, which was the Third Day God called forth the “seed” from the earth, if God would have “created” plants, then the concept of no death until Adam would be correct, but since God called the “seed” forth we find there had to be death, but it’s different form “sin and death”. It also indicates there was no Breath of God as a soul in any creature prior to the time when God made Adam a Living soul opening the Redemption plan. In Genesis we find God creating and forming, also some of the animals have souls, yet none of the animals were “living souls” as a result of the Breath of God as was Adam, but the whales are living souls, but not by the breath of God (Gen 1:20). The soul of Adam had many attributes not found in any animal or plant, as we will see. The point however shows sin and death were not prior to the fall of Adam, “human man” was not prior to Adam, but we do find Scriptural evidence of “things”. Don’t confuse bones with a soul, just because it’s a skull of something appearing like a person, it doesn’t mean it was a “man” with a living soul.

God will not change principles mid-way, it would negate God from being God. If God is the Alpha and Omega, then the principle of a Seed dying to bring forth Life has to be constant. If not, how do we know we will be raised? Jesus equated this death and life principle to the Resurrection, the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, thus showing not only is the principle seen in nature as “everything produces after its own kind”, but it has to relate to the Lamb slain moving to the Resurrection (Gen 1:12). If it’s true, then the seeds had to be dead in the earth, before they brought forth plant life. Adam is the first to introduce Death to the human species as a result of sin, thus Romans 5:15-17 doesn’t say the Adam started death, it says by his offence death came, since Adam was the first to have the ability to make a choice between doing the Commandment, or not. Paul tells us death “reigned” from Adam, showing for us Adam is the starting point of death by sin, yet Adam was not in existence until the six day.

The fact remains Adam was told about death, but if there was no example of death, how then could he be held responsible? There had to be some knowledge of death, not the “experience”, but nonetheless knowledge. We know about death, but Adam didn’t, when God said, “In dying you will die”, what possible sense could it make to Adam? “Huh? Oh okay God, dying huh?, hey monkey was is death?”. In order for God to hold Adam accountable there had to be knowledge of the result of violating the Commandment. Unless we can answer these questions, the various Theories are useless.

Genesis 1:2 shows the earth in three realms, without form (useless), void (without purpose as it holds the appearance of death) and darkness (as in the darkness of a grave), if it was the darkness of a “grave”, surely there was some form of death. Yet, none of these three are representative of God, rather they become the opposites of God. God is Light, God is Life, yet there is the appearance of death, God is with Purpose, yet there appears no purpose. However, in Genesis 1:1 we find “God created the heaven and earth”, how can this be? In order for there to be an earth in verse 2, there had to one created prior. For the heavens to exist, they had to be created, Genesis 1:1 simply rebuts any concept of the Egyptian gods creating the earth.

There are many choices, the angels had choice as well, or they couldn’t join the devil, thus the devil had choice. The iniquity was discovered when he used his choice in the wrong manner to gain what he wanted, rather than do what God desired.

Why don’t have the name “dinosaur” in the Bible? Because there was no such word back then, but more important we find another clue to the famed “missing link”. The mysteries in the Bible are in the little words which draw our attention. In Genesis 1:28 God told Adam male and Adam female to Multiply, and to “Replenish” the earth. The same Hebrew word was used in the case of Noah being told to Replenish the earth (Gen 9:1). In Noah’s case it’s easy to see Replenish means to Refill, but Adam? It’s the same word, meaning To fill again, or To bring back to fullness. Also we find God called the seeds and many animals from the earth and sea (Gen 1:11, 1:20-21 & 1:24). This gives us a type of Resurrection, there was death, the creatures, including plant life were dead under the “face of the waters”, but God introduced Light, the Light would generate Life, the life appeared in a different form. It’s a type, no one is saying these things were Resurrected, only the type is seen pointing the Lamb being slain and Resurrected. However, we do find Jesus said He is the Light of the world, John also said Jesus is the Light (Jn 8:12 & 1:4-5).

We find modern man has shown connections, vague and slight, but nonetheless connections between some plants now, and plants which were in existence before the ice age, as well as some animals. The error of course is making a direct correlation, rather than considering how God called things forth from the existing elements. Everything after its own kind does not mean the exactness, but a kind, thus we find over two hundred plants “similar” to those in prehistoric times, or to the times of Pre History.

John 1:4 tells us In Him (Jesus) was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. The same Light shined in darkness, yet the darkness comprehended it not (Jn 1:5). Connecting to what we are about to enter, it may seem like we are taking forever to get there, but we see all these prophetic connections projecting to each one of us. If the earth is 8,000 years old, or 50 million, it still stands God so love us, He sent Jesus, as well as Jesus loving us so much He gave Himself for us. If we accept the age of the planet as millions of years, it only shows God is faithful beyond our greatest expectations, His love changed not, we are just as important to God now as we ever were then.

From this we can see how modern man can be so confused over “pre-historic man” as it relates to “modern man”. Neanderthal was around for millions of years, yet he couldn’t make a shoe, must less tie it. Yet from Adam it took 7,000 years for man to put foot on the moon. If evolution is true, why didn’t Neanderthal advance? There is a Bible answer, one overlooked by the natural intellect of natural man. All this is answered in Genesis, plus some other information we will look at showing us how important Salvation is.

As interesting as it seems, today many who study Neanderthal have come to a profound conclusion, there is no way the human being could have come from Neanderthal, the structures are so dissimilar, even “evolution” couldn’t account for the change. There is no logically progression, thus we find a division, one God ordained, yet provides man free moral choice.

Even the angels have a beginning, thus anything created or anything formed from a creation has a beginning. Only the Creator has no beginning. How can it be? Must be, since any creation, regardless of the creation must come from the Creator, but the Creator is not a creation. If the Creator is a creation, who then created the Creator? It stands there must be a Creator who always was, or there could be no creation. The premise of the humanist is based on the concept of no Creator, just a bunch of “just so happens”; however, one has to travel back to the beginning to find what brought about the first “just so happen”, which still ends with something being created. If it was a Big Bang, what caused the Bang? If it’s a cell, who created the cell? If it was a gas cloud, who created the gas? Whatever started it, had to be created. For us it’s simple, God formed man of the earth, then breathed into man, as man became a living soul. Years later, Jesus died on the Cross, making it possible for man to be a quickening Spirit. The completed Image of God is Spirit, Jesus in us, Christ in us conforming our souls into sons of God by the Spirit. To the natural mind of man the thought of God having no beginning causes their minds to go “tilt”, at times their mind simply crashes. Equating God to man, or man to God is always error, in order for any creation to take place there has to be a Creator, if the Creator is a creation, He is not a Creator, but created.

The concept of God being Alpha and Omega is called Omnipresence or all places, at all times, at the same time. This is a very hard concept for the natural mind of man to accept. It’s hard enough to accept God being in all places at the same time, but in all times at the same time? Wow, yet God is not bound by time. Time is an element of importance when death to the flesh was introduced, thus time was not a factor for Adam until death entered the scene. To Jesus time is not an element, a day is like a thousand years, or better there is no difference between the time element of a day, or a thousand years. Yet, God’s love toward us shows He considers Time as a factor (praise the Lord), but we also know the day will come when Eternity will remove the concept of time.

However, on this earth we have our yesterday, today and tomorrow, thus the definition of eternity would be a place where there is no time. Without time, one cannot age, since age depends on having a tomorrow, thus eternity is always Now. Therefore, we are told not to mind the things of the flesh, since the flesh is bound to time. God “formed” the flesh of Adam, thus the flesh has no concept of eternal existence. If we are flesh minded then our concept of heaven will be flesh based, we will think heaven is merely an extension of man’s time, based in man’s natural reasoning. “Isn’t our soul based on time?”. Only because of the flesh, not the Spirit. Our soul equates its reasoning by the flesh, the mind is based on the experiences of the flesh, thus it’s easy to be flesh minded, only those Born Again can be Spirit minded. The change is from the soul equating things to the flesh, to equating itself to the Spirit. It’s not an easy task, it takes faith, time and patience. God’s people are spiritual, they must think spiritually. If someone didn’t tell us, or if our flesh didn’t tell us we were fifty years old, our souls won’t  know it.

Since the flesh is bound to time, it predicates its decisions on time; if the soul is flesh minded it will also predicate decisions on time. The flesh is concerned about one thing, existence, yet the soul goes on forever. The flesh makes the soul presume time is so important it will use the soul to cause the flesh to last as long as possible.

The word Omnipresence comes from the Latin Omnis (All) and Praesens (Presents [to be present]), meaning present at all events, at all times, at the same time. The Pharisees knew this, when Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I Am”, He was declaring His Omnipresence, thus the Pharisees were moved by their own natural awareness of flesh and time, causing them to attack Jesus. “How can this be? He is standing here before us? He is subject to time, as we are”. Why would they stone Him? Because of His good works? No, they said it was for blasphemy, in their words, “For a good work we stone You not; but for blasphemy; because You, being a man, make Yourself God” (Jn 10:33). All they wanted was an excuse, since they were looking for error. Jesus didn’t make Himself God, rather it was God’s Word taking on the form of man.

Since God is not bound to time, He can say all He is going to say in the Beginning, yet have those words fall into areas we know as time. God has spoken, yet God is speaking, we have to hear the Proceeding Words of God for our certain time and timing, it doesn’t mean God will say something opposed to the Bible, but it does show the Pharisees lost out because they rejected the Proceeding Word. When God finished His work, it’s was not the same as you or I finishing our work. Rather when God finished this work in Genesis, it finished an area of work. Once it was done, it was all done, yet at the same time there was a process of Time. Jesus tells us to work while it is yet Day for the Night comes when no one can work. It shows the Night follows the Day, but if no man can work, does it mean the work is done? Could be, but if Jesus told us to work during the Day, is there a work for those of the Day? Could be.

Faith says God framed the worlds (ages), thus all things are well in hand, all things are going on as the plan dictates. “Well I tell you what, the world looks like its going to hell in a hand basket, everything else looks upside down”. The world is suppose to look like that, one of the tricks of the enemy is to make us think we’re to make the world the Kingdom of God, rather than call the called from the world into the Kingdom. Holding to The Faith isn’t easy, even faith people can get caught into worldly thinking, supposing gain is Godly. If one looks at numbers as a mark of success, they must also say God failed. “What?”. Only a Few make it, God picked the smallest of all families of the earth, Paul also shows God picks the weak to confound the strong and so on. It’s not numbers proving Gain, it’s Righteousness in the Holy Ghost.

Hebrews 11:3 in respect to our faith gives us two words to look at, “Framed” and “Worlds”; the word “Framed” is the Greek Katartisis meaning The process is completed; “Worlds” which is the Greek Aion meaning An age, not a planet. Each Age is complete in the Record (plan), each was or is being played out on earth in the Process of time. Serving a God who is guessing at the outcome is scary at best, but serving a God who framed all these ages gives us confidence. Does it mean God designed the evil in the world? No, it’s why we’re not suppose to blame Him. It does mean God saw all the obstacles before they were placed before us, He has a way around or through them to benefit His children.

The devil wasn’t created the devil, rather he was an angel of high ranking, but iniquity was found in him. Who put it there? Choice, the angels have choice, if not, none of them would have fallen. From the wrong choice came the evil, which only proves the right choice holds the good.

Faith knows all things work together for good to them who love God, and to them who are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28). Notice in Romans 8:28 it says “to them”, rather than “for them”? Interesting isn’t it? If it was “for them” then it would mean the event or thing would have to be pleasing to our senses, but it says “to them”, referring to our well being in the overall picture. The benefit need not be immediate, but there is a benefit to be found.

Not withstanding the concept of God being in all times, at the same time, we must add the concept of God hearing all our prayers at the same time. We could live in a city with 5,000 people, one day we pick up the telephone and speak to all of them at the same time. As long as we were doing the talking, we would not be confused, but if all of them started speaking to us, watch out. Each one of them with a different situation, or a different request, not only would we hear their words, but if we were God we could discern their hearts, then answer their requests accordingly. On the other hand, just because God is talking, does it mean we’re listening? Prayer is not to move God, it’s to move us where the answer is waiting. Jesus said our Father has answered our prayer before we ask. “Well if it’s the case, I won’t ask”. The premise points to God’s foreknowledge, although He knows, we have the keys, it’s our asking allowing Him to guide us to the answer.

God made a route of escape regardless of the event, or temptation, long before we faced the event or the temptation (I Cor 10:13). We can either allow Him to show us the route of escape, or crawl around in the midst of self-pity looking for it ourselves. Did Adam have a route of escape? Yes, but did he take it?

If we’re Born Again we have an upper hand in this, God gave us a direct connection to Him through the New Man. The Holy Ghost is The Comforter, but we have Another Comforter within, one just like the first, the Spirit in us becomes our proof of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. No one can have the Spirit until death takes place, yet Jesus died for us, so we can have the Spirit of Holiness based on the Resurrection. Therefore, we have something from God no other human before Pentecost was privy to, something so great, so wonderful, so powerful it proves Jesus was Resurrected.

The New Man hears from the Holy Ghost relaying the information to our souls. We then make the determination if we are going to obey or not. Does it mean we are greater than God? No, it means we can resist God, since the Gift is for us to be saved, not for God to be saved. Who resisted Jesus? The devils or the Pharisees? The devils did as they were told, the Pharisees picked up stones. Who had power over the temple? God or the religious leaders? Mark 11:17 tells us the religious leaders turned the House of God into a den of thieves. Why didn’t God send a little fire on them? “See those guys they repented, see those ashes, they didn’t”. Why not? God gave the temple to the people, but like any Talent, they had to give an account regarding how they cared for it. The evidence in the Gospel Accounts prove the Pharisees had more power to resist Jesus, than did the devils, yet most of us are scared out of our wits over some devil. Does it mean there is no devil? Hardly, it means far too many of us have given the devil too much credit. We have the Life of Christ in us by the Spirit, thus our souls are being regenerated by the Spirit, as our souls are changing from flesh to Spiritual in nature.

In Proverbs a Tree of Life is equated to a “she”, as is Wisdom (Prov 3:18), a Tree of Life is also equated to the fruit of Righteousness, James also equates God’s Wisdom to the Fruit of Righteousness (Prov 11:30 & James 3:18). The Water of life comes from within, the Tree of Life is on either side (Rev 22:1-2). Adam had access to the Tree of Life, but he never had the Tree of Life within, nor did he have the Living Water (Jn 7:38-39).

The first four chapters of Genesis give us the foundation for the Gospel: if we’ve read the Bible, we know Jesus is the Lion from the Tribe of Judah, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8), the Word, the Truth, the Way, the Life, the Light, Grace and many other things, thus the Foundation of the world must hold mysteries relating to Jesus, meaning Jesus is always the basis of the Good News (Gospel). All this wasn’t created for us, it was created by and for the Word of God. Is the earth and the world the same? No, the earth was here, but there was no world until the fall, there was not spirit of the world until God granted us the Spirit which is of God (I Cor 2:12-13, I Jn 2:19 & 4:1-4). Actually the first time we find the word World is in I Samuel 2:8, the first time we find the word “worldly” is in Titus 2:12. The world is the population of mankind who are among the disobedient, under the hand of the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:12-13).

The wild thought of natural man in and of himself being the image of God, misses the point by miles. We forget God is timeless, He is looking at something yet future to us, as a Now to Him, while He is watching something in the past to us as a Now to Him, while speaking to us in the present, which is Now to both Him and us. God does call things appearing as a not to us (present) as though they are, because He is looking at them in the future as He is talking to us. They are future tense to us, not to God. It’s important in the creation aspect of Genesis, we will find little hints to the mystery, which become big wonders based on the Hebrew words used.

God speaks to man in the confines of time, but it doesn’t mean God is confined to time. Prophecy is much different from “telling the future”, prophecy is not foretelling the future, neither is prophecy a guess, or a mystic vision into the future, rather prophecy is God speaking through a human regarding what God is seeing, which man will soon see, or could see. Since we are bound to time we presume a look into the future is some form of time travel, not so, we must keep in mind the prophets of old were not guessing at the future, nor was God giving them words to cause the future to come to pass, rather God was speaking through the prophets regarding what God saw happening. Prophets don’t say, “So saith the Lord, I think this might happen”. Witchcraft speaks with the desire to change the future, the prophet of God does not. The example? Peter told Jesus to change the future, yet Jesus rebuked Peter by saying, “Get thee behind Me Satan, you are an offense to Me” (Matt 16:23). Not wise to play games or “faith games” in some attempt to change the future to appease our will. The false prophets in the time of Jeremiah were saying things, hoping God would bring them to pass, yet the prophetic word is from God, not to God.

God did say, “Let us make man after our Image”, in Genesis 1:27 we find God did make man in His image, male and female, oops, what does it mean? Genesis 1:27 is still prophetic, as it says, “so God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them”. Notice the changes, “He him” to “He them”, didn’t God know what He did? Yes, Adam was only the beginning, the process of time leads to the Cross and Resurrection, where man would be able to have the Spirit, thus Adam was flesh and blood. Adam was formed of the dust of the earth, he was restricted to the earth, a concept we need to explore. If we are the Body of Christ as a He, yet there is no male or female in Christ then Genesis 1:27 makes sense, since we also the Bride.

This still connects to God calling things a not to us, as a were to Him. When Adam was formed, then he became a Living Soul the plan was activated, no man could stop it. To answer the question of the “Image”, is determined by the difference between Adam and the whale. The whale didn’t land on the moon, nor made a house, never invented a thing. The “Breath of God” brought many things to mankind, with the Measure of Faith as the foundation, coupled with the Agapao love (not Agape, but Agapao), then the ability to be “creative”, not as God, but nonetheless the ability to reason, invent, evaluate and make choices based on a reasoning greater than the animals. Every invention of man has been in the last 7,000 years, old Neanderthal never invented a thing.

In Genesis 1:26 we find the phrase, “Let us make man in our Image, after our Likeness…”, why make a division between Image and Likeness? The word Image is the Hebrew Tselem from an unused root meaning to shade, or cause a shadow, it’s translated as Image 16 times, Vain Show 17 times, it was used to define the heathen gods, it doesn’t mean an image as the exact same, rather it means a type of likeness, or resemblance, often referring to a resemblance on the outside, but void of the substance on the inside. The word Likeness is the Hebrew Damuwth meaning a likeness, or a fashion, or something as a similitude, again it doesn’t mean an exact copy, it suggests merely something beginning the fashion until the rest can be inserted. If the “image” was lost in the Fall why did God tell Noah man was still the “image of God” (Gen 9:6)? The Image began with the living soul, it became complete in the New Birth. Therefore, natural man has the ability to reason and invent, but lacks the foresight to see what his inventions will do. Also we have Adam being created, God is not created, rather He is the Creator. Adam has a beginning, God does not, thus there are many differences, but if Adam is the beginning, yet empty, then there must be more to the plan to reach what we might term “a filling”, or better, a when a New Creature can fill man to bring the Image into being. Therefore the New Creature in Christ would complete the prophecy, so does it mean Adam was completely void of the Image? No, he was the beginning, mankind has many attributes from God, reasoning, the ability to invent, have visions, the measure of faith, plus other attributes within the soul. The New Birth brings more attributes, raising mankind above the natural to the spiritual, thus God is Spirit.

God’s plan considered all things, even the evil in the world was in the plan, but it was more like planning for a flat tire we know will happen, but we didn’t cause the flat, or the corruption in the tire, yet we knew it would happen, thus we planned around it. The purpose of the plan was not evil, rather the purpose of the plan is our Salvation from evil. The Record in heaven consists of the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, it doesn’t consist of angels, or clouds, or the twenty-four elders, although all those things are in heaven. The Witness on earth consists of the Water, the Blood and the Spirit (New Man), it doesn’t consist of the world, the flesh, or our soul. Are there angels in heaven? Yes, are they servants of God? Yes, but they are not forming the Record. Are the twenty-four elders in heaven? Yes, the Book of Revelation says so, but they do not form the Record. Are our souls the prize in all this? Yes, the purpose of our faith is the salvation of our souls, but our souls are not part of the Witness. Keeping things in their proper order helps us remain in faith, knowing whatever lays ahead, God has already completed in the Ages, but we’re in the Process of being saved in an Age.

The evidence in the Book of Revelation, with the words of the prophets are not guesses at what may happen, they tell us what God saw happening. Many of those words are yet to happen, but the Book of Revelation being the “little book” in the larger Book shows those words will come to pass. The Book of Revelation is a great example of God’s reality, as opposed to God’s desire. We know the desire of God is for all to come to saving knowledge of the Gospel; so none would be lost, so how does the lake of fire fit? If God’s desire is for all to be saved, why doesn’t He just call those things so? Desire and Reality differ, even for God. We must always add man’s power of choice, it’s not God who makes the decision, but it’s God who presents the evidence. If God never revealed Himself, we would never know there was a God. However, it still takes the Witness in us to bring the Record to pass; our Justification is declared, yet it’s being worked out by the Witness in us on a day to day basis.

Faith is designed to work, thus it will work, but simply saying something we do “works” doesn’t make the act holy. Witchcraft works, it’s why witches use it, but it’s not holy (Acts 16:16). Faith in God gives a place to put our faith, Faith toward God defines it, confirms it, makes it clear, we must put our faith in God. Faith also knows God is the Justifier, the entire Book of Romans centers on it; however, we must define Justified, Just and Justice. The Just live by faith, because God is justifying them, so they won’t face God’s Justice, God’s Justice is a matter of division, sheep from goats, so forth.

Presumption is a thought before the act takes place, some of us trust in God to perform, we feel God will do as we think He should, we believe in God to accomplish what pleases us, then we will love Him. However, we form an opinion regarding how God should act in a given situation, when He doesn’t we get frustrated, mad or depressed. Trusting in God is not the same as trusting God to perform according to our will. Having faith in God to please us, is not the same as having a faith pleasing God. We are in the hand of God, what God does with us, is for the betterment of us and the Body of Christ. We may not understand it, we may not like it, but our Trust in God knows He understands, our faith in God knows the result is Good, our belief in God is established on His promises in the New Covenant, our Love for God is just as unconditional as His Love for us. We hear much about the unconditional Love of God, but if this is a Covenant, there are two sides. If we are Born Again we have the potential to walk in the same Love (I Cor 13:1-13). God’s love has certain attributes identifying it, those signs are our banner of love. Faith has signs, faith comes from an unseen source, projected to a future hope, but it’s still a Now confidence in God. We can say we love God, but without belief, faith and trust our Love will turn to vengeance in the face of adversity. If we are going to claim God’s unconditional love, we must be willing to show Him our unconditional love as well.

Abraham believed God, then it was accounted (imputed) to him as righteousness, but we also read, “Now to him who works is the reward not reckoned (imputed) of grace, but of debt. But to him who works not, but believes on HIM WHO JUSTIFIES the ungodly, his faith is counted (imputed) for righteousness” (Rom 4:4-5). Abraham was around well before the Law of Moses, his belief in God was the basis to receive the imputed righteousness, so it could be by faith. Self-righteousness is for the moment, the doer of the Law couldn’t keep just one sabbath, they had to keep them all. Once one was kept the act was over, the next act waited. It was a continual effort to obtain, but they never really obtained God’s Rest. The Righteousness of Jesus is like His Faith, it has obtained.

The thought of our works impressing God is self-righteousness, the very second we do the act, it dies. We must do it again and again, meaning we never enter Rest, in the end the Commandment “Thou shall not covet” finds us guilty, calls us dead in sin. Some of us think we can do some act assuming we will impress God to the point He can’t help but wonder at our greatness, but faith is not designed to impress God, it’s designed to please Him. If we love God as we say, then our concern should be to please Him. In Hebrews 11:6 the second step to Godly faith is To Seek God Diligently, the word Diligently is in the Present Participle tense which expresses a continuous or repeated action, thus it is continual, just as our belief must be continual. Diligent also means searching for God in every event, thus one could call it “searching for the Precious”. For the most part seeking God when it appears as if its all over, or certain danger isn’t far anyway, becomes a faith of desperation. Of course if we need to run to God to see if we’re to brush our teeth, we need a nursemaid, not God. Neither does God expect us to run to Him regarding matters He has already talked to us about. How would we like it if our 15 year old child ran to us every two minutes wanting to know if they were to pick up their room, say Please, or Thank you? There are some things attached to the position, we are required to do.

What was lacking in Adam? Faith and Obedience, he didn’t believe God, neither did he obey the voice of the Lord, rather he sat and watched his “help meet” fall into the hands of the enemy. Then he joined her, but when he was caught he turned and blamed her and God. Does it sound like the completed Image of God?

We are also told to believe in our Heart. In our Heart? Wow, what happens if we have a physical heart transplant, does our belief go away? What if the other person who had the heart before us didn’t believe? Does it mean our belief left with the old heart, now we have to start over again with the new one? Don’t confuse the physical with the natural, or the natural with the spiritual, they are all different. The Heart of man could be considered the deep place where intents and motives are found. We are circumcised of heart, meaning we gain a new heart, defined as the Spirit of Truth. When we were under the spirit of disobedience, disobedience governed our intent. The spirit of disobedience is also the spirit of man, who is completely ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor 2:11). Jesus said from the heart comes no good thing, Paul said we had to believe in our heart, thus it’s two different hearts. Could it relate to the “old man” and the “New Man”? Yes, it’s impossible to truly believe God raised Jesus from the dead through the old nature, since it’s based in disobedience. The circumcision of the heart cut away the “fleshly heart”,  which was the spirit of man. The New Heart is the New Man, the Spirit of Truth, the one source forming us into sons of God by bringing our souls into a spiritual nature. This gives us the metaphor of “heart” meaning the spirit behind the person’s thoughts and actions.

The Root is the hidden aspect from which a tree grows, the fruit of the tree identifies the type of tree. Painting the old fruit with “good paint”, doesn’t make the fruit good, it’s merely using a mask appearing for the moment, the mask will fade and the old fruit will come forth. Jesus said we needed a tree transplant, Paul says we need a new heart, thus the New Man is the Good Tree, or New Heart, the very center of our Life in Christ. The precious Gift came in the New Birth, the New Birth came as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus (Jn 7:38-39).

There is Hope in Christ, just think about the mass change which took place when we received Jesus; we gained a new heart, a new mind, a new character, a new attitude, a new way of thinking, a new wisdom, a new nature, a kingdom, a priesthood, yet all the old memories were still there, some based in hurts, pains, misconceptions, strongholds and areas we simply didn’t want to face. A change had to take place to bring us into the New, removing us from the Old, but it’s still Process. Our souls are cleaned as they are purified in the Justification. If it was immediate then Jesus would never have told us first comes the seed, then the root, then the blade. Jesus spent a great deal of time with the disciples before the Cross, if all this was instant, then Jesus wasted a great deal of time disciplining.

This is still a Covenant, we have to make the decision to put off the old and put on the new. These people in the Old Testament didn’t have what we do, but to whom much is given, much is required. We find ourselves facing things they didn’t, but we have more power, authority, coupled with a better promise.

Our will is the basis for the desire, or the motivation to accomplish some act, or to prevent an act from taking place. We will to do, or we will not to do, our will has a “power”, thus we call it “will power”. When we say, “not my will, but Your will oh Lord”, we are not giving up our will, we are giving up the worldly power behind our will, by changing our will to the will (desire) of the Lord. Our will is also our “agenda”, if our old agenda was to use power in a religious way to appear moral, or superior before men, we have yet to learn of the Will of the Lord. We had to learn Kingdom principles and experience spiritual matters by the Spirit for the old agenda to fall to wayside. From there, we must obtain, know and hold the agenda God has for us. If we retain our old self-based desires, we have not changed wills. Our desire must change to the desire of the Lord, before we can take on the Will of the Lord. This is a picture of the Fall, Adam male and female held their agenda, rejecting the plan God gave them.

For the most part we presume if we do religious acts, we are doing the Will of the Lord, not so. Jesus said the Will of the Father is for us to believe in Jesus as we walk in Mercy. Paul defined the Will of the Lord as; “Wherefore be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 5:17-20). This based in speaking to ourselves, rather than attempting to impress everyone else with our “faith”.

Joy was fundamental in the Old Testament, even under the Law, thus the curse of the Law fell on the people if they failed to serve “the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things” (Deut 28:47). The key is “All Things”, not merely the things which please us. When God moves to expose, or bring us into a different place, we tend to complain and murmur, we are fighting God, yet failing at the premise of “thanking God for all things”. “Well I know Jesus has made me free from the curse”. Oh so very true, but being free doesn’t mean you can’t do things causing the curse to fall on you. The curse never comes without cause, regardless (Prov 26:2). Adam wasn’t cursed for what he did, the ground was, he had a personal attachment to the “dust of the earth”. Since Adam attempted to fill his own need, he found God would no longer meet his, thus Adam had to secure his need from the ground, yet because of what he did the ground was cursed (Gen 3:17). This alone shows the Fall was based on the flesh, the soul made the decision, but from the “dust” which formed the flesh ended cursed.

The nature of evil hasn’t changed since the fall, we find the devil had no idea his plan would be discovered by God, rather he presumed his plan was hidden. Yet, before the fall God said “Let there be Light”, the Light did shine in a dark place, thus the entire matter was known and settled. Today the devil attempts to tell us he has it all in hand, the world bows to him, he has attacked the Body of Christ with his gates of division, he again thinks God is unaware. However, God is all Knowing, there is always a plan in the plan about ready to break forth to show the glory of God. Never give up on God, He hasn’t given up on us.

There are times when we see how God “repented” from something He was going to do, thus we can draw two wrong conclusions. We can assume God sinned, so He repented. Not so, the word Repent means to turn. Next we can assume since it appears as if He didn’t do as He said He would, God changed His mind. Not so, God didn’t change His mind, the people changed positions. We know in order for one to change their mind they must be subject to time, since God is not subject to time He won’t change His mind. Another element showing how God won’t change His mind is His all knowing ability (Omniscience). When we change our mind, it means we made an error in our thinking, or obtained new information to revise our decision, which means we had no idea what the future held. It cannot be the case with God, since He knows all things, before they are things. A third aspect is found in knowing all things are created for and by Jesus (Col 1:16), thus all things are subject to the Creator. If all things are subject to the Creator, then the Creator knows what those subjects will do, before they do them. A prime example of this is the phrase, “no weapon formed (Yatsar) against you shall prosper” (Isa 54:17), but why? Because anything created (Bara), formed (Yatsar), or made (Asah) is still subject to the Creator. It’s not because we’re so great, rather it’s because God is. We seem to think the devil has more power than God, we run around like chicken little waiting for the devil to beat us up. The devil is a created being, whatever plan he devised was known by God long before the devil became the devil. The devil cannot create, but he can form, thus anything formed shall not prosper against us, simply because God said so. So what does God repenting mean? It shows He turned, but as we will find the only thing really changing was the position of the people. God did what God said He would do, but some, or all of the people changed positions meaning they were speared.

No where in the Bible do we find where the First Adam was “spirit”, rather we find the First Adam was a natural “living soul”, yet “God is Spirit” (I Cor 15:45 & Jn 4:24). That born of the flesh is flesh, that born of the Spirit is Spirit, but we also read where God also has a Soul (Heb 10:38-39), we know He took on flesh (Jn 1:1-8). Does it mean God is a glorified human? Not at all, God has a soul, His Word took on flesh, but He is Spirit. Man has flesh, has a soul, has the opportunity to become spiritual by being Born Again. Much different.

In order to worship God one must have two things, Spirit and Truth. Jesus said He is Truth, we know to be able to worship God one must have the Spirit of Truth, thus Adam couldn’t truthfully worship God. We never see one line where Adam praised God, but we do see where he was unhappy with what God gave him. Could the First Adam be more of a warning to man, than a blessing? Could be, to assume Adam was “like God” also assumes God can be tricked by the devil. Perhaps it’s why we are never told to be “Adam like”, yet often told to be “Christ Like”.

The concept of the Second Adam being Jesus could also confuse us, if we don’t know what the metaphor Adam means a beginning. The First Adam was in the “living soul” position, the Second Adam Is a Quickening Spirit, Beginning the Age of the Spiritual (I Cor 15:45). The First Adam was formed of the dust with a created soul, the Second Adam is the creator, for all things are created for the Word, by the Word, Jesus is the Word of God sent to heal (save) us. In this we must keep in mind a few things, the first Adam was the first creation to have the breath of God, he was also the first to have the measure of faith, but he was also the first to sin and bring death as a result of sin to his entire family.

We are going over all this to make the division, it’s very important for us to keep the order in what God is doing in Genesis. The Plan is set, but any of us can end walking in our own self-motivated path, dreaming our own dream. There are paths many, but only one has the Witness. God will form a path around or through the event where we can gain, but it doesn’t mean God will beat us half to death to get us on the path, rather Presentation is God’s part, Receiving is ours. If we dream our own dream, or attempt to form our own path, we soon find God is waiting back at the beginning, we have to “repent”, or turn. Does it mean we will lose our salvation? No, since salvation is not ours to lose (Jonah 2:9). It does mean we will face some self-induced hard times until we do learn to turn.

God sees us from His position as the Master Potter, a Potter has a mental picture of what they want to Form, they take a lump of clay and begin. If the clay yields to the hand of the Potter the product fits the picture, but if the clay resists the hand of the Potter, then the Potter forms the vessel into something to be used, but not as intended (Rom 9:21). Does it mean God changes His mind in the process of forming? No, it means God forms the clay based on the desire of the clay. Can the clay say to the Potter, “why have you made me this way?”. No, since the condition of the clay determined what the Potter would form. This is the premise behind Paul telling us how God takes one lump of clay, but can form the lump into a vessel of honor, or one of dishonor depending on the condition of the clay; soft clay is easy to mold. It’s the same lump of clay, but the condition of the clay dictates which vessel it will become, yet the clay cannot form itself, it must be formed. What makes soft clay? Water, the metaphor Water means Mercy. The only difference between a vessel of honor and one of dishonor is Mercy (Rom 9:21-24). We are told to be Merciful as our Father is Merciful, how can we? By the New Man, yet the softness comes when we keep the Mercy Commandments.

Christians are special, not because of who they are, but because they are Born Again. It’s the New Man making us special, he will guide us into all truth (Jn 16:13). The word Guide in John 16:13 is the Greek Hodegeo meaning A leader, or Guide, one taking another along a conducting way; not by force, but by permission, we learn by experience, knowledge as we gain clarity while our nature is changing.

The Old Testament holds lessons many, yet the one hindrance of imaginations stands out. Paul tells us strongholds are imaginations coming against the knowledge of God, they don’t come against us, they don’t come against God, they come against the knowledge of God (II Cor 10:4-5). God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Paul also told us to cast strongholds down by bringing every thought into the obedience of Christ. The children in the wilderness are only one example of wild imaginations, there are many others. After Jacob left Laban, he was headed back home when he saw Esau, he then presumed Esau would kill him, yet the result of the meeting between Jacob and Esau was good. The perception of Jacob was not in line with the Truth, rather he based his opinion on past experiences. Has it happened to us? Yes, everyone of us, some more than others, but nonetheless it has happened. It’s not a matter of ignoring the event, but a matter of God leading us through it, or around it, with the clarity to learn from the experience.

Jumping from mountain top to mountain top is not faith, it’s a soulish trait to avoid test of faith. The purpose of salvation is for our benefit, a matter for our gain, not a matter of our loss. Paul told Timothy, “you have fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity (love), patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me” (II Tim 3:10-11). The Lord didn’t deliver Paul around the events, He delivered him out of them. Paul understood the concept of being the Blessed as he looked for the Good in all things, thus he was delivered.

We have gone through all this so we can view the Creation and the Fall in a Scriptural manner, by studying what happened, knowing God knew all things before they happened. The Beginning was Good, all things were Good, nothing was Bad, yet Evil happened. Did God know Evil would happen? Of course, but evil also has a good side, it provides choice, choice without choice is no choice at all. Could God create evil? No, there is no evil in Him. How then could evil happen? God created Adam as the beginning of the Prophetic word, not the ending of it, thus Adam lacked something; being earthly and natural he made choices based on his foundation. God can create things perfect for the purpose, yet the element can be imperfect in reference to God’s Perfection.

When the children wanted a king, they wanted a king to their liking, not God’s. They picked Saul, but God allowed it for a purpose. God knew Saul would fail, so why not just reject Saul, then go right to David? Choice, plus lessons for all. Evil shows us there is a Good, since there could be no Evil until there was first a Good. It doesn’t mean we do evil, it means the evidence of evil shows Good is about, we seek the Good to find God, thus avoiding the evil. The second God said, “It is Good”, evil had it’s potential in the concept of Choice. However, the natural is only earth related, thus the first opposite had to be between heaven and earth. There are other opposites placed into existences, the Day and Night, Cold and Hot. God never said, “It is evil”, nor “It’s kind of good”, it was all Good, it could remain good, or be twisted, the “keys” were in the hands of the creations.

Even the Law of Moses has opposites, blessing and cursing. The Law of the Spirit on the other hand is for the heavenly citizens, it’s void of the curse, or cursing. We are told to bless and curse not, never render evil for evil, rather render good for evil (I Thess 5:15). The New Man is all God, yet he is not all God is. We are sons of God, not God. We are guided by God, we don’t guide God. The greatness of the New Birth can only be enjoyed if we keep the principles in order, remain humble, know we are a people of Authority, but we are also subject to Authority.

In our studies we will also find how, “God hardened the heart of Pharaoh”, so how can it be? By doing Good, but allowing Pharaoh to make up his own mind regarding the signs. God would do a sign to show His people how the Power of God was far greater than the power of Egypt, yet Pharaoh took it as a personal challenge. God was not out to impress Pharaoh, but the people of God needed incentive to leave the bondage of Egypt. So did we, healings, words of knowledge or wisdom, the Truth are all signs showing us the Cross is our escape from the bondage of Egypt. The Pharisees were like Pharaoh, they saw, yet misconstrued the purpose by assuming the miracles of Jesus were personal challenges to their positions. Some today see, then judge by carnal reasoning, thinking the signs are personal challenges to their theology. On the same note there are those who are carnal in nature who flaunt signs to impress their selves or others. In the case of Pharaoh, we find God did something Good for the children, but Pharaoh and those with a like mindset allowed their hearts to receive the opposite of the intended purpose, which in turn made their hearts hard.

Choice is God granted gift, yet it’s also the power to either receive, or reject God’s plan. God made the choice to receive all who received Him, we have free moral choice to accept or reject what God presents. Guess who else had choice? The angels; however, the angels were in the very presence of God, yet rejected their first estate for the darkness, thereby losing their position with God forever and ever.

Taking Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 without seeing the division produces conflict. Genesis 1:1 says “God created the heaven and earth”, it doesn’t say God created “the heavens”, thus we are speaking of One Heaven and One Earth. Then in Genesis 1:2 we see the earth is without form and void, did God create it formless and void? If so, wouldn’t it mean God failed in His Creation? Since there is no darkness in God, how can God fellowship with darkness, we begin with a dilemma. God is Light, yet “darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Gen 1:2). How did the darkness get there? Was it sin? Couldn’t be, the fall was yet future tense, man as a living soul had yet to be created, along with the Garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There must be a division between verses 1 and 2 explaining why we find only one heaven and one earth in verse one, as well as why there is a void and dark planet in verse two. This has to be one heaven, since the firmament of division didn’t come until the second day (Gen 1:8). Since no human died, there was no need for Paradise, yet Jesus called Paradise the “Bosom of Abraham”, indicating it took belief and faith to get there, yet in Genesis 1:2 no human existed, the breath of God with the measure of faith was not yet granted.

We can’t discard this darkness, or the “face” of waters, they were before Adam, thus the earth had many things prior to Adam, but they were void of the Breath of Life. This becomes an important issue, we can dig up millions of bones, yet those bones will not tell us if the element from which they came had a soul, without a soul those bones are just another “flower, which became a not”.

Another issue to the Image of God of importance in the case of Adam is Mercy. Jumping ahead to Genesis 9:3 we find Noah was not allowed to eat raw meat, but he was allowed to eat meat. The killing of man was prohibited, since man was made in the image of God (Genesis 9:6). If the concept here is the perfect Image of God, what about Ham? Or Nimrod? What about all those who died in the flood? Clearly if the Image of God is still seen after the flood, then Adam as the Image didn’t change because of the fall. Adam then has to be representative, rather than the complete Image The word “Image” can’t mean “spirit”, since Noah is being told about the Image, yet if the “spirit” was lost at the fall, how can Noah be told man is the Image?

The beginning of the Plan is not the end of it, there is progression along the path leading to the fulfillment. This is another clue, whatever was before Adam was not the
”Image of God” in any way, shape or form. The beginning of the image starts with the Breath of God; making Adam the beginning in the Plan of redemption, yet Jesus being our Redemption means what Jesus did brings us to the perfection of the Image.

This issue is more than a little difference between Adam and pre-historic man, it’s a Big difference. Does pre-historic man serve a purpose? Yes, choice, not for him, one we see today. The more knowledge grows regarding the things of God, the more the natural mind of man fights God’s knowledge by using the knowledge of the world. However, guess which one holds Truth? The knowledge of man has facts many, but the conclusions are based on natural reasoning, completely ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God. Truth must center on the Creator, before one can move to understanding the creation. Jesus said He is Truth, He didn’t say He was a holder of Truth, or part Truth, or aware of Truth, He is Truth, all things are created for Him and by Him, thus Truth begins with Jesus, without the mind of Christ one will never understand the purpose of creation.

The first chapters of Genesis also tell us why Jesus said, “work while it is yet Day, for the Night comes when no man can work”. If God created all these things and rested, why would we work at all? Why would Jesus say, “The Father worked until (hitherto in KJV) now I work” (Jn 5:17)? If God rested what was He doing working up to the time Jesus appeared as the Word made flesh? Maybe the work was done, but God got a part time job to help ends meet, after all His Son was in the ministry. No, there is more.

If All the work was complete on the sixth day, if God rested on the seventh, why did Circumcision become a command for the Eighth Day? It wasn’t the first day after the seventh, but the Eighth Day of a male child’s life. Perhaps there is a mystery in Genesis, one showing a vast difference between the Day and Night, and why the Day comes before the Night. Could there be two areas of Creation? One based on the Night which came first, then one based on the Day, yet the first shall be last and the last first?

Adam was created and formed Perfect for his purpose, yet the Seed of God is the Perfection of God bringing us into Perfection. There is a difference between something being made perfect for its purpose, and something being as Perfect as God. We invent a gun and it works, thus it’s perfect for its purpose. We invent a knife and it works, thus it’s perfect for it’s purpose, but it doesn’t mean the gun or the knife are as Perfect as God.

Does it mean the missing link isn’t missing, but misplaced? Does it mean there were dinosaurs? If so, does God tell us? Did they have a purpose just for us? Why didn’t God stop the fall, and keep the dinosaurs? All these questions and many more are answered for us in the Book of Beginnings.

We all know the discovery of the Resurrection was on the First Day of the week, but why did God pick the First Day for the discovery of the Resurrection, rather than the Seventh? If the First Day of the Week Begins something, what did it Begin? Why was the First Day of the week in reference to the Resurrection really the Eighth day of the following week of the Cross? The Resurrection is tied to the Cross, the Cross to the events of the week, thus the Resurrection was discovered by man on the First Day of the week following the Cross, but it was the Eighth Day in succession of the week of the Cross by association. It joins the First Day of the Beginning of the New Creation with the Eighth Day regarding the New Covenant, showing the Spirit is the result of the circumcision not made with hands, as our New Heart (Spirit).

John said Jesus is the Light, the Light is the Life of man (Jn 1:4-5). If it’s so what is this Light in Genesis? John didn’t say Jesus is Light, as in many lights, or even as one of two, rather John says Jesus is The Light, a very important issue, especially when we couple it with “Light and Life”. On the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus was seen as Light, yet the first thing said in the Genesis Creation is “Let there be Light”; could they relate? Could all this tie into the week of the Cross? Could it be while God was creating the physical things, He was really proclaiming the Gospel? Is there a Creation for the Day? Another for the Night? All this before Adam came into being.

We find the Genesis account gives us the “evening and morning” as the days, but wait, didn’t God know evening to morning is really the Night? Of course, this also explains two periods of Creation, one for the Night, which is done and waiting to be complete. Another for the Day which is being completed in us, through Jesus, by the Spirit giving us Rest for our souls. This explains why Jesus said “work while it is yet Day, for the Night comes when no man can work” (Jn 9:4). Clearly the Day came before the Night, yet the works for the Night were done here in Genesis. What realm were these people in the Old Testament? Mud soup? Paul said we are children of the Day, not the Night, nor the Darkness, thus giving us three periods, Day, Night and Darkness. When Jesus came man was in Darkness, neither in the Light of the Day nor the Light of Night, thus Jesus came to open the Day as the Bright Morning Star, when the Day ends, the Night begins.

The Darkness was first, then the Day, then the Night, three dispensations of time. There was a dispensation of darkness between Adam and Moses, where death reigned without a Law. Then a dispensation of darkness for the Law of Moses, which defined sin and applied death. Then the dispensation of Grace and Salvation for those of the Day from the Cross until the Rapture as the Greater Light. Then the dispensation of the Night for Judgment as a Lesser Light.

The Night has two periods, it begins as Peace and Safety, then comes sudden destruction (I Thess 5:3). We also find there are those appointed to the Day, and those to the Night. The Book of Revelation has a group of ten thousand times ten thousand, but another group of thousands of (from) thousands, one for the Day, one for the Night (Rev 5:11). Are all these End Time elements seen here in Genesis? If they are, the only conclusion we can draw is God had the end in hand, before there was a beginning.

The fall is surely in the plan, it wasn’t some big “News Break in Heaven”, neither did God have to wait “for film at 11”, it was seen, noted and planned for. Whatever God creates, or gives is Good, since God is Good. God doesn’t merely do Good, He is Good. The Fall is a perfect example of someone being free of sin, yet having the potential to sin. The devil was a angel, perfect in all his ways, until he found he could twist his duties into not doing what he was called to do (iniquity – Ezek 28:14). Adam was free of sin, yet when temptation came he was lead away, but James says we are lead away by our own lusts. How could perfect Adam have a lust? Adam is a warning, showing us the danger of obtaining Life, but rejecting Life More Abundantly.

The first Adam was not in some bottle in heaven, then transferred to the earth, rather the flesh of Adam was formed of the earth, thus Adam was earthly in nature, but Jesus came from heaven making Him heavenly in nature. Before Adam was a living soul, he was flesh based, made of the earth. The Fall was based on a religious debate to be something better than God intended. Cult systems have the lustful desire to be the special of the special, the holders of a truth greater than the rest of the Body. They have secret books, or a secret beginning not seen in Scripture. This type of thinking is not only prideful, but destructive. We all began with a Beginning, the Cross is equal in all its ways, it didn’t make any of us greater than the rest of the Body. God doesn’t love any one of us more than anyone else, whether male or female, Jew or Gentile, we are all God’s children If we are in the Body Christ (Rom 8:1-16).

We don’t serve a multiple God, but we do serve a God Who has multiple purposes within the purpose. There are several Hebrew words denoting God, or better the Titles used for God, each points to a particular aspect of God. For example the Hebrew El is translated as God, but so is the Hebrew Elohiym, but we find the Hebrew Elohiym refers to gods, or images as idols, as well as referring to men appointed by God, such as Moses being a god before Pharaoh. The Hebrew El means Almighty or great, but the best rendering is found in the title “Almighty God”, meaning The God with All the Might, which is the meaning of Omnipotent. Although the Hebrew El is used for God, we also see it in reference to idols. Wait, didn’t the devil make some promise to Adam and Eve about becoming gods? Yes, but it was the devil making the promise, not God. God has the authority to appoint gods as His representatives, the devil never had the power or authority to appoint anyone to anything.

Wow, does it mean God condones idols? Hardly, it means there are idols many, none of them match one small part of God, thus just using the title doesn’t mean one is talking about the One God. Laban will prove this, when he calls his images Elohiym, but he  also calls the God of Abraham, Elohiym. Laban couldn’t define the difference between the God of Abraham and the dumb little image made by his own hands.

The devil had so much trouble attempting to copy God, he had to use more idols than most of us have socks, thus there are so many idols tending to prove the One God is All Mighty. We will find the Hebrew Elohiym translated as gods, judges, mighty (as in mighty ones), as well as God, it means both gods in the ordinary sense and the Supreme God, depending on the usage and context. Metaphorically the Hebrew Elohiym can also mean God as the Tree with gods as the branches thereof, thus Elohiym is seen in the first verse of Genesis before the concept of idols was even introduced. Adam didn’t have a concept of a multiple god theology, there were no idols in the Garden, there were no idol makers in the Garden, thus Adam knew nothing of idols, yet the devil will use the term “gods” in the temptation, what then was the devil referring to?

The name, or title Jehovah is translated as LORD, this Name is so holy the Jew won’t mention it out loud or write it; the first time we find LORD is in Genesis 2:4. The title Jehovah is termed a “Tetragammaton” which means a compound word, we often find it in the letters “JAH”, this title was in reference to God’s dealings with man, thus in Job we will find the title Jehovah does have special meaning. Jehovah is also the Covenant Name of God after the Covenant is acted upon, most prominently it was associated with His relationship with the Nation Israel, it was also used in reference to God’s delivering Power. The word “Lord” in one form or another appears over 6,500 times in the Bible, thus we find it mainly refers to Authority.

Abraham knew God as “Almighty”, but Moses knew God as “Jehovah” (Ex 6:3). Does it mean Moses had a better relationship with God, then did Abraham? Not at all, the Name applies to the event: Abraham didn’t need a Deliverer, he needed a Covenant Maker. Abraham named places Jehovah, indicating the Covenant title (Gen 22:14), but he knew God as “God Almighty” (Ex 6:3). Moses needed the Delivering Power of God; same God, different events. The title Jehovah is found in reference to God’s dealings with man before the flood (Gen 2:4-5 & 6:3), during the patriarchal period (Gen 15:1, 27:7 & 49:18), as well as during the period of the Law of Moses (Ex 20:2 & Deut 6:4); however, it still remains Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God as “God Almighty”.

The Jews would substitute the Hebrew Adhonay (Lord), or used JAH to refer to the name of God, this is important when we view some of the names of the Jews finding they knew the concept of calling things not, as though they were, but they also made the mistake of thinking by merely calling it so, it would be so. The premise counts when we have “heard” from God, we can call an orange tree an apple tree all day long, at the end of the day it will still be an orange tree.

The Jews took the extreme; history shows the Jews were fully aware the Messiah was about to appear. As the time neared many parents named their male children “Jesus”, or “Judas”, since both of those names point to “Emmanuel”. Jesus means “Jehovah’s Salvation”, or “The Salvation of Jehovah”, and Judas refers to “One of Judah”, we know Jesus is also known as “the Lion from the tribe of Judah”. Since all these children were named in connection to the Messiah, does it mean they all became the Messiah? Of course not, we also know one who was named Judas betrayed the Messiah.

The name Jude is short for Judas, we know of one person called, “Judas not Iscariot”, showing an opposite. Adding, we have one Book entitled “Jude”, who is the brother of James the Less, thus the name didn’t make Judas a betrayer, his own lustful nature did. Jesus changed some of the names of the disciples, but not all, thus having the name doesn’t mean one is automatically fitted to the name. God gave Adam his name, but Adam named the animals. The name Adam had meaning, the names for the animals were for identification, much different.

We can see there were Names used for the Name of God, but the Name of Jesus is above All Names, which includes El, Elohiym, Adhona, and the other names referring to God. God never told the Jews, “In My Name you shall cast out devils”, but Jesus told us to. The metaphor Name points to Authority, each of the names of God point to an authority, or activity associated with the Name. All this shows the importance of the statement, “all Authority has been given to Me”, or “name above all names”. Does it mean the name Jehovah is less than Jesus? No, it means there were names for God relating to the Authority being used, all good, all of honor, yet they all became included in one name, the Name above all names, which Name we operate under. It has to tell us something about in this time. The entire Authority of the Record (Father, Word and Holy Ghost) were given to Jesus, because we operate in the Body of Christ. What happens when we speak the Name of Jesus? Every name and authority of God becomes inclusive, it’s an awesome honor and responsibility, not one to be taken lightly.

Since the Name (Authority) of Jesus points to many areas of Authority within the New Covenant; such as Grace, Love, Faith, Liberty, Freedom, Healing, Deliverance and A Newness no man knew before, it stands, Salvation is greater than Judgment. Is there a clue to this concept in Genesis? Yes, the Light of the Day is greater than the Light of the Night. We will find three Lights, one is The Light, then there are the Lights of the Day and Night. The Lights of the Day and Night are different from The Light as we will see. However, doesn’t it give us three lights? Yes, how can it be?

God didn’t wake up one day to His heavenly alarm clock and say, “Hey, Michael, want to do something with the earth today?”, or “Michael, what do you think would happen if I make a thing called man?”, neither did God say, “Hey, Mike, want to be Jesus?”. God didn’t create the world for Adam, rather Adam will become an example of man without Jesus. All things are created by and for Jesus, thus the earth became useful to the plan, but it is not the Kingdom of God. Adam walked with God in the cool of the Day, but Adam didn’t have the Seed of God.

When God came on the scene in Genesis 1:2 there was no Light, no life, no apparent use for the earth, yet God saw “Usefulness”. God needed the earth for the plan, it became the testing ground of choice. Two main trees were in the Garden, one was the Tree of Life, the other the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, both were good. The Tree of Life granted life, but the choice remained with the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The Tree of Life was not inside Adam, but as long as he was privy to it, he had Life, but even Adam never had Life More Abundantly. When Adam was separated from the Tree of Life he entered Death; our Life is internal, found in the New Man. If there was no choice it would have been the Tree of the Knowledge of good. Once the use of “good and evil” was introduced, so was choice, so was the potential for sin. If not, why would God tell Adam not to eat the fruit thereof? Therefore, in order to save man, man would have to make the choice to fall, man still does by connection. Through Adam? Partly, we found the earth was void and darkness covered it, but God also formed the flesh of Adam from the very same earth. What was in the earth? All the elements which form the flesh, yet they came from darkness. So why would God use the old dust? Because He had another Body, a Created Resurrected Body waiting at the end of the plan. Everyone will receive a resurrected body, it’s not the issue, since there is a resurrection unto damnation as well. The key is Life, for those who are dead in Christ the life is in them now, on the last day there will be a resurrection unto Life (Jn 5:29 & Rom 6:5). Finding Adam’s flesh formed of the dust shows God’s knowledge went beyond Adam’s time, to the end of time.

What about the breath of God? It’s coming up soon (promise). In order for man to make the choice to be saved, man had to be in a position calling for it. Peter, James, Jude and Paul all speak roughly regarding those who enter into the Body based on the Mercy of God, yet make the choice to continue to use the authority of the world. A man’s enemies are still of his own house, the Pharisees or Romans couldn’t betray Jesus, but one of His own could (Micah 7:6). Will we see the shadow giving us the clues? Could very  well be.

God needed a plan in which He could insert Himself, in a manner conducive to the creation of man, at the same time bring about events to give us a reason to believe, so it might be by faith. It’s not easy, the only way to accomplish it is to have a finish in hand, then begin the beginning, inserting something of God from God’s nature, yet be able to take on something to represent all mankind. God not only read the last Book, He set all the events in place, then moved back through history making ways for us to escape the various temptations. There are paths many, roads many, along those routes we find signs placed just for us so we can find the one path to allow us to finish this with a joyous kick in our step.

The Book of Revelation is not a guessing game, or the result of John eating some bad cheese, it’s a combination of the prophecies by the prophets of Old, the words of Jesus coupled with the vision of John, as it answers the three part question asked of the disciples. The Book of Revelation has an introduction to the seven churches as a layout of the Record, then it covers events from three angles, but it all centers on, “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming? And of the end of the world?” (Matt 24:3). The “end” begins here in Genesis, if we don’t understand what this Creation is all about we will forget there is a New Creation for the children of the Day.

We know the path for the early martyrs was death. Why allow them to die? To judge the evil doers. God allows leaders to rule, but it doesn’t mean the leader is holy. The Scriptures show us God allowed Pharaoh to rule, but we also know Pharaoh was anything but holy (Rom 9:17). The leader in their evil doings not only judge themselves as they pronounce their own end, they also entice those with like lusts to become judged by their doings as well. Leaders judge evil doers, if the leader is an evil doer they are judged by their own ways.

We presume since we’re kings we can dominate the world, or sit on some high throne saying “I told you so”, it’s not how we rule. We rule based on the knowledge, “you can do nothing to me, unless it’s granted from on high”. Being a king in the Kingdom is far different from being a king in the world. If we’re all kings, who then are our subjects? Surely you are not mine, nor am I yours. Who then? Or better, What then? We will find out.

Adam was not an angel, then made flesh, just as the devil was not flesh, then made an angel. There is enough science fiction without adding to it. The devil was a spirit, created as an angel, but the time would come when something in him would be discovered by him, he would allow it to guide him into darkness. The devil found man could say “no” to God, but how? Choice always has two sides, the iniquity in the devil became an issue when Choice was introduced. So then, did God create the iniquity? No, the devil had choice, just as Adam did, if not, he could not make the choice to become the devil. The devil being a spirit shows us one thing, you can’t kill a spirit. The devil ends in the lake of fire where he remains forever. There is the concept of Eternal, and the concept of Immortal, they are different. Immortal means without beginning or end while void of death, Eternal means without end. The flesh of man is temporal, from dust it came, to dust it will go. However, the soul of man is eternal, God is Immortal and Eternal.

Is there any evidence where man can join to an Immortal position? Yes, as it brings up another reason to be Christ Like, rather than Adam Like. Adam had an eternal existence in the Garden, as long as he obeyed God, he could remain in the area of the Tree of Life. Death is merely a separation, in the Book of Acts the term, “giving up the ghost”, in the Greek means “out the soul comes” (ExPsuche), or a separation of the soul from the flesh. It doesn’t answer the question does it? The word for Immortal in the Greek is Aphthartos, it was used in the phrase, “Unto the King eternal, Immortal” (I Tim 1:17). However, when either Paul or Peter talked about those who are Born Again they used the same word only it’s translated as “incorruptible” (I Cor 9:25, 15:52, I Pet 1:4, 1:23 & 3:4); it was also used in Romans 1:23 in speaking of God being “incorruptible”. Incorruptible means “without death”, or free of the result of the second death. Our souls are eternal, if not there would be no heaven, or hell. Jesus called the unsaved soul a “worm”, or something associated with dust (metaphor for the flesh). Adam was eternal, he was not immortal. The Tree of Life was his connection to Life, the Tree of Life was in the Garden, it was not in Adam.

The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil was good as well, but the fallen angel used it in a manner it was not created for, the misuse, not the tree caused the fall. Once darkness was accepted by man it overshadowed him, yet his offspring did not surface until after the fall, meaning all mankind was subject to the fall nature.

The fruit did nothing, the act did. When Adam female took of the fruit from the wrong source, for the wrong reason, based on the wrong motive she also took a nature. Adam male took the same fruit with the wrong intent, acquiring a like nature, yet he knew what he was doing. Their viewpoint changed, they saw things differently, they became flesh minded and self based, they accepted the spirit of man to rule their lives.

Adam had skin, bones as well as inner physical parts, all from the elements of the earth. Being earth formed kept him bound to the earth, man still must take his “earth” environment with him if he travels into space. Even hell is earth related, the soul of man without the Spirit is earth bound. Why? The soul of man was granted when man was formed of the earth, thus the soul without the Spirit of Christ is still bound to the realm of the earth. The only way to be free of the earth is to have the Greater He in us.

At the Resurrection Jesus took those captive to the earth, placing captive in another location, under the altar of God; a concept known as “taking captivity captive”. The point being Adam’s flesh was formed of the earth, the same earth God saw as void and darkness. The soul of Adam was the creation, yet it too was created in man on the earth, not in heaven, nonetheless, the soul of man is the treasure in all this.

The evidence of Adam’s fall proves it would take someone greater than all of mankind to put this together, someone who could not only obtain what was lost, but introduce a much greater reward in a better Covenant, a Covenant so holy and righteous no human, or any number of humans could obtain it on their own. The entire purpose for the creation of the world was the Cross of Jesus, thus the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.

Jesus was born to die, we die to be Born Again. Therefore, in Jesus we find a win situation, one so great it takes being Born Again to receive it. The second we accept Jesus we have the same Life as Adam had, with the knowledge of how man is incapable, then we accept the Spirit entering Life more abundantly, as a spiritual way of life like Jesus, completing the prophecy, “let us make man in Our image”. Jesus was not Resurrected as Spirit, but He is nonetheless Spirit in nature, just as the Father is Spirit in nature.

Jesus said He came so we Might (suggestive, or choice) have Life, so we could  have it more abundantly (another choice). Both areas are indicated by the word “might” meaning we have choice, it was not “shall” have life.

The question regarding how long was a Creation Day is moot, our goal is to find Jesus in the act of creation, since this is the Day. To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day. We could say a “day” is a 24 hour period, or it was a 1,000 years. The clarity comes when we find a an interruption between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, explaining a great deal regarding the Ice Age, the dinosaurs and prehistoric man. God wasn’t attempting to create a calendar or clock, then use it to guide Him in the creation of the world, rather He was laying out a frame work, a pattern of Process. Could God have snapped His fingers causing the entire thing to be done in a second? Yes, could He have completed all creation in one second. Yes, but He didn’t, God always has Purpose. We find some things created, some came from the elements already in the earth.

Another aspect in Genesis 1:2 is the darkness, which was already on the earth before the Light, but when Light came it separated Light from darkness by giving a comparison. If darkness was all there was, then there is no division, because there is no comparison. Whether frozen, or not until Light came it was nonetheless Darkness. The period from the creation of man to the fall was a period where time was not an element to man, but from the fall to the time of Abraham was a period of time, from Abraham to Moses a period of time, from Moses to the Promised Land a period of time, from the Promised Land to David a period of time, from David to the captivity a period of time, from the captivity to the end of the Old Testament, a period of time, from Malachi to John the Baptist another period of time, from John the Baptist to the Cross another period of time, from the Cross to the Resurrection another, from the Resurrection to the Ascension another, from the Ascension to the end of the Day another, from the beginning of the Night to Jacob’s trouble another, from Jacob’s trouble to the end of the Night another. The “sixth days of creation” really shows us two things, one is process, assuring us the work in us wasn’t over in two seconds, it’s still going on. Next we find God divided many things as He was setting things in order.

It’s interesting we are in the Seventh Day if we think about it. Jesus said work while it is yet Day, for the Night comes when no man can work, it defines a 24 hour period, so was it all over the day after Jesus said it? No, we are not a bunch of germs in a bowl somewhere as figments of someone’s imagination. We find it’s not Time as man knows it, but a Process within a time as God sees it. The Day has lasted 2,000 years, so does it mean we have another 10,000 years to finish the Day? No, it can’t be right since the Bible talks about the Night being 1,000 years. We find the Lord is not slack, rather He has a timing, thus He said no man can open or close the Door to David (Night). It’s important since Jesus also talked about the “time of Doors”. Were there Doors in the Beginning? No, was the Door something for the Old Testament saint? No, God poured the blessing out of the Windows, the Door was closed until the Cross. In the Book of Revelation we find a Door opened for John to enter into the realm of heaven, then a door no man can open, then a door only man can open, thus it’s the Time of Doors, not the Time of Door (Matt 24:33, Rev 3:8, 3:20 & 4:1-2). A thief attempts to climb in the window, a son, or heir enters by the Door.

If God knows all things, then He knows all things, without exception. Some of us think God came down to earth saw Adam in a fig leaf, and said, “Oh man, now  what?”. Or, “Wow, now I have to send My Word as My Son to the Cross”. No, the Plan was designed around the Cross, not the other way around. The Bible is the beginning of our belief, yet we can call it Truth, or we can call it Agenda, the choice is ours, the result is in God’s hand. How is the Bible the beginning of our belief? We have something written, we can either say, “it’s of man”, or “it’s inspired by God”; only the latter is belief. The evidence of the Bible being inspired is found in Genesis, penned by the man Moses, but Authored by God.

To assume God saw something in us so holy and great He just couldn’t help but give us the New Birth, is absurd. God so loved the world He gave, it was His Love, not our greatness. The evidence shows Jesus is Truth, then we find the Spirit was not given until the Resurrection of Jesus (Jn 3:6 & 7:39); how then could man have a spirit if the Spirit by the New Birth was based on the Resurrection of Jesus? Well maybe it was a spirit who died. Not so, if it were the case we could kill the devil. Adam is clearly called “a living soul”, so what did God breathe into the man? Mouth to mouth? The Bible calls it the “breath of life”, but if it’s the case, why did he need the Tree of Life? What kind of Life did God give Adam? Or was the Life a Soul? Ahh, perhaps a mystery, in the Greek the word Psuche is translated as soul and life, thus the fall was a mental choice involving the flesh, or better something to please the flesh, bringing death to the flesh.

If it were not for God we would have nothing to believe in, nor would we have faith or love. Therefore, it’s appointed unto All men to die once, then comes the Judgment (Heb 9:27). Indicating the Judgment will not come until all humans are dead, it’s the Judgment  bringing about “unto Life” for some, for others the “second death”. The Greek gives us the evidence, Paul said Adam was a living soul, we know the Greek word Psuche means Soul or Life, Adam lost life, which means he lost his relationship with God. So, did Adam drop down dead? No, it was a process, really it was in dying he would die.

The Breath of God is very interesting, God didn’t breath into the whale, or the monkey, nor do monkeys have the measure of faith. There are other elements associated with the breath of life, love is one. “Oh the great Agape love of God”. No, Agape love is self-less, hardly the love natural man has. The Greek Agape is a noun, thus God is Love, but God also has love. Man is man, as a human he has love, but man is not Love: a big difference. One of the more used verses from the Bible is John 3:16, which tells us God so loved the world, but the word for Loved is not Agape, but Agapao a verb, meaning a love based in some joy. God’s love for the world was based in the joy of knowing He had a plan of redemption for mankind from the foundation of the world, but it was put into action when He gave His Only Son as the Light came to open the Day.

There is another verse in John which is not so widely used, it reads, “and this is the condemnation, the Light is come into the world, and men loved (Agapao) darkness, rather than Light, because their deeds were evil” (Jn 3:19). Two verses apart, both show the same type of love based in a joy. In God’s case its based on redemption, in man’s case it’s based on the joy he obtained from the things of darkness, yet the point is man has Agapao love coupled with the measure of faith transmitted into man by the breath of life from God. “Wait, I thought the word Breath means Spirit”. No, as we will find, there are many Hebrew words for the word Breath, some can mean Spirit, but some do not, we have the phrase “Living Soul”, but in reference to Adam we never find the phrase “Spirit”. It is important, there was a process in the Plan, if man had a spirit, then we were not Born Again, rather it would be a “Re-born”, a concept not Scriptural.

God rested because He was confident the works He did would come to pass in the time assigned to accomplish the purpose. The children in the wilderness kept the sabbath day, but failed to enter God’s Rest because of their unbelief. We have the opportunity to enter God’s Rest as we cease from our own works (Heb 4:10). As we will see the Sabbath Day is a sign of the events taking place as God has set them for the Night. God rested because the Night works were done, the Day works were waiting, thus God worked from sunset to sunrise, or evening till morning, thus Jesus could say, “for the works which the Father has given Me to finish, the same works that I do” (Jn 5:36). If the works are done, what was Jesus doing? The works here in Genesis are finished, but they are purposed for a Season. All this explains how keeping the sabbath day is attached to Judgment, not Salvation. It was given to show the children just how close they came to seeing the Wrath of God. For us it’s the Rest of Jesus, the place where we find Rest for our Souls (Matt 11:29). Two different rests, only one of those gains us the Rest of God, thus there remains a Rest for the people of God (Heb 4:9-10).

Since we find Prophecy in the Beginning, we should have some understanding of Prophecy. We viewed how Prophecy is God telling man what God is seeing in the future of man. However, we don’t attempt to bring Prophecy to pass, rather prophecy proves itself by coming to pass. In the days of Jeremiah the Prophets of God were troubled at the events, thus they began to speak with the presumption of God bringing their words to pass, it’s the opposite of the course of Prophecy. The various self-prophets, or “whackos” project their self-prophecy, then attempt to bring it to pass. Prideful people who hear a prophecy about them, will fight to make it come to pass, so they can brag in it. A false prophet speaks from their own fears and lusts, then uses “so saith the Lord” to control, dominate or force change on people. The “spirits” (hearts or thoughts – I Cor 14:32) of the prophets are subject to the prophet, the prophet can allow their own fears, or lusts to counterfeit the voice of God. A misguided prophet who has allowed their own fears or ego to speak in the place of God will be moved by worldly concerns; thus the other prophets must judge righteously (I Cor 14:29 & 14:37).

Whether a whacko or a false prophet, or just some guy down the street, anyone can produce a self-prophecy, then make it come to pass. “So, saith the Lord, I shall go tomorrow and pick up two quarts of milk”, comes the next day they buy two quarts of milk and everyone goes, “wow a prophet”. There is also the person who gives a word of knowledge thinking they are a prophet: the Office of Prophet is much different from someone who gives a word. All of us in the Body who have the Spirit are capable of giving words of knowledge, or wisdom, but it doesn’t make us Prophets.

Adam not only didn’t give a Word, he didn’t believe the one given him. He was formed of the earth, he was earthly, thus confined to the earth. He was not an angel, he wasn’t a spaceman, he wasn’t even spiritual, but he was important as he gives us the Beginning, thus the first is natural, but Jesus is spiritual (I Cor 15:45-47).

There is also the danger of self-interpretation of prophecy, which produces more confusion than the sky has stars, as well as producing Fables, or Imaginations. For the most part much of the problems we seem to encounter in End Time thinking are the result of mixing the day into the night, or the night into the day, something God tells us we should not do (Acts 1:6-8 & Gen 1:14). Self-prophecy is always a means for man to gain control over people, his religion, or his future, as he makes up words, then attempts to make God bring them to pass. Jezebel is a prime example of this, she was used in the Book of Revelation to show how the self-appointed use control and self-prophecy to benefit their own self-nature (I Kings 19:2-3 & Rev 2:20-23). Jezebel was married to the king of the land, thus the warning is within the grouping, not without. Jezebel even attempted to call things a not, as a were. When she did, she caused the prophet of God to make sandal prints in the sand. What did she say? Elijah’s words and signs caused the people to kill the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Baal were not only idol worshipers, but were employed by Jezebel. When she heard of this, she sent the prophet a message, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time” (I Kings 19:2). Elijah was moved by the words of Jezebel, we can see the word “gods”, thus anything formed cannot harm us. In essence she said she was going to kill the prophet of God in the near future, making her words prophetic, causing the prophet to run, when the prophet gained his senses, he wanted to die. The point being she used a principle in an ungodly manner, the same thing the devil attempts to get us to do. The Fall is a perfect example of twisting the words of God to entice someone to use a Godly principle in an ungodly manner.

All this doesn’t remove prophecy from our lives, really it shows the importance of prophecy. Whenever the enemy goes to such lengths to discourage the use of some attribute of God, we know the attribute has to be very important. To understand the end times one has to rightly divide the Word, the Beginning gives us the first steps to the Division. When Paul tells us to Rightly Divide the Word, he is not talking about the Bible, when he referred to the Bible he used the word Scriptures, when he talked about Jesus he used the term “Word”. When we preach the Word, we preach Jesus. Anyone can preach the Bible, yet never mention Jesus. Do we divide Jesus? No, we divide the Day from the Night, as we separate the things of Salvation by Grace, from the things of Judgment.

This is very important since God grants us abilities and weapons designed for the Season we’re in. We can’t use the abilities of the Night during the Day, nor can those of the Night use the abilities granted to those of the Day. Paul said we are children of the Day, we are not children of the Night, or of the Darkness. We used to be children of the darkness, but we were never appointed to the Night. The Night is “far spent”, or near at hand (coming fast, the meaning of far spent – I Thess 5:5 & Rom 13:12).

We can have a prophecy in the Bible directed only for those of the Night, then misinterpret it by attempting to apply it to Day; meaning we attempt to bring Judgment into the Season of Salvation by Grace. We have the Gospel of Peace, but there is also the Everlasting Gospel for the Night (Rev 14:6). Our Gospel is based on Salvation, the Everlasting Gospel is based on Judgment; therefore, rightly dividing the Word is simply making the division between Salvation and Judgment. The First Coming of Jesus relates to Salvation, the Second Coming to Judgment. The Day is for Salvation, the Night for Judgment. We then see the methods God has appointed for the two Seasons. All these factors are given us in the Beginning. Just a few chapters, but a great deal of information.

Just hearing God speak is nice, but look at some of the people God talked to? Adam after the fall, Cain after he killed his brother, Balaam, and others, thus it’s not simply God talking to us, but it’s understanding and obeying what God is saying. The voice of God walked with Adam in the cool of the day, but it doesn’t mean they had fellowship, nor does it mean Adam communicated with God on God’s level. God will see it’s not right for man to be alone, but God was there! How could man be alone with God? How indeed, thus man being natural and earthly wasn’t able to communicate with God. First John tells us the first principle to having Fellowship with God is to treat the people of God as God does. Would God allow His “help meet” to violate the Commandment? Not hardly, He would warn, beg, send many signs, but Adam sat and watched as if the entire thing was a study on death.

The mere fact of Adam needing a Help Meet when God was there shows Adam was incapable of spiritual communication or fellowship. There isn’t one verse to show Adam was spiritual in nature. None of this is belittling Adam, or judging him, rather we must keep things in order. Never elevate anyone or anything higher than God has; exalting things above measure is dangerously close to idol worship.

We will see how the New Birth was proclaimed by God in the Garden, since He proclaimed it, it would come to Pass. The Purpose came in a rhetorical statement, “let us make man in our Image”. How many Gods are there? Must be a bunch for them to use the plural. Yet we know, “Hear oh Israel, your God is One”. Was God talking to Himself? Yes, He was speaking to the Son who would take on flesh, to the Holy Ghost who would bring the Spirit, to the Father who would Love the world enough to Send His only begotten Son. Cultist have more than a hard time with this, they have a complete melt down. However, if we understand we have a mind, a body and other aspects of our make-up, we can understand how God sent His “Word”, not His entire Self. We send our “word” to the store on a list, expecting the “word” to come back complete. What would happen if we sent the list, yet the list did the shopping? We would be the hit of the weekly news tabloids. We find God sent His Word, then His Word became flesh, thus His Word was not flesh before. The Purpose is in the Prophecy, not a bunch of Gods. First John says he who is antichrist denies both the Father (Mercy) and Son (Grace), denoting the Father equates to Mercy, the Son to Grace, giving us the basis of the Witness (I Jn 2:22-23, 4:1-4 & 5:7-8).

Before God formed and created man, He laid out the process of salvation. Three principles of creation become a foundation for faith. Regardless of the creation, it’s Good, even the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good, it was the misuse becoming the evil. Next, everything produces after its own kind, flesh for flesh, Spirit for Spirit, seed for seed. The Seed of God is nonetheless God, created (or formed) after God’s true Holiness and Righteousness (Eph 4:24). Lastly, the purpose is the salvation of our souls (I Pet 1:9). Although we will find when God finished the creation of the Night it also means the earth was ready to be destroyed, yet the purpose is still the salvation of our souls.

The phrase “Born Again” is a metaphor (figure of speech) meaning we received the Seed of God from the Holy Ghost, the Seed is Spirit, but we have to define “Born Again”. Jesus said we must be Born Again, then He used the Parable of the Sower to explain the process: the Seed is planted, which would akin to conception, then the root grows, which would be akin to the fetus stage, then comes the Blade which is akin to being Born. Paul said he had to speak to the Corinthians as if to Babes, but the word he used for Babes refers to a fetus. Therefore the concept shows we are not Born Again by having the Spirit in us, rather when the Spirit produces fruit (Blade) then we are Born Again.

Man is natural, born of the flesh, the flesh is related to the earth, it is not formed in heaven, it is not formed on Mars. God formed Adam’s flesh here on earth, man has been a reproduction of the flesh since; however, not the case with the soul. The Soul is created, who we are is determined by the soul, yet the natural soul equates who we are by the flesh. It’s only when the Spirit of Christ is introduced into us do we become complete. The flesh was first, the soul associated to the flesh, bringing to pass the soul born of the flesh, but when we are Born Again the Spirit becomes the focus of the soul, as the soul then changes from flesh to Spirit, yet no where do we find the phrase, “born of the soul is soul”. The word Born in the phrases that born of the flesh is flesh, or that born of the Spirit is Spirit is the Greek Gennao, meaning Born, but Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, thus to him it would mean the Jewish idiom of converting, thus our souls were attached to the flesh, we were run by the spirit of man, we were ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God, but then we were Born Again, we gained the Spirit which is of God, thus the process is converting our souls to becoming spiritual in nature (Jn 3:16 & I Cor 2:11-13).

Let’s go to Part 2…

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By Rev. G. E. Newmyer – s.b.i.les1rev9/© 2003