Where Did We Start?
Where did we start?
Part One of a Series
God created Adam and Eve in His own image. He made them spirits, with souls and bodies. All was right with the world. Adam and Eve were different from the animals. They had God’s life in them, and they had a relationship with God.
According to Genesis 1:27-28, God had placed Adam and Eve in charge of the earth. There was only one rule. They were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree bore fruit leading to death.
In essence, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the tree of self-righteousness. If we could know what was good and what was evil, we should be able to judge between them and choose what is good. Unfortunately, since we are not God, we do not have what it takes to do that.
A choice came about when Adam and Eve were tempted by a fine-sounding argument that said they could be more like God than they already were. They decided to believe that old serpent, the devil instead of trusting God. In placing their trust in someone other than God, Adam and Eve chose to separate themselves from the One who is Life, and separation from life is, well, death.
While Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, Genesis 5:3 tells us that Adam and Eve bore children in Adam’s image. Once Adam had become separated from God, he could only bear children who were separated from God. It is because of this that we are first born only from the flesh, born of water as Jesus puts it in John 3:5-6 (KJV).
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
And the next verse explains why this person cannot enter the kingdom.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
The kingdom is “… righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,” according to Romans 14:17 (KJV)
Only spirit can enter the kingdom. We needed spiritual life!
When we are first born, we get Adam’s nature, and that nature is not connected to Life. We often hear that people need to give their lives to Christ. People cannot do that. People are spiritually dead; they have no life to give.
Romans 6:23 (KJV)
23 For the wages of sin is death;
Ephesians 2:1 (KJV)
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Our original state was spiritual death.
Ephesians 2:5 (KJV)
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Romans 6:13 (KJV)
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Our situation was dire. The Jews had the covenants with God. They could not keep their end of the bargain, but there was at least some form of relationship available. We poor heathen Gentiles however, were completely left out as we find in Ephesians 2:11-12 (KJV)
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
Eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was really subscribing to the belief that we could obtain righteousness in our own power. Isaiah 64:6 says that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” In Matthew 5:48 (KJV), Jesus said, “48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Judged by this standard we were certainly hopeless.
But God is love, and He could not leave us without hope. He had a plan to reconcile mankind to Himself and restore our relationship with Him, however. It is talked about and demonstrated from Genesis to Revelation.
Examples include:
Genesis 22:8 (KJV)
8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Revelation 13:8 (KJV)
8 …the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
John 3:16 (KJV)
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 1:29 (KJV)
29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
You could not give your life to Christ, but Jesus gave His life to you. What’s more, it is not simply pie in the sky by and by. The benefits of your life in Christ begin immediately.
