Archive for the ‘Sin’ Category

Can we lose our salvation?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, religion, Salvation, Sin
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I’m not sure.

I was raised in a church that taught (but denied that they taught) you had to basically work your way to Heaven. I haven’t been involved in that congregation for almost three decades, but my siblings still are. As a teen I walked away from God and the Christian religion and practiced paganism for over two decades. I never was fully satisfied with my search for spiritual truth and ultimate peace by alternate means and about ten years ago, after some hardships, I was convinced to give the Christian God another try and as soon as I did, he saved me from the burdens and issues I had drug along with me. So after I gave myself to Him, I realized that I had arrived back full circle to the place I had basically started as a child. Subsequently, I decided that I was going to prove the teachings within the scriptures to myself through prayer and an expositional journey through My Lord’s word.

When I started this process a decade ago, I didn’t believe in the rapture, I didn’t believe in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and I had no idea what religious affiliation my mentor, Chuck Missler was…I went in blind, but open to learning. I quickly found out that Chuck Missler believed in the things I mentioned but he also encouraged disbelief so we would figure it out for ourselves (Acts 17:11) and I appreciated that. I had not encountered a teacher with that attitude before (the church of my youth, if you didn’t walk lockstep with their teaching they would virtually break your bible over their knee and drum you out of the doors, locking them behind you). In the last ten years I have grown to understand more about the scriptures than I ever imagined I would and it is a very enjoyable journey. I now am down with the concept of the rapture as well as the separate destinies of the nation of Israel and the church. I find the scriptures are plain and open for all to see about the teaching of the continued presence of the Holy Spirit within our lives and the existence of spiritual gifts (unlike the legalistic, work based, replacement theology that the church of my youth taught). A few months ago, I really started to grasp and understand the difference between tongues…IE, the tongues of interpretation and the tongues of fire, or prayer language. I have my mind solidly wrapped around the predestination-free will argument that seems to bumfuzzle so many. The rapture of the bride of Christ is there in black and white and in some ways, and buried in the word by patterns and example in many locations of the bible. The book of Revelation can be a little scary, but not in an intimidating way, it is a very forceful and straight blueprint of the past, present and future condition of the church and the nation of Israel laid out in a surprisingly plain way, once we get rid of all the cobwebs of allegorization and fallacy swept out from within our minds. I have also found a home at a small, but swiftly growing, full-gospel congregation near my home and I feel I am on the road to salvation.

What about salvation? Chuck Missler makes it plain that he believes that once you accept Christ and achieve salvation that you are locked into a seat on the glory train…but I’m not so sure…I still think there are some situations, noted in the scriptures, which make it seem you can lose your salvation.

The church of my youth had a roulette wheel, sort of view of salvation…you are saved until you sin, then as soon as you commit a sin, you are condemned to the lake of fire, until you repent, then you are OK…of course until you commit the next sin, then you are destined for hell again…and on, and on, and on. I don’t believe that point of view in the least. I do believe in the assurance of salvation through the mercy and grace that Our Lord assures us of…but the scriptures do indicate that it is not a free ride. The bible definitely teaches we have a personal responsibility of obedience and to produce fruit for the Lord. But what if we don’t? Is it the gallows? I don’t think so, especially if we understand the grace and mercy aspect of the scriptures. No one (except for Christ Jesus Himself) has been, is or will ever be good enough to earn salvation. God and also Christ the Son, in a couple of different places in the scriptures say that no man can snatch Their flock (us) out of Their hands. That is a couple of pretty powerful statements about our security in our salvation. However there are a couple of other places that alludes to the fact that maybe if we really try hard enough, we can slip out of Their grasps.

At this point in my journey I haven’t digested the New Covenant enough to have come to a firm conclusion. I tend to concentrate on sections and themes of the bible related to those sections that are pertinent to the book, or books of the bible I am currently working on in my journey and at the present I am in the minor prophets of the Old Covenent. I feel The Lord is providing me information as I need it and since I was compelled to answer this discussion question, even thought I wanted to stay away and not have anything to do with it, tells me it is His will that I start paying attention to it.

Let’s look at the word salvation. In the Old Testament the word salvation is normally taken from a feminine noun derivative of the base yasha which means to save, be saved, be delivered. In the New Testament, the word seems to consistently be the Greek word; soteria which means he who brings salvation, the hope of future salvation, a deliverer and is apparently the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew yeshuw’ah which means basically the same thing.

OK, let us start with some verses that I believe can cause confusion.

Romans 10:13 says: For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (KJV) I know of some denominations that base their gospel upon this verse. I have to say, in my life I have grown very gun-shy about well-intentioned folks creating doctrine from single sources within the scriptures. I had a close relative that was a prime example of the danger of this for they believed if you are not an active member of the Church of Christ, you are hell-bound and they build this doctrine upon a single source that comes from Romans 16:16 (they handily ignore the name The Way from Acts and the Church of God which is all through I Corinthians…)

What about those that hear the gospel and are drawn to profess and call upon the name of The Lord and feel the Holy Spirit…but then they never turn from their sinful ways…they exhibit no change within their lives. If an ax murderer fell down on his knees and called on the name of The Lord…but he remained an ax murderer…if he only gave credence to the word but never submitted to the Lordship and therefore never started to grow and mature, he never yielded to The Lord…has he still achieved salvation? Also, then what about the apparent ‘unpardonable sin’ of blaspheming the Holy Spirit that we find in Luke?

Christ is pretty clear about what He expects and He says in Matthew 7:21-24 that not all that cry Lord, Lord will receive a ticket on the glory train but those that submit and yield to the Lord’s will.

Matthew 7:21-24 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: (KJV)

I believe the answer is not as simple as calling upon the name of The Lord, but apparently salvation is dependent on those other conditions that Christ outlines. I personally lean (I’m not sure why) toward Chuck Missler’s view and I feel that it is possibly conditional on The Lord’s knowledge of our heart and our giving up of our pride (which in Isaiah is considered the base of all sin) and yielding to the will of Our Lord to achieve salvation…but I am going to have to absorb and digest more of His precious word before it ‘clicks’ with me.

What about Hebrews 6:4-6 For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame. (KJV)? To take it out of context and to look at it by itself (which unfortunately some churches do) it would seem to create a conundrum. Unless this same viewpoint is clearly covered somewhere else in the scriptures, in my thinking it doesn’t mean what a lot of denominational leaders think it does. So, what does it mean? Was this passage a special judgment reserved for the apostolic Jews? Possibly. We know that God had harsh rules design just for His people that weren’t levied on the Gentiles, such as death penalty for not observing the Sabbath properly, among others. Does it mean something else? I just don’t know…the jury is still out…but now that the ramifications about salvation on my radar I will come to a solid, teachable conclusion within a short time, The Lord willing.

God Bless, Jim

A few ways Satan has tried to thwart the plan of GOD

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, Israel, Satan, Sin
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If we stop and think about the question, we realize that the bible from the opening passages to the closing passages deal with Satan’s attempts to screw up God’s plan that he has laid out in advance, and it is The Great Deceiver’s intention to prove that he is as great and as powerful as The Lord, as we read in Isaiah 14:12-14 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (KJV). We could probably spend years listing all the events through history that has Satan’s signature and seal stamped on them. I have just covered a couple of seemingly obvious one to me.

There have been several ways that Satan has tried to thwart the plan of God throughout history, but what immediately came to mind when I thought about this subject was one way that Satan has tried to thwart the plan of God that is still continuing to this day. The way I am referring to is to sow derision, doubt and conflict within the Body of Christ.

All the different groups within the religious body called Christianity, for the most part, are separated by seemingly insignificant differences. These differences can find their beginnings in the first years of The Way*1, as the group of people that followed the teachings of The Christ were called in the book of Acts. Satan was able to insert false prophets and sow doubt and deception within the Christian movement almost from the beginning. Small, subtle changes here and there, a doubt about the real meaning behind this passage or that passage and Satan’s ability to convince scholars and teachers that taking passages out of context is OK all resulted in the beginnings of the division of the Body of Christ. He was also very successful in his campaign to deceive the early church fathers into questioning the meaning of the scriptures, which allowed them to start creating their own interpretations of the Word, which resulted in a more palatable form of religion for the Holy Roman Empire. The disgust with the end product of the religious/political superpower that it morphed into resulted in the reformation movement*2. Part of the problem that the reformation movement left us with is many of the reformed protestant religious entities that formed didn’t take the reformation far enough, which has resulted in many of our ‘siblings’ in the Body of Christ still firmly believe in allegorizing the scripture, just as they did in the fourth century to make the lessons and commandments of the Word of Our Lord easier to accept and therefore a little less rigid, and a lot less ‘black and white’. Therefore many of our brethren teach traditional interpretation of the word instead of what the scripture really says. To do this effectively, they have to do several things.

First, the fact that the holy scriptures from Genesis to Revelation is a single, cohesive message system with a beautiful woven tapestry of meaning and purpose about God, his peoples and his Son has to be ignored and tossed out the window is the first and most important thing that must be done. Once this is accomplished, the rest becomes easy. After they destroy the cohesiveness of Our Lords message, it becomes easier to take and chop the word of Our Lord up into individual sections that don’t relate to each other significantly or not at all to be able to build the traditions and religious philosophy the the church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. This mindset and philosophy is referred to as replacement theology*3 and too many of our brethren teach this doctrine weekly from their pulpits as gospel.

Looking at this particular religious philosophy from a microscopic perspective, or even a planar perspective, it may seem to pass muster, but if you back up and get above it look at it from a distance you can see clearly that they have taken the flowing structure of the Word and chopped and cut and ripped the beautiful tapestry of the scriptures into pieces and then in a sordid attempt to try and justify their view they have taken the portions and blindly reassemble them into some sort of ugly jigsaw puzzle that they have hammered and taped back together into an non-fitting picture that more resembles a Jackson Pollack painting than a smooth flowing message system that easily fits and continues from end to end, the way the Holy Spirit wrote it and the way the Creator of All Things intended. By doing this, these unknowing minions of Satan have created great tears and gaps in the message of Our Lord that keep getting larger over time. These chasms that they have opened up allow false teachings, ideas and deceptions to enter into the scriptures and drive ever-widening wedges between those different groups that cling onto their own particular ideas or viewpoints that has been torn from the flowing structure of the Word. This could be compared to wounds in our skin that allows harmful germs and bacteria which can cause great harm if left open and untreated. We as the Body of Christ are much like extremely dysfunctional siblings that are constantly fighting and squabbling over minor issues and irrelevant things that, for the most part, have been caused by the attempts to destroy the intricate tapestry of the scriptures, to the point that most of our energies are absorbed in this in-fighting instead of taking the Word to the lost of the world. This has to be one of Satan’s more successful campaigns in his plan to thwart the plan of Our Lord.

While I was proofing what I had written above, another thought struck me. Another one of Satan’s great successes in his attempt to thwart the plan of God was his successful ability to control and deceive the Jewish leadership throughout the period of the Old Testament by causing them to doubt and ignore part of their own Torah through the lack of diligence in following the commandments of the Lord to read the Torah at certain times of the year while examining other parts of the Torah through a microscope (sound familiar?). This is easily inferred as we read the historical records of Israel and the prophets. I’m sure Satan went to far greater lengths than that, probably through deception and centuries of whispering in their ears to create doubt that God really doesn’t mean this and that. Satan really did some impressive work here; the leadership completely ignored Daniel chapter nine as if it never existed, because it told them precisely what day to expect the Messiah’s entry into Jerusalem and on the day that Gabriel gave to Daniel five hundred years earlier for all to see and hear, instead of welcoming their king, they grabbed him and treated him as a heretic and a criminal.

I’m going to digress here for a moment for I think the link between Daniel and the birth of The Christ is extremely cool and it could possibly be a link that Satan missed. As a child, knowing the story of Christ’s birth, I always wondered who these guys called the Magi were. All anyone could say was they were wise men from the east. Historical research indicates that the Magi were members of the Medeo-Persian Priesthood*4 and we find that Daniel*5 was chief of the Magi according to Daniel chapter 4. Daniel 4:9 “Belteshazzar*5, chief of the magicians, because I know that the Spirit of the Holy God [is] in you, and no secret troubles you, explain to me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and its interpretation. (NKJV) This scripture tells us Daniel held this office over these magicians and this is an indicator that creates a link to the appearance of the Magi in the gospels and apparently it is one of those events where the bible implies a Messianic prophecy that didn’t make it out of the Holy Spirit’s editing room for us to read, though Daniel seemingly knew the specifics of it and it seems he taught his dedicated followers to pass on this prophecy down through the centuries to their successors*6. So what happens? The fact that five hundred years later this imposing procession of important foreigners suddenly shows up at Herod’s doorstep in Jerusalem looking for the new born king of God’s chosen people, means they had to be there following some precise instructions, and the fact they were descendants of the Magi priesthood that was under the leadership of Daniel the prophet several centuries earlier says linkage to me. Where am I going with this? My personal opinion is that Satan read the Holy Word and knows every prophecy, every covenant, every commandment and every screw-up of the Israelites in there. My thought is that this prophecy that guided Daniel to instruct the Magi to pass the prophecy down through their ranks from generation to generation was missed by Satan, causing him to ignore these pagan priests that are conveying the message of the expectation of a Jewish Messiah appearing under certain miraculous conditions to their following successions of priests. OK, if that’s true, why was it left out? We could throw out conjectures all day, but I believe this visit by the Magi gives us an indication, on a much smaller scale, of what celebrations should have been taking place in Israel if the Jews had known to look for the Messiah, is one possibility. Another possibility is their visit was an end-run around Satan’s deception campaign, which in part, was designed to prevent such an announcement to be heralded, but the Magi succeeded at announcing to the Jewish leadership that the Messiah and king was among them. Or maybe it’s a combination of the two thoughts. Regardless whatever could have happened, the Jewish leadership were, once again, asleep at the wheel and ignored this event, which is only one of the most important events this creation has ever witnessed.

Because Christ as the Messiah was rejected by the nation of Israel, The Lord turned his back on them as prophesied throughout the Torah, (though Hosea’s is my favorite) which resulted in the catastrophe in 70 AD and the diaspora*7 of the Jews.

I have a non-traditional view of the scripture (to put it kindly, according to some). In my mind’s eye, I see God discussing with the others in the Trinity over steaming cups of nectar, his script for our universe before zapping us into existence. We all know what happened…Satan immediately threw a wrench into the works, casing the Lord to rewrite the script of our complicated sim game*8, so to speak. I look for patterns and, I guess conspiracies and one pattern that I see is; after the Jews turned chicken and refused to invade Canaan the first time, The Lord sent them wandering for thirty eight years before they were allowed to occupy the land. Fast-forward several hundred years and we have the Jewish nation reject God again by rejecting His Son. Thirty eight years later, the Romans destroyed the temple and massacred over a million Jews in the process of the siege and occupation of Jerusalem. I can’t help but wonder if this was simply a modified script from the original one, one where possibly the Jews accepted him and thirty eight years later, the chosen people, with Christ as their King, started the rule of the earth from Zion. Just as they had captured and occupied the promised land so many years ago.

In hindsight, we can look back and think, “what dorks, these guys had these prophecies about the Messiah, mainly the one from Daniel chapter nine, right there in front of them and they ignored it and see what it got them.”. Before we get all holier-than-thou, we need to look at ourselves. Heck, forget religion, here in America, our leaders ignore and reject our own constitution, they reject moral judgments and teachings, much less the teaching of the scriptures and we’ve only had a couple hundred years to do it in. At least Israel seemed to hold it together longer than that.

God Bless, Jim

*1 Acts 9:2 and Acts 19:9, 23

*2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation

*3http://www.gotquestions.org/replacement-theology.html

*4http://ldolphin.org/magi.html

*5 Belteshazzar was Daniel’s Persian name

*6 Numbers 24:17 tells of a star in prophecy, but if you read it in context, I don’t see the link to Christ’s birth…

*7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora

*8 I personally think we are some sort of giant SIM game where our reality is all smoke and mirrors and the real reality is what we refer to as the ‘spirit world’. The apostle Paul supports that view, by the way in Ephesians 6:12

What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh and why did God choose not to heal it?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Apostle Paul, Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, Sin
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I was sure that when I began the research for this that I would conclude that Paul had an eye malady as many bible scholars seems to think…but after looking at several passages and after researching several different sites and praying, I don’t think that is what it was. Let’s start attempting to unravel this question by visiting the passage where the term ‘thorn in the flesh’ came from.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (NASB)

At first I just read this and then I decided to look at the verse seven a little closer. I examined it with the interlinear tool at Blue Letter Bible and this passage indicates that the thorn in his flesh was an angel of Satan…I’m not making it up, that’s what it says. OK, what does it mean? The word messenger seems to always refer to a human being or angel or Christ. By contrast, thorns are seen continually in scripture, as a sign of those who are against Israel, or of Satan. I think it means what it says, that his thorn in the flesh was an angel of Satan.

Could Paul have been suffering from demon possession with The Lord’s permission? At first I thought, yes he could have. If we read 1 Samuel 16:14 we learn that The Lord became fed up with Saul and sent an evil spirit to trouble him. The Lord allows evil spirits to possess people but, after asking the Holy Spirit for guidance on this, praying about it and sleeping on it, I feel demon possession is highly unlikely. However, in a Job-like manner, God could have allowed an angel of Satan to torment, or maltreat Paul and to cause physical problems that manifested themselves outwardly. Could the angel of Satan have been anything else? Yes, instead of ‘agents’ of Satan causing a thorn in the flesh, it could have been ‘agents’ of Satan attempting to thwart Paul’s efforts at spreading the word, by trying to throw roadblocks in his way because as Paul became more effective at bringing God’s message to the people and his reputation became better known, he increasingly was becoming more and more of an extreme irritant to Satan and his design to thwart The Lord’s plan. Paul himself said he survived, beatings and stonings and imprisonment and three shipwrecks in his journeys spreading the word and even so, Paul became one of The Lords most effective tool at spreading the word to the Jews and the Gentiles that the early church had ever known and I’m sure Satan would have crushed Paul like a bug if God had allowed him to.

Now let’s look at another view, from the letter to the Galatians.

Galatians 4:13-15 You know that because of physical infirmity I preached the gospel to you at the first.  And my trial which was in my flesh you did not despise or reject, but you received me as an angel of God, [even] as Christ Jesus. What then was the blessing you [enjoyed]? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. (NKJV)

OK, here, it seems he was suffering from a physical malady that was evident to those he was preaching to in Galatia, as we find out from this letter he wrote at a later date after they started slipping back to the old ways of Judaism. Dr. Chuck Missler seems to think it was eye problems that were a carry-over from the blindness Christ caused him to have (which is a type of the blindness He pronounced upon Israel that also is a temporary thing). That is a logical assumption except for one issue; if we look back at 2 Corinthians 12:7 it says it was a messenger from Satan sent to torment him. The blindness came from God, not ‘a messenger of Satan, and the two causalities don’t mingle, so I don’t believe Paul would have confused eye problems relating to the blindness caused by Our Lord as having come from Satan.

At this point, I believe God was allowing Satan, in a Job-like manner, to harass Paul in ways that manifested itself by causing outward signs of some aberrant physical condition to a limited extent, and to also, at the same time, throw roadblocks in his way in the manner of delays, shipwrecks, beatings, stonings and imprisonment because of The Lord’s faith in His servant. Paul besought The Lord to remove this burden from him three times, just as Christ was beseeching His Father three time to rid Him of His burden in the Garden. The Lord chose not to heal this ‘thorn’ in Paul’s side, possibly for the reason so that Paul would take the burden and use it as a tool to aid him in his ministries, which he did.

How is this principle of Paul’s thorn in his flesh applicable to me today? Paul was a sinner, but he was a very effective sinner that turned trouble into triumph and used the thorn in his flesh to his advantage to show he was still a sinner saved by grace, as we all would be, tempted to be exalted. That is a lesson that I need to work on because I sometimes try to take charge and, as usual, wreck the train, and allow troubles and temptation to be the excuse that they are designed to be, therefore giving my arch foe, Satan an advantage. Oh, you weak, weak man, Jim.

Dear Father, I need your strength, for I have none. I need your light for I exist in darkness, I need your hand to guide me out of the abyss I plunge myself into. Oh, Father save me from myself for I’m a worm on the ground, once again waiting for the carrion of Satan to snatch me up without you. Dear, blessed Father, thank you for the grace and mercy I never have and I never will deserve and I still don’t understand why you rescued me, Lord. Show me how to be like Paul, triumphing in life, while spreading your word, Father. In Christ name, Amen.

God Bless, Jim

Why Was Christ Crucified?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, Sin
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If you asked a hundred Christians in the conservative, ‘bible-belt’ section of America where I live the question, “Why was Christ crucified?”, almost all of them would say, “He died for our sins.” and leave it at that. That would not be an incorrect answer, just an incomplete one, for I need to know why He had to die for our sins. I am going to attempt to explore that question and try to do it justice.

The key word to the short, answer is ‘sin’. What is sin? According to blue letter bible, sin is a transgression or violation of divine law (God’s law) as is defined below.

a. Its origin, as regards the human race. The first man and woman, by their own choice, violated the law of God; they sinned against God.

b. Words, which describe sin in some of its forms. Hebrew: “Chata,” to go out of the way, to miss the mark. “Pasha,” to transgress. “Avah,” to twist, to act perversely. Greek: “Hamaritia,” a missing of the mark. “Paraptoma,” a falling away from law, truth, right. “Parabasis,” a going over or beyond truth and right, transgression. “Anomia,” lawlessness. “Asebeia,” irreverence.

c. Definition. “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”

Regardless which definition we apply to ourselves, the trait of free will and gullibility within human beings condemn us to sin. Genesis 1:27-31 tells us that God created man in His own image and blessed him and gave him dominion over the Earth and was pleased with the results. Since humans were created in His image, and humans sin, does that mean God is sinful in nature, because we sure are? No, of course not. When God created Adam there was no sin. Unfortunately for us, there was a wrench thrown into the works called Satan and Romans 5:12 tell us Adam fell because Satan was allowed to introduced sin into the world, via Adam. I can infer just from the book of Job, using the patterns that are prevalent all through the bible, that Satan kind of goaded God into this competition with us as the pawns and our souls as the prize. I was going to go a different direction with this, but I suddenly am compelled to explore the path of the Trinity and creation…

For some reason, I always had difficulty remembering that sometimes ‘God’ can be a reference to the Trinity, or can refer to God the Father or can refer to God the Son. John in chapter 1 of his gospel says that God the Son is the author of creation and that Christ created the universe and all things in it, including us. That means we are created in Christ’s image (how cool is that). It also means that Adam is a direct creation of Christ, even though it apparently was a collaborative effort (the plural verbiage denoting the Trinity in Genesis 3:22). Satan, however was able to deceive Eve and he was successful in generating doubt and confusion in what God (Christ) had commanded, causing them to sin by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why was this one tree, that they were told not to eat from, placed within the perfect garden of Eden? I think we can derive from the patterns we see in Job, it was there as a test and a temptation, much like the events within the book of Job were. Where am I going with all this?


This is partially conjecture on my part, but I think Christ created Adam in His own image as a sinless person that had no conception of good and evil. Satan presents a challenge and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is introduced into the midst of this perfect garden. It doesn’t take long for Satan to begin his deception campaign by beguiling Eve into sinning by transgressing the commandment of God (Christ) and eating of this lone tree and then convincing her husband to do the same. This means that Adam, a direct creation of Christ, and created in the image of Christ, falls by sinning. In response, Our Lord performed the opening gambit, exhibited by a string of prophecies, that leads eventually toward a checkmate against his wily opponent in this humanity game, Satan*1. How was this brilliant maneuver performed?


Christ introduced the prophecy concerning the plans to ultimately defeat Satan by the parabolic announcement of Himself becoming human in Genesis 3:15*2 and taking over the role that Adam failed at, by way of, the miracle of the virgin birth of Himself as a man. While Christ will not sin like Adam (remember Christ’s temptations by Satan from Mark chapter 1 which basically is a parallel of the temptations of Adam and Eve by Satan, which they failed), He will take upon the sin that His direct creation, Adam, introduced into the world and then willingly die for our salvation upon the cross while wearing this cloak of sin and transgression, relieving us of this unbearable burden and beginning the ‘end game’ process of sealing the lid on the ultimate defeat of Satan. I believe Christ, from the beginning, arranged His own crucifixion to pay the debt of sin that Adam started, thus soundly tromping Satan.


I can see the scenario where we and our universe were created with the intention of Christ being our creator and ruler, possibly in Eden which was in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Satan, by being allowed to introduce sin into the world*3, only delayed the inevitable end result where Christ becomes the ruler of all nations in the end and, just possibly, bring Eden back to it’s glory, as it was in the beginning.

God Bless, Jim

*1 Those familiar with chess will know that a game can be won or lost in the first move that, if played right, can set up a domino effect type of scenario that may not manifest itself until scores of moves have been played, resulting in a checkmate.

*2 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (RSV)

*3 Satan made all those “I will” statements in Isaiah 14, maybe God has allowed everything to go on to prove that Satan’s “I will” statements are actually “I am only delusional and that I can’t” statements…