18 Necessity of the Abrahamic Covenant- Nimrod's Cult

This world is really a mess, isn't it? We wonder why God allows it to continue so. As we look into what He has revealed to us, it starts to make sense that God uses human history to teach both mankind and angels what He is like.

Knowing God is not merely an academic exercise but it must be experienced by our senses and internalized into our souls. Due to our sinful nature, our senses cannot rightly understand His goodness. We must be taught that God is good all of the time. This idea does not merely describe Him as benevolent and loving and kind. His goodness also includes His justice. 

An unrighteous judge does not punish fairly, but a good and just judge is one who brings to light the evil intent of the heart and prescribes punishment without respect of persons. A good judge is one who is able to rightly show the contrasts between good and evil, right and wrong, life and death. 

At the very beginning of creation we see that creatures with free will must internalize these distinctions. This gift of free will means that we may sovereignly choose to trust in God's perfect goodness or to trust in ourselves. If we choose our self-proclaimed goodness above God's, we are following Lucifer's error of declaring, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isaiah 14:14). 

Every choice has a consequence and to those who are given much, much is required. For angels created in the likeness of God, the consequences of their choices have no opportunity for redemption. Choosing against God, their fate is sealed for that Lake of Fire prepared for them from the beginning of creation. (Matthew 25:41)

Yet for man who is created as a living soul in both the image and the likeness of God, the opportunity for redemption exists at great cost to God Himself. (Romans 8:32) Rejecting that redemption carries with it an even more severe and eternal cost. For man's bold rejection carries with it the same fate as that reserved for the angels. (Revelation 20:10)

In addition to the gnashing of teeth in those eternal torments, there is that everlasting infection of both mind and soul. The Lord describes it as an undying worm, (Mark 9:44-48) a parasite that produces an incurable and everlasting fever. This as a consequence of rejecting the Divine light and love that God provides.

God has no desire for you and I to suffer such torments. (2 Peter 3:9) He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 33:11) Instead, He desires that none should perish but that all would come to repentance and know everlasting life instead of everlasting torments. This battle for your soul is evidence that your sovereign choice remains. The Spirit of God pleads with you and I to turn to God from idols.

This battle for men's souls began with God's declaration in Genesis 3:15 that He would send the 'seed of the woman' to restore the order that was lost in Eden. This expectation of God's man was accompanied by the expectation that this 'seed of the woman' would be wounded on earth. Yet that same man would one day destroy the seed of the serpent by crushing its head.

We have seen Satan's desperate attempt to prevent this by corrupting the seed of the woman. God countered this with a flood to destroy all but Noah and his family through whom the seed of the woman was preserved. 

Since Satan had to guess the bloodline through whom the seed of the woman would come, his strategy was to corrupt the genetics of mankind. The flood foiled his evil intent, so that now he needs to find a man that he could corrupt into becoming the 'seed of the serpent'.

Nimrod, Ruler of Bab El

Satan belongs to the angelic realm, he cannot retain his dominion on the earth apart from having men on the earth through whom he can rule. So it was that after the flood, a new attempt at corrupting mankind was made through a man named Nimrod,

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a mythical story of a tyrannical king who is ⅔ god and ⅓ man. Gilgamesh was said to have reigned in ancient Sumeria or Mesopotamia. He is described as a creature 18 feet tall, skilled in war, a hunter of men. Many scholars have concluded that this character is based on the real figure that the Holy Spirit identifies as Nimrod. 

In Genesis 10:8-10 we learn that Nimrod ‘began to be a mighty one in the earth'. How did he come to be a mighty one? Here we must take care not to delve too deeply into the 'depths of Satan' lest we become like those in the church at Thyatira who strayed into idolatrous practices (Revelation 2:24). 

However, the Hebrew word translated ‘began’ can mean to profane oneself sexually. It suggests that Nimrod was the first to give himself over to Satan through perverse sexual rituals in exchange for becoming a mighty one in the earth. 

Nimrod is described as a mighty hunter. These words describe one who is a predator, a tyrant, a hunter of men's souls. Like his master, Lucifer, Nimrod hunts through stealth and deceit.

The first-century historian Josephus makes the following statement concerning Nimrod: 
“He persuaded them to attribute their prosperity not to God but to their own valor, and little by little transformed the state of affairs into tyranny, holding that the only way to detach men from the fear of God was by making them continuously dependent upon his power. He threatened to have his revenge on God if He wished to inundate the earth again; for he would build a tower higher than the water could reach and avenge the destruction of their forefathers.”

In our present world system predators seem to abound. Among the worst of these we discover that at some point their minds and bodies had been afflicted with demonic abuse. They are trained from their infancy to be wholly given over to Satanic influences. 

Some of these individuals are loners, but many find themselves in a fraternity of evil that gives them a sense of being valued when they perform their perversions. Many such souls rise to places of prominence in politics or entertainment. This helps to explain much of the demonic perversions that have infected our society through the arts and educational systems.

Nimrod's pre eminence led him to establish religious practices that manipulated mankind into believing this perversion of God's order was normal. Adam's sin in Eden not only forfeited his dominion to Lucifer, but it also severed the connection between the earthly and angelic realms. This new religious system promoted the re-establishment of that connection without first connecting to Jehovah God.

Nimrod's goal it seems, was to build a tower to reach into the heavens and serve as a portal for men to once again interact with the unseen realm. It was Satan's desire to use Nimrod through whom he could rule the earth by means of a one world government. This project became known in the Assyrian language as 'Bab El' or gate of the gods. In Hebrew it means 'confusion through mixing'

Douglas Hamp comments on the Tower of Babel in this way:

“Historically, archaeology and multiple texts agree that the Tower was built. Since that time, Satan has continued to partner with mankind to build mechanisms to bridge the dimensions and to ultimately open the Abyss.” 

Hamp, Douglas. Corrupting the Image 2: Hybrids, Hades, and the Mt Hermon Connection (p. 168).

Thus, Nimrod was seeking to build a city and a system that was impervious to God’s judgment and intervention. Nimrod sought to build a new world order, or a one-world system of politics, economics, and religion that excluded a knowledge of the true God. What emerged from this is what the Holy Spirit describes as 'Babylon, the mother of harlots' (Revelation 17:5)

God's Counter to Confusion

God intervened at Babel because "now nothing will be restrained from them, (mankind) which they have imagined to do" (Genesis 11:6). Mankind united under the tyranny of fallen angels would have no limit to the perversions that would infect God's creation. 

So, the Godhead intervened to confuse their language and disperse them across the earth. In this way God created sovereign nation states suspicious of one another. 

Each nation that developed from this would be protective of their boundaries that God established for them. (Acts 17:26) Their governments would serve to act as a restraint on evil both within their borders and against those who would threaten their borders. (Romans 13:1-7) 

However, each group carried with them their universal desire to mix with the unseen realm apart from the one true God. This is the source from which every form of idol worship is birthed. The various pantheon of gods from ancient cultures attest to the wide spread practices that began in Babylon with Nimrod and his mother-child cult worship.

Out of this confusion, God choose His own man through whom the promised seed of the woman would come. God revealed Himself to a man steeped in the practices of idolatry, including human sacrifice. 

That man was Abram of Ur of the Chaldees.

smc

17 Necessity of the Flood (part 2)

  Gen. 6: 1-4,9,13

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare [children] to them, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown. ... And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."  Genesis 6:4, 13 KJV

As we think about the restoration of God’s kingdom on the earth, some questions naturally arise: Why doesn’t God just destroy Satan and be done with it?: Why did God send a flood?; Why did God choose Abram?

In the last post we considered that God's goodness means that He is infinitely loving, but that He is also absolutely just. The flood was necessary to execute justice on the treasonous activity of mankind who had allied themselves with demons against God. 

‘the end of all flesh is come before me’ is a phrase that describes the full exposure of man's rebellion to the wrath of God. With the exception of Noah and his immediate family, the whole of humanity could only reproduce evil continuously. 

In other words, this demonic incursion into the human gene pool had progressed to the social expectation that men and women were to look for opportunity to mate with angels. (The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not just the sin of homosexuality, but an active desire to mate with angels.) 

This view of angels mating with mankind went out of favor after the 4th century. Instead it was proposed that this was intermarriage between the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain. 

Renald Showers explains:

“...it is interesting to note that the Sethite Line-Cainite View does not begin until the fourth century A.D. This makes it the newest of the three major views. The New Catholic Encyclopedia states that this view ‘that sees in these sons of God the Sethites and in the daughters of men the Cainites dates from the fourth century and is influenced by theological concern for maintaining the spirituality of the Angels.’ This seems to imply that the major motivation for starting this view was not exegesis of Scripture but opposition to the angel view...” 

Those Invisible Spirits Called Angels (Bellmawr, NJ: Friends of Israel, 1997), 96-97.

However, it is hard to conceive that this activity would have caused God to declare that 'the end of all flesh is come before me'. Given what we know of Satan's desperate attempts to corrupt the seed of the woman, it makes more sense to see this as the apostles Peter and Jude understood it and referred to it in their writings.

This desire to mate with angels describe the kind of marriages taking place in the ‘days of Noah’.  According the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24:37, these are the kind of marriages that will be repeated in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.

It is interesting that the royal families of Europe reportedly believe that they derive their authority from a blood line produced by the union of angels with Cain. They believe that this royal line was preserved through Noah’s sons wives.  This explains why these global elites consider themselves heirs to rule the earth. The fullness of their sin is seen in their tyrannical imposition of wars, pestilence and famine.

Such treasonous corruption requires the righteous God to act justly. In Noah's day, God sent a flood to destroy the earth. In a coming day the fullness of man's sin will be seen in a one world government ruled by Satan's seed, the antichrist. Men will apparently once again be seeking opportunity to mate with angels. 

In that day God will judge the world by a period of great tribulation, such as has never been seen on the earth. 

Why does God allow evil to grow?

God's justice requires evidence that demands a verdict. In other words, the execution of justice must be seen to be just. God does not merely accuse mankind of violating His Words but His justice requires that the consequences of sin are fully experienced. 

We are all likely familiar with the story of a man who wanted to prevent his son from becoming addicted to tobacco. So, he had the boy smoke several packs of cigarettes until it made him sick. The intent in this was to discourage the boy from addictive behavior. 

In the same way, God uses man's experience with sin to show mankind their sin sickness. Nevertheless when we ignore this sickness, we become addicted to sin. This is often called 'depravity'.

Depravity does not mean that people are as evil as they possibly can be. None of us are inherently good, but neither do we always act in totally evil ways. Evil men can often be seen to act in good ways. If nothing more, acts of loving kindness soothes the seared conscience. Rather, depravity means that every aspect of my being is shown to be corrupted by the idea that God is not good and that His word cannot be trusted. 

Whenever mankind submits to doctrines of demons, individual sovereignty is lost and we ultimately become enslaved to tyrants. This is not God's desire for mankind and God's love designs a means of deliverance from this tyranny. 

Noah's family had not submitted themselves to demonic corruption. They had come to know that God's goodness required Him to act justly. Yet they also knew God's goodness would provide a means of shelter from His judgment. They were saved by their faith in God's goodness. This led them to obey God in the building of an ark to preserve them through the global flood. 

In our day it is obedience to God by placing our trust in Christ. Our world is fast ripening to God's judgment. Have you found shelter from the coming storm by trusting Christ? You can simply ask God to deliver you from your depravity. Christ Jesus has already paid the price for our depravity. You can receive Christ as your Savior today and be sure that you are free from God's judgment on sin. 

Nothing more than trust in Christ is needed, but nothing less will do.

In the next post, we will look at the necessity of the Abrahamic covenant.

smc

16 The Necessity of the Flood (part 1)

Why would a loving God destroy the whole earth with a flood?

In the last post we looked at how Satan's adversarial role developed. With God's pronouncement of judgment for sin and His declaration that the seed of the woman would one day crush the head of serpent's seed, Satan has determined to destroy the woman's seed in order to prolong His reign as prince and power of the air.

It is reasonable to expect that any movement of God to secure that the seed of the woman comes into existence will be met with Satanic opposition. As we move through human history, we can see exactly this. Satan's insanity will cause him to exert every effort to corrupt or kill the seed of the woman. 

Satan is a created being. He is counted among those that the Holy Spirit calls 'sons of God'. For instance, in Job 1:6-7, we read this:

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."

Who are these Sons of God spoken of in the Bible? 

Although the following information may appear to be a bit dry and academic, it is important information to know if we are to understand who the Spirit of God is describing. So, please bear with it:

The Hebrew phrase translated 'sons of God' is ‘bene Elohim’ . It is used 5 times to describe angelic beings. (Genesis 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). In the Greek New Testament portion of the Bible, the term 'sons of God' is used 6 times to describe those who, through faith in Jesus Christ, are born again.

So we see that in every case that 'sons of God' is used throughout the Bible it describes a direct creation of God. In the Old Testament it speaks of angels and in the New Testament it speaks of those who are a 'new creation' of God (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15).

The term 'Son of God' is used 47 times in the Bible. Only one of those time it is used in the Old Testament (Daniel 3:25). Each time the term 'Son of God' is used it refers exclusively to the second person of the Godhead, God's unique, uncreated Son, Jesus Christ. (Although the term 'son of God' is used in the English translation of Luke 3:38, to describe Adam, who is also a direct creation of God. Nevertheless, the words 'son of' are not in the original text. They are supplied by the translators)

This information is important to know because of the strange incident that the Holy Spirit describes in Genesis 6. It is one of Satan's efforts to corrupt the human gene pool and thereby prevent the 'seed of the woman' from being born.

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they [were] fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." 

Genesis 6:1-2 KJV

In the New Testament book of Jude, verses 6 and 7, This angelic sin that is identified by a failure to stay in their domain and characterized as going after ‘strange flesh’. Jude compares the incident of the sin of Genesis 6 to be like the homosexuality of Sodom and Gomorrah described in Genesis 18. 

The Spirit of God shows us the standard for sexuality in Genesis 2:24. is that of a mature male and female (man and woman) becoming one flesh. When societies  promote perversions of God’s standard, God’s judgment is inevitable. 

Several times in the scriptures we read about the angels ability to take on the form of men. This 'shape-shifting' ability was well recognized among the Hebrew as is attested to by the writer to the Hebrews:

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."  Hebrews 13:2 KJV

So, it seems that this ability was abused in Genesis 6 where there was consensual union between the daughters of men and angels who took the form of men. These angels invaded the human realm and impregnated human women as part of demonic plan to prevent the seed of the woman from being born. 

Both Jude (1:6) and the apostle Peter (2 Peter 2:4) speak of God placing these angels in chains awaiting judgment: Peter calls them angels that were cast into hell because of their sin in the pre flood world of the ungodly. 

Why are some fallen angels jailed and some are not?

There are many Christians that understandably oppose this interpretation of Genesis 6. It is contrary to our normal way of thinking and causes us to consider a realm in which our limited senses have no power to interpret. 

Yet that position leaves no answer for this question: “Why are some angels jailed and some are not jailed?” This angel view of Genesis 6 provides an answer as to the conditions necessary for the Lord to declare His judgment on those angels that sinned in their attempt to corrupt the human gene pool. 

God likewise marks the end of His patience with mankind in these words:

"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." 

Genesis 6:5-7 KJV

God is extremely patient and not willing that any should perish. Yet this incident reveals that even though His love is infinite, His infinite goodness demands justice upon any who are willfully treasonous against their Creator.

Yet the Lord is faithful to His Word, so He made a way for His Seed to be preserved. God raised up a faithful man named Noah who 'was perfect in his generations'.  This does not mean that Noah was a perfect man but that he, his wife and their three sons had not accepted this demonic incursion into their gene pool. 

The Lord directed Noah and his sons to build an ark large enough to preserve themselves, their wives and selected animal pairs through the world wide flood of God's judgment upon an evil world. 

You and I are also subject to that same judgment upon our treasonous hearts against our Creator. We have all doubted God's goodness and self righteously claimed our own goodness. We have each embraced a way of life prescribed by demons. We refuse to have 'this Jesus' reign over us.

Jesus predicted this reaction when He told a story of a landowner that was rejected by his tenants: "But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this [man] to reign over us." - Luke 19:14 KJV

This prediction was fulfilled when the Jewish leaders rejected Christ's offer of the Kingdom for Israel. Instead, they demanded from the Roman authorities that they crucify Jesus:

"But they cried out, Away with [him], away with [him], crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar." - John 19:15 KJV

How about you, dear reader? Are you rejecting God's rule over your life by rejecting His anointed King, Christ Jesus? Have you crucified God's anointed in your heart?

Nevertheless this same Jesus that you have rejected can become your ark of salvation through the flood of God's judgment against this present evil world. If you are willing, receive Jesus Christ as God's anointed King and trust that He has paid the price for your sin. Whosoever will do this is born again as a new creation direct from the hand of God.

"But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 

Romans 5:8

In the next post, we will look a little further at this demonic incursion among mankind.

smc

14 Why a Talking Serpent? - The Restoring Seed

"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being"

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

When John the baptizer identified Jesus as the Lamb of God, what did John say Jesus’ mission was?

"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." - John 1:29 KJV

What is 'the sin of the world'?

It is well known by us from very early childhood that it is just harder to be good than to be bad. We must be trained both externally and internally to achieve a level of behavior that sees value in others that is at least equal to the value we place in our self. 

Our natural inclination is to diminish others in in attempt to make ourselves appear to be more valuable and more important than others. There are demonic forces that are eager to exploit this weakness in us by appealing to our pride, even as he did with our first parents in Eden.

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Genesis 3:1 KJV

If you had no knowledge of the Bible and began by reading in Genesis, you would wonder about this talking serpent. Who is he? (Scripture refers to him in the masculine); Where did he come from?; and Why does he want to speak with Eve? 

Before Eve was created, Adam was given charge to name all of the animals according to their abilities and characteristics. This not only showed Adam's great intelligence and powers of observation, but the act of naming also asserts authority over that creature. The name, Adam gave this creature is 'serpent' meaning an enchanting whisper or hiss.

We know that there are many reptiles that the Lord created. Many of them, like chameleons, have the ability to enchant through their power to transform. Some change color dramatically. It is very hard to take your eyes off of them because they are so intriguing. It is possible that the serpent also had qualities of luminescence whose shimmering beauty Eve would have naturally been attracted to.

Imagine a creature with a voice and countenance so beautiful that when Eve encountered him, her nature may have been drawn to him in a trance-like state of wonder. This creature could have been large and dragon like, ideally suited for the deceiver to capture Eve's innate fascination with beauty.

Now in their role as co-regents on the earth, Adam and Eve were given charge over creation. Some have called their office; 'Theocratic Administrators'. With Eve as a helper, every creature was responsive to their direction and guidance. 

So, when a talking serpent-dragon appears with its powers of enchantment, Eve would have at least been curious. We see that rather than exercising authority over the animals, Eve allows the creature to subtly exercise authority over her. 

Lucifer, the Ultimate Angel

We learn from Ezekiel 28 that Lucifer was an angelic being created to be 'the covering cherub'. In Isaiah 14:12 he is called the light bearer, the son of the morning. Yet he was cast out of heaven. 

From these descriptions we get the impression that Lucifer was created to be an assistant at God's throne. However, we learn from the prophet Isaiah that Lucifer was lifted up with pride and asserted: 

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." 

Isaiah 14:14 KJV.  

After this act of treason, Lucifer is called Satan who appears before the throne of God as an adversary rather than an assistant: (Job 1:6.7)

Lucifer appears to have been motivated by jealousy. He appears to have believed that, as one created as the 'light bearer' in the likeness of God, he should have authority over God's Kingdom. However, that power was now given to these creatures who were created after God's image and likeness. 

Satan reasoned that if he could make Adam and Eve submissive to a creature, then he would gain an advantage over them. Satan may also have reasoned that since God is love, He would never destroy His creation. So if Lucifer was successful, he would rule in Adam's place forever.

However, the angelic realm must learn the justice of God, the wisdom of God and the self sacrificing love of God. This love would be demonstrated by the Lord God subjecting Himself to the righteous judgment that His creatures of flesh deserved.

The Sin of the World

Lucifer used the enchanting serpent to bring doubt to Eve's mind as to the truth of God’s word. "Hath God said...?" Then Lucifer uses this creatures power of enchantment to suggest that God was holding out on Adam and Eve. "The woman saw that the tree was good...to be desired to make one wise..." This would cause doubt as to God’s character and goodness. 

Tragically, Adam is standing right there but he does not oppose this suggestion. There is a time and place for a man to say to his wife, “Yes, dear”. If Eve would have asked Adam, “Could you build a tree house for little old me over there?”, It would have been wise for Adam to say “yes dear”. If Eve would have asked, “does this light make me look fat?”…not a good time to say ‘yes, dear’. Neither is it a good time to say, ‘yes dear’ when it means agreeing with a talking serpent.

This was In fact, a shift of affection away from God by listening to the creation instead of ruling over it…a de facto abdication of authority to the serpent. Satan’s success in inciting this rebellion effectively removed the office of Theocratic Administrator from Adam and Eve. Lucifer, at that point became the ruler of the world (Luke 4:5–8; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph.2:2; 1 John 5:19). 

By their treasonous act, Adam and Eve allowed the order of God's Theocratic Kingdom to be flipped on its head. God's original Theocratic administration was God...man....woman....creature. Lucifer very deliberately approached Eve as a devious plan to flip God's order to creature...woman...man. This flip effectively wrested authority from mankind to Lucifer.

Sin is often defined as anything that violates God’s law. Since the law was not given until much, much later in human history, it means that the original definition of sin is anything that violates God’s Word. Bringing doubt about God’s Word means bringing doubt about God’s goodness. Acting in response to that doubt is an act of treason.

This shows us that agreeing with the devil's suggestion that God is not good is the sin of the world.

The Punishment for Treason is....?

The present chaos that fills our world is the result of Lucifer's desire to be like the Most High God. By reversing God's created order, Lucifer makes the woman acquiesce to the creature; the man defer to the woman and the office for which mankind was created is vacated. 

Satan now becomes the prince and power of the air, supplanting the first Adam's role and making man subservient to and fearful of what he was created to rule over. Mankind was now subject to the tooth and claw of a fallen creation. 

Their covering of God-like light was reduced and they discovered their nakedness and peril. It was as if God had a dimmer switch that He turned way down on Adam and Eve. The luminescent glory that they shared with God was now nothing more than an infrared glow. For the first time, they were ashamed by their nakedness. 

They also experienced fear for the first time as they realized that they were now given a death sentence as traitors to God's character and goodness. They learned the inadequacy of their attempt to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. With their light-likeness to God now diminished, their exposed bodies were vulnerable to the consuming fire of God.

Only a covering of animal skin would now suffice for them to appear in God's presence. This gruesome covering graphically displays the price of their sin. The violent death of an animal showed them that the death of an innocent victim is now required to restore their communion with God.

This laid the foundation for the necessity of The Lamb. When John the Baptizer pointed out Christ at the the Jordan river, he didn’t say: "Behold the Lamb of God that covers the sins of the world", John was very clear that the mission of Christ as God's Lamb is to "take away the sin of the world"

May I ask you dear reader, is your sin taken away or is it merely covered by religious practices or superstitions? The only one that you can’t hide your sin from is the only one who can take it away. He is God’s Lamb. 

Jesus’ miracles and teachings show us what God’s goodness is. 

Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection show us who God’s goodness is. 

We must each stop rejecting God’s goodness. God has declared that everyone that believes in Him, God’s goodness, has everlasting life.

The Restoring Seed

God's announcement regarding the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 revealed Gods plan for returning creation to its intended order. This Seed of the woman is now known to us as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is also revealed to us as the last Adam who is a life giving Spirit in contrast to the first Adam.

God placed a curse on the serpent to slither and suck up the dust that mankind, his nemesis, was fashioned. This becomes the very personification of the devil himself in all of his deadly stealth. Although the Patriarchs apparently recognized this as we read in the oldest book of the Bible:

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." - Job 1:6-7

It isn’t until we come to the book of revelation of Jesus Christ that we are clearly told who that serpent is.

”And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." 

Revelation 12:9 KJV 

“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years," 

Revelation 20:1-2 

Results of Adam and Eve’s sin: 

1. Job 1:6-7 Satan boasts of his dominion over the earth and its inhabitants
2. Religion and broken fellowship; Genesis 3:7-10
3. “Blame game”; Genesis 3:11-13
4. Reversal of creation hierarchy; Creation is now resistant to mankind's direction (Gen 3:17-19).

What then is the storyline of the Bible? It is how this office that the first Adam vacated is restored by the Last Adam through His Messianic Kingdom. God the Father originally intended to indirectly govern the physical world through the first Adam. God has promised that He will one day govern the world through His Son, the Last Adam.

God's promise is that you and I can become heirs to His future restored Kingdom when we place our trust in this Last Adam. He alone is able to pay the price of our treason. He is enough to give us assurance that: "Nothing more is needed and nothing less will do". 

Receive Him now and you will be an heir of salvation rather than an heir of damnation.

smc

13 Original Intent

Why would God create beings capable of rejecting Him and stealing His property?

In this post, we will consider the intent of God in His original creation. It is holy ground and our sinful, defiled souls can barely grasp the depth of what He has purposefully revealed to us in His Word. Nevertheless, He asks of us to take this yoke upon ourselves and learn of Him. So let us do so in prayerful submission to His Holy Spirit.

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 

Genesis 3:15 KJV

Glen Marx succinctly summarizes this fundamental declaration of God:

“This promise (Gen 3:15) sums up the heart of God. He desires for humans to win back the life, liberty, and property we lost in the Garden, but it requires faith and a willingness to be engaged in the battle.”

Glen Marx, The Roots of the Kingdom; The Origin of Good and Evil according to the Scriptures; p. 185

Theologians call Genesis 3:15 the 'proto evangelion' or first gospel because it is God's unconditional promise to restore the earth back to its original intent through the seed of the woman. We live in the last days before this promise will ultimately be fulfilled. This gives us a unique perspective to explore the manifold wisdom of God that has shaped human history. We can see how successive generations of human souls are challenged to simply trust in God's goodness to overcome evil.

Our history is instructive. We cannot merely be told who God is, we must experience Him. The enemy of our souls does not want us to discover the goodness of God. Rather, he wants us to doubt that God's love and grace are real, or to the degree that it is seen, it is not intended for us personally. 

These persuasions are immediately lost however in the person and work of Jesus Christ who is that promised seed. His offer of salvation is not just to the world at large but "He is that true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world". (John 1:9) It is indeed a battle for individual minds and hearts to deny persuasions of the evil one and embrace the truth. That truth reveals God's perfect plan for restoring His Kingdom on earth and invites each soul to become an heir to it.

In that battle, human governments were instituted by God to act as a restraint on evil. However, they are all eventually co-opted by spiritual wickedness in high places. They descend into the darkness of superstition and are used by the evil one to prevent men from seeing the truth.

The American experiment is an attempt to re-establish the freedom of mankind to exist under God's natural law and restrain the tyranny of man's laws imposed by those principalities and powers of spiritual darkness.

Thomas Jefferson, like many of the founding fathers of America, were heavily influenced by the writings of John Locke. He was an English physician and philosopher who wrote in the late 1600’s about the fundamental rights given to us by God that they called ‘natural law’. 

These natural law rights included life, liberty and property. When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he changed the word ‘property’ to the phrase, ’pursuit of happiness’. There has been much speculation and debate as to why he made that change since he did not clearly state his intention.

Historians point out that pursuit of happiness in those days has a ‘thicker’ meaning than our ‘thin’ meaning of trying to be happy through the acquisition of things or ‘happy’ experiences by whatever means. To them it meant the actual practice of happiness which included the often unpleasant struggle to secure for each person the right to sovereignly possess themselves, and not be in fear of having their personal property, life or liberty seized by an unscrupulous and tyrannical government. 

This declaration acknowledges that there are many threats to these rights, and that governments are instituted among men to secure them, not take them away as the British crown was wont to do. So the phrase, ‘pursuit of happiness’ was not meant to convey an individually hedonistic pursuit, but rather an understanding that the present enjoyment of social order required that individual property rights are protected if there is to be a secure and just society. (Property implies individual sovereignty)

So these men came to this declaration with the inherent understanding of natural law that declares a violation of personal property is a violation of the property owners sovereignty. This natural law is the product of God’s original intent at creation. 

When we come to the Garden that God planted, there is the recognition that everything in it belonged to God. Creation itself is a product of His sovereign will. It is His personal property (Gen 2:8) created to express His Divine attributes. There were no threats to His Sovereignty until God risked it all by creating beings with free will. 

Why would God risk it all?

God exists as an infinitely loving being. For love to have any meaning, it must involve a conscious choice of free will agents. i.e. the choice to love God or to reject Him. Since God is infinite love and love must have an object, it stands to reason that the object of infinite love must likewise be infinite. Men and women were created to be infinite beings and channels of God’s infinite love to all that He created.

In this post we have considered God's original intent at creation. His 'natural law' is intended to secure men the liberty to pursue Him. It is God's intention that we should have the liberty to experience His goodness and become channels of His infinite love to all of His creation.

In the next post, we will consider the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth and how it was co-opted. More importantly, how God's will is to restore the Kingdom for the blessing of mankind and the glory of God.

smc