Beasts

Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #8 The Formation of woman #1

Christadelphians10 Comments

The Formation of woman

“The woman was of the man.”

Adam, having been formed in the image, after the likeness of the Elohim on the sixth day, remained for a short time alone in the midst of the earthborns of the field. He had no companion who could reciprocate his intelligence; none who could minister to his wants, or rejoice with him in the delights of creation; and reflect the glory of his nature.

The Elohim are a society, rejoicing in the love and attachment of one another; and Adam, being like them though of inferior nature, required an object which should be calculated to evoke the latent resemblances of his similitude to theirs. It was no better for man to be alone than for them. Formed in their image, he had social feelings as well as intellectual and moral faculties, which required scope for their practical and harmonious exercise. A purely intellectual and abstractly moral society, untempered by domesticism, is an imperfect state. It may be very enlightened, very dignified and immaculate; but it would also be very formal, and frigid as the poles.

A being might know all things, and he might scrupulously observe the divine law from a sense of duty; but something more is requisite to make him amiable, and beloved by either God or his fellows. This amiability the social feelings enable him to develop; which, however, if unfurnished with a proper object, or wholesome excitation, react upon him unfavourably, and make him disagreeable. Well aware of this, Yahweh Elohim said,

“It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help fit for him”. {a Genesis 2:18.}

But previous to the formation of this help, God caused “every living soul” (kol nephesh chayiah) to pass in review before Adam, that he might name them. He saw that each one had its mate; “but for him there was not found a suitable companion”. It was necessary, therefore, to form one, the last and fairest of His handiworks. The Lord had created man in His own “image and glory”; but He had yet to subdivide him into two; a negative and a positive division; an active and a passive half; male and female, yet one flesh. The negatives, or females, of all other species of animals, were formed out of the ground; {b Genesis 2:19} and not out of the sides of their positive mates: so that the lion could not say of the lioness,

“This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall a lion leave his sire and dam, and cleave unto the same lioness for ever”.

The inferior creatures are under no such law as this; as primaries, indeed, the earth is their common mother, and the Lord, the “God of all their spirits”. They have no second selves; the sexes in the beginning were from the ground direct; the female was not of the male, though the male is by her: therefore, there is no natural basis for a social, or domestic, law to them.

But in the formation of a companion for the first man, the Lord Elohim created her upon a different principle. She was to be a dependent creature; and a sympathy was to be established between them, by which they should be attached inseparably. It would not have been fit, therefore, to have given her an independent origin from the dust of the ground. Had this been the case, there would have been about the same kind of attachment between men and women as subsists among the creatures below then.

The woman’s companionship was designed to be intellectually and morally sympathetic with “the image and glory of God”, whom she was to revere as her superior. The sympathy of the mutually independent earthborns of the field, is purely sensual; and in proportion as generations of mankind lose their intellectual and moral likeness to the Elohim, and fall under the dominion of sensuality; so the sympathy between men and women evaporates into mere animalism.* But, I say, such a degenerate result as this was not the end of her formation. She was not simply to be “the mother of all living”; but to reflect the glory of man as he reflected the glory of God.

To give being to such a creature, it was necessary she should be formed out of man. This necessity is found in the law which pervades the flesh. If the feeblest member of the body suffer, all the other members suffer with it; that is, pain even in the little finger will produce distress throughout the system. Bone sympathizes with bone, and flesh with flesh, in all pleasurable, healthful, and painful feelings. Hence, to separate a portion of Adam’s living substance, and from it to build a woman, would be to transfer to her the sympathies of Adam’s nature; and though by her organization able to maintain an independent existence, she would never lose from her nature a sympathy with his, in all its intellectual, moral, and physical manifestations. According to this natural law, then, the Lord Elohim made woman in the likeness of the man, out of his substance. He might have formed her from his body before he became a living soul; but this would have defeated the law of sympathy; for in inanimate matter there is no mental sympathy. She must, therefore, be formed from the living bone and flesh of the man. To do this was to inflict pain; for to cut out a portion of flesh would have created the same sensations in Adam as in any of his posterity. To avoid such an infliction, “the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept”. While thus unconscious of what was doing, and perfectly insensible to all corporeal impressions, the Lord “took out one of his ribs, and then dosed up the flesh in its place”. This was a delicate operation; and consisted in separating the rib from the breast bone and spine. But nothing is too difficult for God. The most wonderful part of the work had yet to be performed. The quivering rib, with its nerves and vessels, had to be increased in magnitude, and formed into a human figure, capable of reflecting the glory of the man. This was soon accomplished; for, on the sixth day, “male and female created he them”: and “the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man”. And

“God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish (fill again) the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth”.

Believing this portion of the testimony of God, need our faith be staggered at the resurrection of the body from the little dust that remains after its entire reduction? Surely, the Lord Jesus Christ by the same power that formed woman from a rib, and that increased a few loaves and fishes to twelve baskets of fragments after five thousand were fed and satisfied, can create multitudes of immortal men from a few proportions of the former selves: and as capable of resuming their individual identity, as was Adam’s rib of reflecting his mental and physical similitude. It is blind unbelief alone that requires the continuance of some sort of existence to preserve the identity of the resurrected man with his former self. Faith confides in the ability of God to do what He has promised, although the believer has not the knowledge of how He is to accomplish it. Believing the wonders of the past, “he staggers not at the promise of God through unbelief; but is strong in faith, giving glory to God”. {c. Romans 4:20.}

Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 47–49). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

File:Michelangelo, Creation of Eve 01.jpg
Creation of Eve, Fresco by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, between 1509 and 1510

*

Notes & quotes

a. Genesis 2:18 (ESV): 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

b. Genesis 2:19 (ESV): 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

* animalism: Among the numerous animals that are prominent in religion and magic, the wild animals of the forests, the sea, and the air that are most important for the hunter are the most significant. Hunting and gathering societies, rooted in the earliest human cultures, believed that they not only had to kill animals—which were economically important as nourishment and raw materials—but also that they had to avoid their revenge. { Encyclopaedia Britannica > continue reading}

c. Romans 4:20 (ESV): 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

+

Preceding article: Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #7 Corporeal and spiritual change

++

Additional reading

  1. Creator and Blogger God 5 Things to tell
  2. Father counterpart of the mother
  3. Dignified role for the woman
  4. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
  5. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
  6. Book Review: Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe & Casey Luskin, Science & Human Origins. Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2012.124pp.

+++

Related articles

Creation of the earth and man #17 Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #1 In the image and after the likeness

Christadelphians17 Comments

Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim

“Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.”

Men and beasts, say the scriptures,

“have all one ruach or spirit; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast”.

The reason assigned for this equality is the oneness of their spirit, which is proved by the fact of their common destiny; as it is written,

“for all are vanity”:

that is,

“all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again”.

Yet this one spirit manifests its tendencies differently in men and other creatures. In the former, it is aspiring and God-defying, rejoicing in its own works, and devoted to the vanity of the passing hour; while in the latter, its disposition is grovelling to the earth in all things. Thus, the heart of man being

“deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know or fathom it?”

—Solomon was led to exclaim,

“Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of Adam, ruach beni headam, which exalts itself to the highest, and the spirit of a beast which inclines to the earth?” {a:  Eccles. 3:19–21.}

We may answer,

“None, but God only”;

He knoweth what is in man, and needs not that any should testify of him. {b:John 2:25.}
But, from this testimony someone might infer that, as man was made only “a little lower than the angels”, and yet has “no pre-eminence over a beast”, the beast also is but a little lower than the angels. This, however, would be a very erroneous conclusion. The equality of men and other animals consists in the kind of life they possess in common with each other. Vanity, or mortality, is all that pertains to any kind of living flesh. The whole animal world has been made subject to it; and as it affects all living souls alike, bringing them back to the dust again, no one species can claim pre-eminence over the other; for

“one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other”.

Man, however, differs from other creatures in having been modelled after a divine type, or pattern. In form and capacity he was made like to the angels, though in nature inferior to them. This appears from the testimony that he was made “in their image, after their likeness”, and “a little lower than the angels”, or Elohim. {c: Psalm 8:5.} I say, he was made in the image of the angels, as the interpretation of the co-operative imperative,

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”.

The work of the six days, though elaborated by the power of Him “who dwelleth in the light”, was executed by

“his angels, that excel in strength, and do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word”. {d:  Psalm 103:20.}

These are styled Elohim, or “gods,” in numerous passages. David says,

“Worship him, all ye gods”; {e: Psalm 97:7.}

which Paul applies to Jesus, saying, {*}

“Let all the angels of God worship him”. {f: Heb. 1:6.}

Man, then, was made after the image and likeness of Elohim, but for a while inferior in nature. But the race will not always be inferior in this respect. It is destined to advance to a higher nature; not all the individuals of it; but those of the race

“who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age (αἰὼν μέλλων, the future age) and the resurrection from among the dead (ἐχ νεχρω̂ν) … who can die no more; for they are equal to the angels (ἰσάλλεγοι); and are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection.” {g:  Luke 20:35, 36.}

 

The import of the phrase “in the image, after the likeness” is suggested by the testimony, that

“Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth”. {h: Genesis 5:3.}

In this respect, Seth stands related to Adam, as Adam did to the Elohim; but differing in this, that the nature of Adam and Seth was identical; whereas those of Adam and the Elohim were dissimilar. Would any one be at a loss to know the meaning of Seth’s being in the image of his father? The very same thing is meant by Adam being in the image of the Elohim. An image is the representation of some form or shape; metaphorically, it may signify the exact resemblance of one character to another. But in the case before us, the parties had no characters at the time of their birth. They were simply innocent of actual transgression; no scope having been afforded them to develop character. The Elohim, however, were personages of dignity and holiness, as well as of incorruptible, or spiritual, nature. The resemblance, therefore, of Adam to the Elohim as their image was of bodily form, not of intellectual and moral attainment; and this I apprehend to be the reason why the Elohim are styled “men” when their visits to the sons of Adam are recorded in the scriptures of truth. In shape, Seth was like Adam, Adam like the Elohim, and the Elohim, the image of the invisible Increate; the great and glorious archetype of the intelligent universe.

– Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 37–39). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

*

Notes & Bible quotes:

a: Ecclesiastes 3:19–21 (ESV): 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?

b:John 2:25 (ESV): 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

c: Psalm 8:5 (ESV): 5  Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

d: Psalm 103:20-21 (ESV): 20  Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! 21  Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!

e: Psalm 97:7 (ESV): 7  All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!

{*} *. Paul’s quotation is verbatim from Deuteronomy 32:43 (LXX)—not Psalm 97.

Deuteronomy 32:43 (ESV): 43  “Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries. He repays those who hate him and cleanses his people’s land.”

Psalm 97:9 (ESV): 9  For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

f: Hebrews 1:6 (ESV): 6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

g: Luke 20:35–36 (ESV): 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

h: Genesis 5:3 (ESV): 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

Children of Adam and Eve: All we are told about Adam’s offspring is that the first son was named Cain, the second son named Abel [Genesis 4:1-2 ], then after Abel’s murder, another son named Seth, who may not be confused with the beneficent god in predynastic Egypt, associated with darkness and later identified as a god of evil and the antagonist of Horus. Adam’s son Seth was “begotten when Adam was 130 years old.” After that, Adam “begot sons and daughters” [Genesis 5:3-4]. This same passage also tells us that Adam lived for 930 years [Genesis 5:5]. Therefore, according to Scripture, Adam and Eve‘s family consisted of sons Cain, Abel and Seth (who be came 912 years old), plus a minimum of two other sons and two daughters, giving a total of seven children. However, accepting that Adam, and likely Eve, lived for 930 years, seven children would be the minimum number.

In gnosticism, Seth is seen as a replacement given by God for Abel, whom Cain had slain. It is said that late in life, Adam gave Seth secret teachings that would become the kabbalah. The Zohar refers to Seth as “ancestor of all the generations of the tzaddikim” (Hebrew: righteous ones).

+

Preceding:

Creation of the earth and man #16 Formation of man #8 Dust, flesh, blood,breathing and life

Continues

++

Additional reading:

  1. The World framed by the Word of God
  2. A viewpoint on creation
  3. Created to live in relation with God
  4. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
  5. Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
  6. Creator and Blogger God 5 Things to tell
  7. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
  8. Al-Fatiha [The Opening] Süra 1: 4-7 Merciful Lord of the Creation to show us the right path
  9. Equal?
  10. God’s wrath and sanctification
  11. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  12. Heavenly creatures do they exist
  13. Angels
  14. Who are the Angels?
  15. Why did God Create Angels?
  16. The “Sons of God”
  17. Man Made Lower than the Angels
  18. The “Mighty Ones”
  19. Angels in Old Testament History
  20. “The whole family in heaven and earth”
  21. Jehovah God Maker of the entire universe served by a well-trained army
  22. What is life?
  23. Atonement and the race been bought
  24. First man’s task still counting today
  25. The I Am to explore
  26. There can only be hope when there is a will to be and say “I am”
  27. Looking at three “I am” s
  28. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  29. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
  30. Jesus spitting image of his father
  31. The radiance of God’s glory and the counsellor

+++

Further reading

  1. The Image of God
  2. Assumptions?
  3. What difference does the doctrine of humans being in “the image of God” make?
  4. What Is Man?
  5. What it Means to be Made in God’s Image
  6. Image and Likeness
  7. The Image is the vision
  8. You Are God’s Mirror-Image
  9. What Is Your Image of God?
  10. Image of God: A Design Gone Wrong
  11. Image of God: A Design Restored
  12. Favorable Death – In the Beginning 2
  13. being human, part 2: on suicide
  14. What is the most important thing you can do for your child?
  15. A Passage to a New World, with Conditions, That Must Be Met!
  16. Why Jesus Was So Unrecognizable – Dan Mohler
  17. Living Out the Nature of Jesus
  18. being human, part 1
  19. Unique
  20. The Root of Free Will
  21. Generosity: There is Enough. I am Enough.
  22. Theology of the Body Thursday #32: When Consent Is Not Enough
  23. Encountering Another and Breaking Free into the Love of God
  24. The box splits
  25. A reflection on reflection
  26. With Thy Likeness
  27. The Jesus that people see in us
  28. Love for Rich and Poor Alike
  29. Dust and Divinity
  30. B’Reshith: Seeing the Image of God
  31. God isn’t hard to find when you know how to look for Him
  32. Capital punishment and the image of God
  33. The Glory of God, Filling the Earth, Part I
  34. The Psychology of The Image of God: A Grand Purpose
  35. Declaring His Plan
  36. You were made in the image of God not a monkey
  37. Abortion and the Perspective On Persons
  38. Made for relationship with God; made in the likeness of God; made of God…
  39. holistic vision of the human’s role in creation

+++

Related articles

Creation of the earth and man #2 Evil Angels and moments of creation

Christadelphians5 Comments

In the previous chapter we started to look at the general account of the work of the six days, contained in the first chapter of Genesis.
We also looked at the idea many people have, that there would have been more people at the time of creation and that there would have been heavenly creatures of which certain angels  became rebellious angels. In that antediluvian world those rebellious angels are called “fallen angel” a term which does not appear in the Bible but has has become popular in fictional literature.

In the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament, some sects of Judaism identified the “sons of God” (בני האלהים) of Genesis 6:1–4 with fallen angels and some groups also said those fallen angels had sexual intercourse with women.
Until the mid-2nd century AD, Jewish writing (such as midrashim) can be taken to identify the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:1 and 4 as angels.

Mention of angels who descended to Mount Hermon (not “fell” to Earth) is found in the Book of Enoch, which the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church accept as canonical, as well as in various pseudepigrapha or falsely attributed works or works which purport to be written by noted authorities in either the Old and New Testaments or by persons involved in Jewish or Christian religious study or history.
By the 3rd century, there is evidence that some early Christians accepted this Jewish Enochic pseudepigraphy and the application of the angelic descent myth to the “sons of God” passage in Genesis 6:1–4

Statue of the Fallen Angel, Retiro Park (Madrid, Spain)

But what is to become of the Evil Angels in everlasting chains of darkness, and who shall be their judge? Jude says, they were committed “for the judgment of The Great Day”. He alludes to this great day in his quotation of the prophecy of Enoch, saying:

“Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Holy Ones (angels of his might—2 Thess. 1:7) to execute judgment upon all”,

etc. This coming of the Lord to judgment is termed by Paul, “the Day of Christ”—“A Day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ” — during which, the saints, with angels ministering to them, having lived again, will reign with Christ a thousand years on the earth. This is the Great Day of Judgment, a period of one thousand years, in which Christ and his saints will govern the nations righteously; judge the raised dead in his kingdom according to their works; and award to the rebel angels the recompense awaiting their transgression.

“Know ye not”,

saith Paul,

“that we (the saints) shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”

Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From these data, then, we conclude that these angels will be judged in the Day of Christ by Jesus and the saints.
In the period between the wreck of the globe as the habitation of the rebel angels and the epoch of the first day, the earth was as described in Genesis 1:2,

“without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep”

— a globe of mineral structure, submerged in water, and mantled in impenetrable night. Out of these crude materials, a new habitation was constructed, and adapted to the abode of new races of living creatures.

On the first day, light was caused to shine through the darkness, and disclose the face of the waters; on the second, the atmosphere called Heaven was formed, by which the fog was enabled to float in masses above the deep; on the third, the waters were gathered together into seas, and the dry land, called the Earth, appeared. It was then clothed with verdure, and with fruit and forest trees, preparatory to the introduction of herbivorous creatures to inhabit it. On the fourth day, the expanded atmosphere became transparent, and the shining orbs of the universe could be seen from the surface of the earth. Our globe was then placed in such astronomical relation to them as to be subjected by their influences to the vicissitudes of day and night, summer and winter; and that they might serve for signs, and for years. Thus, the sun, moon, and stars which God had made, by giving the earth’s axis a certain inclination to the plane of the ecliptic, became diffusive of the most genial influences over the land and sea. It was now a fit and beautiful abode for animals of every kind. The dwelling-place was perfected, well aired, and gloriously illuminated by the lights of heaven; food was abundantly provided; and the mansional estate waited only a joyous tenantry to be complete. This was the work of the fifth and sixth days. On the fifth, fish and water-fowl were produced from the teeming waters; and on the sixth, cattle, reptiles, land-fowl, and the beasts of the earth, came out of “the dust of the ground”, male and female, after their several kinds.
But among all these there was not one fit to exercise dominion over the animal world, or to reflect the divine attributes. Therefore the Elohim said,

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the living creatures”.

So Elohim created man in His image; male and female created He them. Further details concerning the formation of the human pair are given in the second chapter of Genesis, verses 7, 18, 21–25. These passages belong to the work of the sixth day; while that from verse 8 to 14 pertains to the record of the third; and from 15 to 17 is parallel with chapter 1:28–31, which completes the history of the sixth.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them”; and the Jehovah Elohim, on reviewing the stupendous and glorious creation elaborated by the Spirit; pronounced it “Very Good”. Then the Elohim or “Morning Stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”.

– Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 12–13). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

 

+

Preceding articles:

Means of creations

Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity

From waste and void coming into being by God’s Word

The very very beginning 2 The Word and words

Genesis – Story of creation 1 Genesis 1:1-25 Creation of things

Creation of the earth and man #1 Planet for living beings in a pre-Adamic world

Coming to the creation of human beings in the image of God

Necessity of a revelation of creation 1 Works of God and works of man

++

Additional reading:

  1. Science and the Bible—Do They Really Contradict Each Other?
  2. Different principle about the origin and beginning of everything
  3. Other stories about the beginning of times
  4. Creation Creator and Creation
  5. Blackness, nothingness, something, void
  6. The World framed by the Word of God
  7. God’s Word Framing universe
  8. Jehovah God Maker of the entire universe served by a well-trained army
  9. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #1 Creator and His Prophets
  10. Al-Fatiha [The Opening] Süra 1: 4-7 Merciful Lord of the Creation to show us the right path
  11. We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory

+++

Further reading showing how people get ideas by translating words wrongly and by building up on human doctrines instead of Biblical doctrines:

Related articles

Necessity of a revelation of creation 1 Works of God and works of man

Christadelphians33 Comments

The Divine Creator of heaven and earth wanted His creation to know Who He is and wanted to be worshipped by them. When man revolted against His Wishes He had to make it clear to them that He is and always shall be the Most High. Loving His creation He knew that they were miserable in making the wrong choice. Therefore He provided a solution but demanded His creation to come to know Him better and to restore the broken relationship.

He had a plan with His creation, but by the choice man made this plan was interrupted. To come back to the point were man went wrong there had to come a second Adam who would proof the world that it is possible for man to keep to the commandments of God and to fulfil God’s Wishes. The world had to come to see who that man of salvation is and why God has imposed such Laws unto man. At the same time the one sent from God (Jeshua from the lineage of King David) would come to declare the works of God and show the world Who his heavenly Father is and what He wants from the human beings. This man to be born in Bethlehem would have to reveal the Divine Creator.

English: Creation myth Deutsch: Schöpfungsgesc...
Creation myth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The whole world should come to see the necessity of a Revelation to make known the origin, reason, and tendency of things in relation to man and the world around him — An intelligible Mystery, and the only source of true wisdom; but practically repudiated by the Moderns.

Man in the world may have forgotten Who is behind everything, but it are the lovers of God who should bring them back on track and show the world the light of Christ and the Way to the Most High Supreme Power.

Man may be lost in the amount of things around him. He might consider him just an element in a universe about which we still do not know much. Though some may think they know a lot of that universe. When looking at it they may see the world or earth revolving upon its own axis, and describing an ample circuit through the boundless fields of space, a planet of the solar system bearing upon its surface a population of over a thousand millions subject to sin, disease, and death.

Dr John Thomas wrote in the 19th century:

This orb of the starry heavens shines with a glory similar to that of its kindred spheres. Viewed from them, it is seen sparkling “like a diamond in the sky”; and with the rest of the heavens, declares the glory of God, and shows forth the handiwork of Him that did create it.
This celestial orb, which is a world or system of itself, is styled The Earth. It is the habitation of races of animals which graze its fields, lurk in its forests, soar through its atmosphere, and pass through the paths of its seas. At the head of all these is a creature like themselves, animal, sensual and mortal. He is called Man. He has replenished the earth and subdued it, and filled it with his renown. His crimes, however, rather than his virtues, have illustrated and distinguished him with an unhappy pre-eminence above all other created things. His heart is evil; and, left to its uncontrolled impulses, he becomes licentious, merciless, and more cruel than the fiercest beast of prey.
Such is the being that claims the independent sovereignty of the globe. He has founded dominions, principalities, and powers; he has built great cities, and vaunted himself in the works of his hands, saying, “Are not these by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” He repudiates all lordship over him, and claims the inalienable and inherent right of self-government, and of establishing whatever civil and ecclesiastical institutions are best suited to his sensuality and caprice. Hence, at successive periods, the earth has become the arena of fierce and pandemoniac conflicts; its tragedies have baptized its soil in blood, and the mingled cries of the oppressor and the victim have ascended to the throne of the Most High.
Skilled in the wisdom which comes from beneath, he is by nature ignorant of that which is “first pure, and then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy”. This is a disposition to which the animal man under the guidance of his fleshly mind has no affinity. His propensity is to obey the lust of his nature; and to do its evil works, “which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, sects, envying, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like”. All these make up the character of the world, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life”, upon which is enstamped the seal of God’s eternal reprobation. “They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God,” but “they shall die”.
Such is the world of human kind! The great and impious enemy of God upon the earth. Its mind is not subject to His law, neither indeed can it be. What shall we say to these things? Is the world as we behold it a finality? Are generations of men, rebellious against God, and destroyers of the earth, to occupy it successively through an endless series of ages? Are men to repeat the history of the past for ever? Is the earth always to be cursed, and sin and death to reign victorious? Who can answer these inquiries? If we survey the starry canopy, thence no sign or voice is given expressive of the truth. They declare the eternal power and divinity of their Creator, but they speak not of the destiny of the earth or of man upon it. If we question the mountains and hills, the plains and valleys, the rivers, seas, and oceans of the earth, and demand their origin, why they were produced, to what end they were created; their rocks, their strata, their fossils, or deposits, afford us no response. Turn we to man and ask him, “Whence comest thou, and what is thy destiny? Whence all tile evil of thy nature, why art thou mortal, who made thee, who involved thee in the wide-spread ruin and calamity on every side?”
Ask an infant of days the history of the past, and he can as well detail it, as man can answer these inquiries without a revelation from Him who is before all, and to whom is known from the beginning all He intends shall come to pass. So true is it, that, unaided by light from heaven, “since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what is prepared for him that waiteth for him”; but, adds the apostle in his comment upon these words of the prophet, “God hath revealed these things unto us by his spirit … which things we (apostles) speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the holy spirit teacheth; interpreting spiritual things in spiritual words.”
To the Bible, then, all must come at last if they would be truly wise in spiritual things. This is a great truth which few of the sons of men have learned to appreciate according to its importance. A man may be a theologian profoundly skilled in all questions of “divinity”; he may be well versed in the mythology of the heathen world; be able to speak all languages of the nations; compute the distances of orb from orb, and weigh them in the scales of rigid calculation; he may know all science and be able to solve all mysteries,—but if, with all this, he be ignorant of “the things of the spirit”; if he know not the true meaning of the Bible; he seemeth only to be wise, while he is, in fact, a fool. Therefore, the apostle saith, “let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men”. If our contemporaries could only attain to the adoption of this great precept, “let no man glory in men”, they would have overleaped a barrier which as a fatal obstacle prevents myriads from understanding and obeying the truth.
But while God lightly esteems the wisdom of the reputed wise, there is a wisdom which He invites all men to embrace. This is styled “the wisdom of God in a mystery”; it is also termed “the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world which none of the princes of this world knew”. It is said to be hidden in a mystery, because until the apostolic age, it was not clearly made known. This will appear from the following texts: “Now to him that is of power to establish you according to the revelation of The Mystery, which was kept secret (χρόνοις αἰωνίοις) in the times of the ages, but now (in the time, or age, of the apostles) is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.” “By revelation God made known unto me, Paul, The Mystery, which in other ages (former ages under the law of Moses) was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.”

Here is “the knowledge of God”, in which are contained “exceeding great and precious promises”, the understanding of which is able to make a man wise, and “a partaker of the divine nature”. Now, although these hidden things have been clearly made known, they still continued to be styled the mystery; not because of their unintelligibility, but became they were once secret. Hence, the things preached unto the Gentiles, and by them believed, are styled by Paul, “the mystery of the faith”, and “the mystery of godliness”, some of the items of which he enumerates; such as, “God manifest in the flesh, justified by the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory”. Thus an intelligible mystery characterizes the once hidden wisdom of God, and becomes the subject matter of an enlightened faith. This, however, is not the case with regard to religious systems which are not of the truth. Unintelligible mystery is the ultima ratio for all difficulties which are insoluble by the symbols of ecclesiastical communities, whose text of universal application is, that “secret things belong to God, but the things which are revealed, to us and to our children”. This is true; but, then, these things which were secret in the days of Moses, have been revealed by God to the apostles and prophets for our information.

– Thomas, D. J. (1848-1849/e-ed. 1990). Elpis Israel: a standard work of the Christadelphian community and exposition of the kingdom of God with reference to the time of the end and the age to come, available at the Christadelphian bookshop.

+

Preceding articles:

To be continued: Necessity of a revelation of creation 2 Organisation of a system of things

++

Additional reading:

  1. What is life?
  2. Science and God’s existence
  3. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  4. Different principle about the origin and beginning of everything
  5. Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?
  6. Destination of the earth
  7. Destination of righteous
  8. No man is free who is not master of himself
  9. Always a choice
  10. Choices
  11. It is a free will choice
  12. Object of first woe
  13. The Cares of Life
  14. Subcutaneous power for humanity 2 1950-2010 Post war generations
  15. God’s wisdom for the believer brings peace
  16. Reflect on how much idolizing happens
  17. 8 fears caused by the fear of Man
  18. If we, in our prosperity, neglect religious instruction and authority
  19. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #5 To meditate and Transform

+++

Related articles
  • Our Father In Heaven By: Joe Stowell (christianmotivations.weebly.com)
    What do we know about God as our Father? According to Jesus’ prayer, we know that our Father in heaven is available and attentive to us. It is also clear that He provides for us. He forgives us and protects us from evil (vv.2-4).
  • Some Sins Indeed Result In Greater Judgment (planet.infowars.com)
    , if Christians are guilty of the criticism of which they have been charged, isn’t that tendency in part the result of the way the Biblical narrative presents itself?
  • Man who raised God as son (wordignite.wordpress.com)
    just like God had a plan for Joseph, God has a plan for each one of us. The plan does not need to be more than that He wants us to be upright and righteous. He wants us to be loving parents, loving husbands and wives. God wants us to follow the law – observe the commandments. But, just like Joseph, we may feel that we don’t have anything to contribute: that we are nothing but simple carpenters…we may feel insignificant, that we have nothing to offer. Still, God has a plan for us. God gives us dreams and speaks to us in our dreams.
  • Follow Me (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
    With Christ being alive and with us we can do all things if we trust in him. He has a place picked out for us in his heavenly kingdom, filled with God’s presence.
  • David “A Man after God’s own Heart | How God Chooses in 1 Samuel 16:1-13 (wordsforliving.org)
    Some may wonder why we would even bother to spend time on a man who has been dead some three thousand years.  The short answer to that is this: David achieved in his life something that God wants each of His children to achieve.  David achieved something that many of us fail to accomplish.  David became a man after God’s Own heart and a study of his life can teach us how to do that too.
  • Sermon: The Heart of God Seeks Unity (grantspasschurchofchrist.com)
    The Civil War left a tragic aftermath of bitterness, hatred, and resentment in America. The wounds inflicted by the war were deep and painful. Though the guns fell silent, the angry recriminations went on. Many could not forget or forgive what had been done. Exchanges between former enemies rarely rose above the level of angry accusations and scornful denunciations.
  • Gospel, 21 March, Lent, Year B (jessicahof.wordpress.com)
    Chrysostom adds that the Pharisees neither knew the fullness of the Law, neither did they do what it commanded, for it said that no man should be killed without being granted a hearing. But it is clear, from the testimony of Nicodemus, that not all the Pharisees were blind. He knew, from his own experience, the power of the words of Jesus, but he is silenced, as Peter will be later, by fear of the wrath of the Pharisees. Like us, he is weak and fearful. Authority on earth is a powerful thing and can drive us into silence. Can we summon the courage to confess Him in such circumstances?
  • 1 Samuel 26 (asorensen.wordpress.com)
    David knows good and well it is not God who wants him dead.  So he calls on Saul to wake up and realize that he is listening to bad advice and direction from his men.
  • March 9 – peace (cohdailyprayer2014.wordpress.com)
    Heavenly Father, help us purge ourselves of those attributes which make not for peace but which set the stage for war.
    Lord hear our prayer, and grant us your peace.
  • Vayikra after its opening word וַיִּקְרָא, which means and He called (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
    For the Jews this Shabbat is the last of the Four Parashiot that have special Torah readings in preparation for Pesach (Passover), which is only two short weeks away! For Jews and Christians it should be the most important day of the year.

Coming to the creation of human beings in the image of God

Marcus Ampe24 Comments

When we look at the universe we can see that from chaos came order. But straight from the beginning we also get some idea of the Creator Himself. We come to know how He places everything one after an other making also clear differences between things, like darkness and light, which pleased Him. Order and regularity came part of our universe, having different moments, time dived by day and night.

Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, god's Name illuminating
Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, God’s Name illuminating

The myths humans created for themselves did not give any clear explanation of the reasons why and how. The eternal Creating Force, the Adonai Elohim Hashem Jehovah, on the other hand showed the world His love by giving it all possibilities, creating a place for each, plants with seeds for the earth (3° Phase), animals for in the waters and for in the heavens (5° Phase). After those animals in the waters God let them come on land to find their way over there and all sorts of wild animals came into being (6° Phase). When we look at the evolution presented by many scientists the Bible is not in contradiction with their findings.

Problem with man is that they expect everything to have been already like they see it today. They expect human beings to have been as well physically as psychologically formed like man today? They forget that it is their pride which makes them not accepting that they themselves had to develop and are still developing.

Question should not be how many minutes, hours, days were literally used, but how and why God did it a certain way. We should come to accept that the Divine Creator did it His Way, with a preconceived plan. God created everything according to His Wish and out of love. The saying that God saw what he had made and found it nice, finding it good, indicates that God considered it sufficient and according to His Wishes.

In the 6th phase of creation, having wriggling organs and crawling bodies God also wanted a reflection or mirror image of Himself. Several Christians do want us to believe that God created after the animals an imperfect being unable to follow God His commandments, but when we look at the words of God, I do not think so. Because after God had created man in His image He, like in the previous phases was pleased with what He had created and said it was good.

Like God was pleased with His work we should also be pleased with our work when we try to do our best and when we want to live according to the Will of God. Having God, every time He established something, looking at it and being satisfied, it tells us that God has a feeling and can be pleased with what happens.

God being satisfied and closing each day with pleasures shows us that God found it was perfect, so the elements where like God wanted them to be. Many times it is said that the Elohim saw that it was excellent. If things would not have been like God wanted it this would not have been written down.

Elohim employed two intense lights, the larger sunlight to rule the day, and the lesser moonlight to rule the night; the stars He made too in the cosmos of heaven to shine light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:18)
Elohim blessed great serpents, and every living creature that creeps and moves, which the waters teemed forth abundantly, after their species, and every winged flying creature after its species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation. (Genesis 1:21) To those things God said to branch off and multiply, filling waters of the seas, space in the heavens, space on earth. Clearly in God His Plan creatures had to increase. He wanted a universe full of living creatures. (Genesis 1:22,24)

In the 1st book of Moses, the Bereshith we find a picture of the total beginning, the beginning of the universe. At the end of it an opening is made to the next chapter where is been given a resume of the last creation by the birth of the cosmos and the earth when they were accomplished, in the day when Jehovah Elohim fashioned the earth and cosmos, and every organism of the field before it existed in the soil, and every green plant of the field before it sprouted: for Jehovah Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil. Then there ascended a cloudiness from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the land. As in the first chapter again we hear that it is God’s Voice demanding the earth to bring forth the living creature after their species, animals, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their species; and it was firmly done. (Genesis 2:4-6; 1:24-25)  And Elohim made the creatures of the earth after their species, and beasts after their species, and every thing that creeps upon the earth after their species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation.

It is interesting to note that only after all those creeping things the  Elohim spoke to fashion a being in His image, and after His likeness. Again we hear the created element had to be in the likeness of God. You may wonder if God would make something which would dissatisfy Him? though there are may Trinitarian Christians who want us to believe the man God created was so imperfect it is impossible for him to follow the Will of God. If that would be so, would God have created him and be satisfied? I do not think so.

Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.
Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.

Like with the previous creatures the living creature made in God’s image had enough elements similar to the Godly qualities that God looked at these creatures and also was pleased and asked them to multiply too. He even was so pleased with them and placed them in His plan of creation that He gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27)

So Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim was mankind created; male and female fashioned He them.  And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim spoke to them, asking them to be fruitful and become many, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28-29)

Throughout history man shall have to remember that the Adonai has given His Word to make the things coming into being but also giving it the ability to have every green plant bearing seed, which is upon the surface of all the earth, and every tree, containing the produce of the tree bearing seed, to the living creeping or flying  creatures it being for food. (Genesis 1:30-31)  It was done and the Elohim inspected every thing that He had accomplished, and behold, it was valuable in estimation. And the sunset and the sunrise were the sixth phase of His creation.

+

Preceding articles:

  1. Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make”
  2. The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods
  3. Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity
  4. The very very beginning 2 The Word and words
  5. Something from nothing
  6. Means of creations
  7. Genesis – Story of creation 1 Genesis 1:1-25 Creation of things
  8. Genesis – Story of creation 2 Genesis 1:26-31 Creation of man

++

Additional reading:

  1. Reading of contrasts
  2. The True God, Divine Creator or God of gods
  3. Are Science and the Bible Compatible?
  4. From the very early beginning of the universe
  5. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and movement
  6. Creator and Blogger God 10 A Blog of a Book 4 Listening to the Blogger
  7. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  8. Incomplete without the mind of God
  9. A dialogue about the earth moving and spinning around the sun
  10. Is it “Wrong” to Believe that the Earth is a Sphere? Inclusive the first generation of Christadelphians their views
  11. Gods hope and our hope
  12. Tu B’Shvat, the holiday of the trees
  13. A “seed” for the blessing of all mankind would come through the family of Abraham
  14. Dependence
  15. Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage

+++

Related articles
  • Let everything that hath breath…praise YHWH (doyouseethelight.wordpress.com)
    It was a challenge to blast my shofar while I was shivering. I was having fun praising YHWH!
  • Be Strong, Be Bold (hrhome.wordpress.com)
    Read what Elohim said directly to Joshua after Moses died.
    +
    Did you catch the fact that Elohim commanded him to be strong and bold? It wasn’t simply a suggestion, it was an order. Let’s strive to follow in those footsteps, keep our eyes on YHWH, be careful to obey His Word, and live in His strength.
  • 11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
    For the rabbis oral Torah was an integral part of the Torah given to Moses on Sinai, but it was passed on orally through the generations.”[7]  The stress upon the Oral Torah by the Pharisees is what caused the Pharisees to confront Jesus about His disciples breaking the “tradition of the elders.”
  • Reasons of Misotheist and Atheist (new.exchristian.net)
    Greek mythology is different, for natural disasters are made by them
    +
    Islam teaches that everything is God’s will; therefore Allah wills it not to intervene…always.
    +
    Scientists observations suggests that stability on universe is an illusion

    a1. Eternal chaos of the cosmos only shows us that by time and chance, life on earth or on other planets (only a theory) will eventually die

    a2. Some creationist scientists’ argument about perfectly tuned universe for the sake of life is invalid for by time and chance life on earth flourished but also by time and chance it will die.

    b. Allowing war, chaos, and evil

    a1. Maybe God/gods is/are sick psychopaths who loves to watch action movies on real life

  • Hannah’s Hope (codybateman.org)
    The story of Hannah could easily become our story. As Hannah was quietly crying out to God in her distress, another person (Eli), who was watching from a distance, wrongly judged her as being a drunkard. He misjudged both her character and her situation horribly.
  • Thursday, 5 March 2015 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading) (petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com)
    This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”
  • Desert Island Texts: The Shema (jewishnews.co.uk)
    The first word with its complexity of meaning between ‘hear’, ‘listen’ and ‘understand’ already provides a deepening into the centrality of my being, helps me to become myself, to nourish my soul – the soul of ‘Israel’, that is, the angelic side of Jacob, the heel, the trickster and I am both. Can I be a Jew on a desert island, without community, without others? The word ‘Israel’ will give me much to ponder, of my history and the history of my people. I shall wonder what might be happening in the world outside, to Israel the state, and in Europe.
  • Dog Poop And Leash Signs (dogpoopsigns.com)
    In New York City, for example, estimates show that there are about 2 million dogs. With just over 8 million human inhabitants, this would mean that roughly 25% are dog owners (assuming of course that no one owns more than one dog). Consider, then, that according to Citizens Committee for NYC, these dogs produce around 275,000 tons of feces per year. That’s 275 pounds per dog. Consequently, NYC streets are like a minefield littered with dog poop. Many a careless pedestrian will notice a funky smell emanating from their feet and only realize they’ve stepped in poop once they tread across the living room carpet. After receiving many complaints, NYC officials took action and passed a statute in 1978 called the Canine Waste Law, threatening a fine for up to $250 for each violation. The code also prohibits dog owners from allowing their pets to poop “on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting a public place.” Violators failing to scoop their dog’s poop can be ticketed by authorized employees of NYC’s Departments of Health, Sanitation, or Parks and Recreation.