HOW ARE WE TO LIVE?

There are many different opinions about that, but really only one that matters.  God’s opinion!  That sounds obvious, but we are usually far more comfortable going along with our own opinion, or the opinion of someone else.  God’s ways are different than ours; it’s not always a comfortable thing to live according to God’s ways.

Today is a history lesson!  When we look back at how things were…we often get a better sense of why things are the way they are today, because things really don’t change much.

When God made humankind (man and woman, Adam and Eve) they had everything they needed except for two things.  They did not have eternal life (they had to actually eat of the Tree of Life to get that).  And they were not aware of evil; they only knew good.  The way that God created them, He gave them choice.  (You can read about that in Genesis 1-3)  Humankind was created to stay in this state…but they had to CHOOSE life, and that means they had to NOT choose death.  God gave them two special trees to allow them to choose.  They were told they could eat of the tree of life.  But they could NOT eat of the tree of death (the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil).  God warned them not to eat of that tree.

You can read in Genesis 3 that another of the created beings came to them and spoke with Eve.  This being never actually lied to Eve, but did get her to doubt that God really had given them everything.  Even though God’s Law to them clearly stated what they were allowed to do, and what they were forbidden…with the encouragement of the creature…Eve (and Adam who was with her) did the exact thing God told them not to do…she (and he) ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good AND Evil.  Instead of taking in only the pure fruit of the tree of life, they took in the mixture of the other tree.  Now they knew good…and they became aware of evil.  And they felt shame and they hid from God. 

God, in His mercy, didn’t allow them to die immediately; they were given a chance to repent!  But if you read Genesis 3 carefully, you don’t find any evidence they did this.  Instead of saying and being sorry…Eve blamed the creature that convinced her to disobey God…and Adam blamed Eve!  You see that the result of evil shows up pretty quickly!

As you read through the rest of the Bible, you will notice similar situations all through.  Israel was given God’s Law and they promised to obey it…but it sure didn’t take long before they’d re-interpreted God’s actual words and decided to go with a different way.  You can read the Law in Exodus 20, the instructions about how to live in Exodus 21-23, the promise the people gave to God and the instruction He gave for the place He would meet with them (similar to how He met with them in the Garden of Eden) in Exodus 24-31, and then by Exodus 32, you read that Moses came down from meeting with God…and the people had already turned away from their promise.

In Exodus 32 we read of Moses interceding for the people, putting himself between them and God’s right to destroy them.  God had every right to destroy them, just as He had every right to destroy Adam and Eve…but God allowed Moses to step in-between Himself and the people.  Moses promised to guide and teach the people, he even offered to be the one who paid for their sin (vs 32)!  This is a picture of Jesus and his payment for our sin.  There are pictures like that all through the Bible, we usually don’t notice them because we’re not really carefully reading and thinking about what we read.  If we ask God to show us and teach us…and IF we are prepared to obey what we learn from Him (not pointing fingers at others who don’t) and be humble about it…then by His spirit and His words, He really will!

Yeshua (Jesus) called those who would trust in God to follow him…he also said he spoke the words of his Father and did them.  So if we believe in Yeshua…then we should also follow him, and obey God.  We should be careful not to get mixed up in mixtures of God’s words and human teachings or interpretations.  We should be aware that they are everywhere! 

God’s words to us are basic.  Yeshua says that all of God’s Laws came down to two main things.  Love God and love your neighbour. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean that WE are to define what it means to love God…it doesn’t simply mean that we are to have warm feelings for God, or to accept that He exists, or that maybe He has some good things to say to us.  To love God means that we TRUST Him…enough to DO what He teaches!  This is what Adam and Eve did NOT do, did they?  They trusted in another interpretation, in what a created being told them God said.  People all through history are NO different.  The biggest temptation we all face is to obey an interpretation of God’s Law…instead of learning from Him humbly and simply. 

Yeshua taught this beautifully.  You can read in Matthew 5 where he taught about what the commandments meant.  When God said ‘do not murder’ that meant do not even THINK angrily about another, do not let those thoughts take root in your mind, reject anger…because anger  that leads a person to hate another is, in God’s eyes, equivalent to the actual act of murder.  Jesus went on to teach about adultery…saying that a man who even looked at a woman with thoughts in his mind towards her…was not without guilt in God’s eyes. 

What our hands commit begins in our mind.  The Bible usually translated this as ‘in our heart’ but in the language the Bible was originally written in (Hebrew) the word means mind, thoughts, will and desire…the person inside that nobody but God really sees.  THAT is who we really are.  So someone who outwardly appears very good, but inwardly is full of wrong thoughts…in God’s eyes that person is a hypocrite…and is guilty. 

You see how this history teaches us about ourselves?  None of us is without sin.  Sin is defined in 1 John 3:4 (and many other places) as living law-less.  In other words, of not living under God’s instruction.  All of us are guilty of that, and all of us need to accept the mediator that God has provided in Jesus. 

The good news is that God loves us and wants us to repent…to turn away from sin and return to what we were created for.  We all are born from the ‘Adam’ who sinned.  But through trust in God and persistent, continued, humble obedience to Him and to His commands, we can be ‘born again’ in the ‘Adam’ who obeyed.  That ‘Adam’ is called the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45 and Romans 5:14. 

This is very profound, but it is also very simple.  You see, God teaches us about the things we don’t see (the spiritual things) through the physical things around us.  We can look around us at the earth, and notice the beauty and order of creation.  The sun comes up regularly, the seasons come, things grow in the earth to feed us…and we can also see what does NOT belong.  Death really doesn’t belong…rage, selfishness, misery, oppression…these things are mixed with what is good.  And truth be told, they usually have been caused by humans.  Just as humans bring evil into the world, humans can repent and follow Yeshua and be ‘born again’ into another chance.  This only happens through trusting God and learning and then doing what He teaches!

As you study your Bible, remember it begins in Genesis 1!  That sounds obvious, but many people think that it really begins in the New Testament…and they have little or no desire to learn what God has to say in the ‘Old Testament’. 

God says through the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-33) that the ‘New Covenant’ or New Testament is the SAME as the ‘Old’ Covenant…but instead of the Law being written on stone (like God wrote for Moses – Deuteronomy 5:22) God would write His Law on the trusting minds of His people!  If we trust Him, He will write His commands on our minds, and our thoughts will be changed from evil to good!  And if our thinking is changed to good, then our actions will follow.  THIS is the good news (the gospel) that the entire Bible is about! 

Son of God, Son of Man

Son of God : benei Elohim, this is literally translated as ‘son of a/the mighty one’ mighty one being a god or God.

Son of Man: benei adam, this literally translates as son of the earth. 

When reading carefully and paying attention to literal meanings, it's seen that Adam was created as a 'benei Elohim', bearing the image of God, as well as a 'benei adam' a son of the earth.

Luke 3:38 actually calls Adam the son of God. Adam was not born in the image of God, he was made that way. He was created from earth (son of adamah - earth) in the image and likeness of the Creator, and then the 'breath' was blown into him, making him a living being. This set him apart from all the rest of God’s creation.  The beasts had the 'breath' as well, but they were not made in the image of the Creator.
 

Y’shua also was referred to as an ‘Adam’ in 1 Corinthians 15:45:

And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 

(Refer to 1 Corinthians 15:22 and Romans 5:12-21 for more on this comparison/contrast.)

Again, reading carefully, it's seen that Y’shua was not born as a ‘regular’ man is, from the will of a human father or from the physical act of procreation. We see the being formed in Mary’s womb, while very much physical, was the result of a spiritual decision, as the first Adam was:

And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of God. Luke 1:35

The Greek word for ‘shadow’ implies influence, presence, enveloping, and implies a supernatural and authoritative nature. It is not clearly stated that the ‘breath’ will be given to the child to be born, but it is strongly implied in the language used. Especially when read together with the other references above.

The first Adam was a son of the earth as well as a son of God. The last Adam can also be seen as a son of the earth (a physical being) as well as a son of God. It can been seen that these both are physical but with a spiritual authourity granted because of who their Father is. Not all sons of Adam are also sons of Elohim! Only those whose Father is Elohim are sons of Elohim.

 

All men after Adam were born in the image of Adam/Eve. While it can be said they inherited the image of God, it was not specifically given them in the same way. We see this supported in the language of the Greek writings (New Testament) when we learn one must be ‘reborn’ into the kingdom of heaven. It is not inherited. All must be individually born into it (John 3:3, 7; 1 Peter 1:3 and 23). The children/sons of God in these writings are spiritual children in physical bodies, made complete upon resurrection from the first death. This is implied as not having happened yet, as the creation is waiting for their revealing (Romans 8:19). They are here, but hidden. Sons of God and sons of Adam. Brothers of THE son of God/son of Man, who is called the firstborn of many brothers (Romans 8:29).

One who is a son of God and a son of man is a complete being, complete as Adam was in the garden, and as Y’shua was after resurrection, in a physical body, but different. This is how we were meant to be. But sin, seemingly both inherited and personal, prevents us from this.

 

There are references in the Tanakh (Old Testament) to sons of God and sons of man.  It could be assumed that the 'elohim' referred to here is YHVH, but that's not specifically said, so we should be careful not to read into it. It's quite possible that 'elohim' in this case refers to is one who is a powerful ruler. We see in Genesis 6 that the sons of God went into the daughters of men and had children by them. These offspring were indeed powerful, but their ‘fruit’, their offspring, was not honouring to YHVH.

We see spiritual beings called sons of God in Job 1, 2 and 38. Also Daniel 3:25. We see a reference to one called ‘the Son’ as the anointed one (Messiah, Christ) in Psalm 2, here the language strongly implies a son of God.

We read of ‘son of man’ in Numbers 23:19 (God is not a man, nor a son of man) and in the Psalms, Job, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Ezekiel is called son of man throughout his visions. Daniel is also called ‘son of man.

 

The references to ‘sons of God’ and ‘sons of man’ are frequent throughout the Greek writings. A topic for further study!

The Two Greatest Commandments (and how they were first broken)

We read in Genesis that God made ‘Adam’.  In English we think this means that God made a guy named Adam.  But in Hebrew, this means God made humankind.  In the beginning God made humankind as ‘one’ and then He separated them into two beings (male and female) and He meant them to choose to work TOGETHER as ‘one’, so with the same goals and desires and in the same plan.  Different but equal in God’s plan.

God gave a command to humankind (both man and woman) and that was (you can read the words in Genesis 1:28-29) “Have lots of children…teach them what I’ve taught you…raise them to fill the earth with people who will care for it and manage it well, who will care for the birds, fish and every creature I’ve created.”  They were also to manage each other, they were to care for each other and be careful to stay in God’s plan and to help each other stay in God’s plan and be happy.  This is important to remember and understand.  (Because neither one of them cared for each other or stayed in God’s plan, both of them sinned.)

God placed humankind in a beautiful garden He’d created for them.  This was also the place He met with them.  In this garden, He gave them one RULE that would test whether they would use the choice He’d created them with to obey Him.  It is important to have choice, otherwise they would have been puppets or slaves.  But He didn’t make puppets or slaves, did He?  He gave them (and us) choice to obey Him or not.  If we obey Him, we stay in His will.  If we disobey Him, we take ourselves out of His will.  And that is where ‘death’ really begins. 

So God told the man and the woman this rule.  God said there were two trees in the middle of the garden that were special.  One He called the Tree of Life.  They were allowed to eat from it because they had no sin.  The other tree God called the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This one He said NOT to eat from.  Both of them heard the rule. 

Notice in Genesis 1:31 that all God made was not only good, but very good.  Genesis 2:1 says it was complete.  Nothing more could be added to make it better.  Remember this…it affects what happens next.

Now if you read Genesis 3 carefully, you see that the Deceiver (also called Satan) made Eve doubt whether God really did make everything good and complete.  He said something different.  He said God really didn’t give them EVERYTHING.  And you know what?  He was right!  God didn’t give Adam and Eve the awareness of evil.  That was the one thing they lacked.  Did they need to know about evil in order to rule well?  NO!  But Satan spoke to Eve and planted some doubt in her mind.

Genesis 3:6 says she looked at the tree (that they had been commanded not to eat from) and she saw that it didn’t look bad, in fact it looked really good, it was beautiful and its fruit looked good and would be good for food, and even better…it would make them LIKE GOD!  This was very appealing, to be like God.  To make ALL YOUR OWN DECISIONS…just as if YOU were GOD! 

This is still humankind’s biggest temptation, you know?  To hear what God says, and then to decide to do things our own way.  Worst is when we convince ourselves we’re still doing what God wants, but we’re really doing it OUR way…not HIS. (It says in 1 John 3:4 that sin is acting without God’s Law, its law-less-ness.) 

So what did Eve do?  Well, you can read in Genesis 3:6 that she took some of the fruit and ate it.  AND she gave some to Adam.  Where was Adam this whole time?  He was WITH HER!  Did Adam care for his wife as God had intended?  Did he protect her and help her to do the right things?  Did he step in at any time and say…NO that’s not what God said, don’t do what Satan says!  What did Adam do? … NOTHING!!  It is just as wrong to do nothing when God says to do something, as it is to do something that God says not to do. 

Adam actually sinned even before Eve did.  His sin was actually greater than hers.  He was the first one to break the commandment God gave in Genesis 1:28-29, to care for the earth and each other.  When he didn’t care for Eve, she fell too.  Yes, she was deceived, wasn’t she?  But what about Adam?  He willingly not only did nothing, putting Eve in danger, but then did something…he took of the fruit and ate too. 

Both of them sinned and both of them received ‘death’ which came in different ways.  They knew immediately that they had come out from under the protection of God’s will.  In English it says they realized they were ‘naked’ and they felt shame.  In Hebrew it means they realized they had come out from the covering of God’s will.

If you read the words of God recorded in Genesis 3 carefully, you’ll notice a few things.  God gives them a chance to be sorry.  He asks, ‘Where are you?’ and then ‘Did you eat from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?’  At either of these times, Adam and Eve could have admitted their sin.  But they didn’t.  Note Adam’s response in Genesis 3:12…’she made me do it’.  And Eve’s response in Genesis 3:13…’the serpent tricked me’.  They passed the blame, didn’t they?  They stayed in sin.  They didn’t repent, which means to turn away from the sin and leave it behind and return to God’s will.  Neither one of them did this.  And its important to note.  They were both guilty.

Eve couldn’t have sinned without Adam having sinned first, by failing to protect her from sin.  And he couldn’t have sinned without her failing to care for him and turn to him for advice at least.  Both of them sinned, and both sinned willingly.

If we skip over to some of Jesus words now…in Mark 12 someone asked Jesus what was the most important of God’s Laws?  And he said that the most important one was to listen to God and do what He said.  That is what it means to love God.  It means to TRUST Him ENOUGH to actually DO what HE says!!  This is something that each one of us still struggles with daily.  It is hard.  We really want to act as our own ‘god’ and do what WE think is best.  As we begin to see and understand this, it really does make it easier to trust in God and NOT to trust in ‘me’ as if I was ‘god’. 

If we trust God that way, we will also care for each other, and help those around us to also listen to and obey God.  To live in God’s ways is good for us.  To live in any other way is to remain in death.  Jesus lived in God’s way, no matter what hard times he encountered.  He loved US enough to protect and save us.  Isn’t that amazing?  If we ‘remain in him’ like he says in John 15, we will do what he did…we will obey God and care for each other.   

God’s way!