What do we know of Christ’s resurrection body?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Christian
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This may be a given to most, but I believe we can draw some fairly decent basic conclusions of Christ’s resurrection body from the scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments. To attempt to keep this post short enough to not bore you to tears, I’m only going to cover a couple of examples to highlight the conclusions we can draw.

Right off the bat when I started researching from the first appearance to Mary Magdalene, I realized it isn’t as clear cut and straight forward as I assumed it would when I thought up this brief excursion. Why? Let’s look at this first appearance we find in Mark’s account in Mark 16:9 Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first [day] of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. (KJV) This seems simple enough, but we need to develop the context so when we read on a couple of more verses, we find this in Mark 16:12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. (KJV) What? What in the world does the word form in this sentence mean? In the Greek it means what we expect it to mean, the external appearance of something. So we can conclude that he appeared looking one way to Mary Magdalene and looking quite different to the others. John sheds some light on this in his gospel account that we read in John 20:16-17 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God. (KJV) So it seems that when she first saw him he had just arisen and was still in the same human form as he was when he was laid in the sepulcher. Apparently between this visage and subsequent ones, he ascended and then returned in the form that he was seen afterward. Also on this first encounter by Mary Magdalene, a couple of verses earlier, in John 20:15 we are told she didn’t recognize him and thought he was the gardener. Why?

Let us look at beards. In I Chronicles chapter 19, as in many other places in the Old Testament, we find it was shameful for a Jewish male to be shaved. In Isaiah 50:6 we get a glimpse of one of the ways that Our Lord was tortured, because apparently they ripped out his beard. So, perhaps when she saw this beardless man her automatic and natural assumption would have been that this guy wasn’t a Jewish male, but rather a gentile, and likely a slave, instead of Our Savior.

Later on we find that He challenged Thomas to touch Him in John chapter 20 and also we read in Luke 24 that Christ walked and talked for seven miles and afterward dined with a couple of the disciple before he pulled a disappearing trick and vanished. I believe if he had been some floating, spectral being that we refer to as ghost, gliding along with them on on the road, they would have figured out something was very strangely wrong about this man (“Hey, why can we see through this guy, why isn’t his feet touching the ground as he moves?”). This one instance by itself is fairly definitive of the fact that He was flesh and blood…only he was flesh and blood that could vanish and move through walls which is a super indication that Christ had definitely changed form as we read in Mark 16:12.

Which segways my thoughts to a very cool verse that speaks volumes in I John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (KJV)

Wow. We have seen in the gospels where Christ appeared before hundreds of people after His crucifixion. We have read where He taught, where He walked and talked, where He dined and met with followers and where He disappeared into thin air and materialized into a locked room to meet with His disciples. We already know he was the I AM of the burning bush and was The Angel of The Lord in several encounters in the Old Testament. Scientific discoveries, coupled with an expansion of understanding of mathematical principles, of the last two centuries have increased our knowledge of our physical universe. Part of that scientific discovery was the expansion of the understanding of dimensionality and the development of new theories, such as the string theory*1. So what?

The more we as humans, in our endeavors to elevate our understanding of our universe, the more we find that these expansions of knowledge assist in demonstrating the hidden gems of the scriptures. Our expansion of understanding that we live in a multidimensional universe helps to explain how Our Lord could just seem to appear and disappear at will all through the bible. This multidimensional was hinted at by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians*2 when he wrote that we live in a four dimensional universe a few hundred years before Euclid ‘discovered’ the fact. John also tells us that they weren’t seeing the full representation of Christ after He had changed form, but only what our two dimensional eyes*3 could perceive of Him. John was explaining to them that was the reason Christ could seem to disappear and appear at will…because he existed in a higher dimension than we can view or really understand. Some don’t care about this, but I find it fascinating when we are able to peer a little deeper behind the curtain and discover more gems of information that do nothing but solidify more and more the proof that the scriptures are divine in nature and infinite in scope.

God Bless, Jim

*1 http://www.examiner.com/christian-worldview-in-national/quantum-mechanics-string-theories-black-holes-and-the-bible

*2 Ephesians 3:18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; (KJV)

*3 Each of our eyes only resolves objects in two dimensions, width and height, and the stereoscopic effect of both of our eyes working in conjunction make it appear we see in three dimensions, but we actually don’t…sorry.

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

Empty Space and Galaxies near and far, or how long did it take for our universe to form?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Age of the Universe, Bible, Christ, GOD, Life and Memories, My view of the world, Space
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Is space basically empty? When I was going to school we were taught that space was empty, but in the last few decades the concept of the universe being full of dark matter has been bandied about. Why? There is simply too much stuff going on, energy-wise, in our universe for the measurable matter to account for, mathematics and physics have shown.

In fact when they crunch the numbers, it seems they are missing a little matter…no?…more? OK, they are missing some matter…no?…even more? OK, they are missing almost 90% of the matter of the universe and they can’t find it, it seems…it apparently is hiding somewhere, so they came up with the tag of ‘dark matter’. One crazy example of this concept is something called ‘zero point energy’.

We learned about thermodynamics in school (whether we realize it or not), that is the concept that matter gives off heat to the background creating energy in exchange. If there is no potential difference in temperature between an object and the background, no work can be performed. The temperature of space is very, very cold while matter that resides within the universe has different levels of heat that they give off to the ’empty’ space background. That cold temperature is called ‘absolute zero’. That is as cold as you can get…you can’t get any colder. When matter gets as cold as the background there is a term for that and it is called heat death. At this point science tells us that there is no exchange of energy…matter is as dead as it can get. That means everything we know stops…everything ceases being all movement ceases, even down to the sub-atomic particles. Kind of sad to think about, isn’t it?

However, that isn’t the end to the story…remember the dark matter, as they call it? Science has found out that even when the background of space is at absolute zero, there is an unexplainably massive amount of energy stored within that ’empty space’. Science can’t explain where it comes from, but they have realized that this zero point energy is a constant source of energy at the sub-atomic level that keeps the electron in their orbits. This energy somehow keeps replenishing it’s self from outside the universe…ooohh creepy…or it simply means that the Creator is still at work…I’ll take the latter explanation, I think. If it weren’t for the zero-point energy replenishment, we or nothing else would be here for the atomic structure of life would destroy itself…empty space…I don’t think so, it seems someone is still holding it all together.

Colossians 1:16-17 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. (NKJV)

There are a few deep space telescopes that can look at very distant objects in our universe, including thousands upon thousands of galaxies of all different sorts. If we choose to look at just spiral galaxies we notice that despite how far away they are, the arms seem to be extended about the same because of the gravitational and centrifugal effects. What is intriguing about that is because of the limitation of the speed of light, the ones we see far away are snapshots of the galaxy long ago in the past, where the ones relatively close are glimpses of only a few years past. In other words, the light we see from a galaxy far, far away left that galaxy millions of years ago, meaning what we are seeing from far away galaxies is a potentially millions of year old snapshot of that particular galaxy. While the photo of Andromeda galaxy is only a few years old. When you compare the photos of the near and the far galaxies you notice that the arms are extended about the same regardless of distance away from us. This intrigues me because using the current theory of the age of the universe, that should not be so…the far distant ones are pictures of spiral galaxies taken millennia ago and the arms should be less well developed that the closer ones, or not developed at all. So what does that mean to us? What that means is that all of creation including all portions the universe, including the galaxies, were created at the same time. For them to be created at the same time denotes creation and the perfect candidate for that is God.

God Bless, Jim

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…

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