Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #9 The Formation of woman #2

The testimony of Moses in regard to the formation of woman brings to light a very interesting phenomenon, which has since been amply proved to be the result of a natural law. It is, that man may be made insensible to pain by being placed in a deep sleep. The Lord Elohim availed Himself of this law, and subjected the man He had made to its operation; and man, because he is in His likeness, is also able to influence his fellow-man in the same way. The art of applying the law is called various names, and may be practised variously. The name does not alter the thing. A man’s rib might be extracted now with as little inconvenience as Adam experienced, by throwing him into a deep sleep, which in numerous cases may be easily effected; but there our imitative ability ceases. We could not build up a woman from the rib. Greater wonders, however, than this will man do hereafter; for by “the Man Christ Jesus” will his Bride be created from the dust, in his own image after his own likeness, “to the glory of God, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen”.

When the Lord God presented the newly formed creature to her parent flesh, Adam said,

“This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Ishah (or Outman), because she was taken out of Ish, or man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh”. {a Genesis 2:21–24}

Thus, Adam pronounced upon himself the sentence that was to bind them together for weal or woe, until death should dissolve the union, and set them free for ever. This was marriage. It was based upon the great fact of her formation out of man; and consisted in Adam taking her to himself with her unconstrained consent.There was no religious ceremonial to sanctify the institution; for the Lord Himself even abstained from pronouncing the union. No human ceremony can make marriage more holy than it is in the nature of things. Superstition has made it “a sacrament”, and inconsistently enough, denied it, though “a holy sacrament”, to the very priests she has appointed to administer it. But priests and superstition have no right to meddle with the matter; they only disturb the harmony, and destroy the beauty, of God’s arrangements. A declaration in the presence of the Lord Elohim, and the consent of the woman, before religion was instituted, is the only ceremonial recorded in the case. This, I believe, is the order of things among “the Friends”, or nearly so; and, if all their peculiarities were as scriptural as this, there would be but little cause of complaint against them.

“Man”,

says the apostle,

“is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man”;

and the reason he assigns is, because

“The man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man”. {b . 1 Corinthians 11:7–9.}

She was not formed in the image of man, though she may have been in the image of some of the Elohim.

“Man” is generic of both sexes. When, therefore, Elohim said,

“Let us make man in our image”;

and it is added,

“male and female created he them”,

it would seem that both the man and the woman were created in the image and likeness of Elohim. In this case some of the Elohim are represented by Adam’s form, and some by Eve’s. I see no reason why it should not be so. When mankind rises from the dead, they will doubtless become immortal men and women; and then, says Jesus,

“they are equal to the angels”;

on an equality with them in every respect. Adam only was in the image of Him that created him; but then, the Elohim that do the commandments of the invisible God, are the virile portion of their community: Eve was not in their image. Theirs was restricted to Adam; nevertheless, she was after the image and likeness of some of those comprehended in the pronoun “our”. Be this as it may, though not in the image, she was in the likeness of Adam; and both “very good” according to the subangelic nature they possessed.

 – Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 49–50). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

File:Michelangelo, Creation of Eve 01.jpg
Michelangelo’s fresco Creation of Eve on Sistine Chapel ceiling Tomb of Eve in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia Site of Eve’s burial in Cave of Machpelah

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Notes:

a. Genesis 2:21–24 (ESV):

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

b. 1 Corinthians 11:7–9 (ESV)

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

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Preceding:

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

Creation of the earth and man #18 Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #2 Assimilation of character

Creation of the earth and man #19 Man in the image and likeness of the Elohim #3 Beholding image and likeness of the invisible God

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

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Find also

  1. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
  2. Al-Fatiha [The Opening] Süra 1: 4-7 Merciful Lord of the Creation to show us the right path
  3. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
  4. Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
  5. Creator and Blogger God 5 Things to tell
  6. Father counterpart of the mother
  7. Dignified role for the woman
  8. Silencing Women – Of God or Men ?
  9. Relating to God is it possible
  10. The Seven Daughters of Eve

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Further reading:

  1. First Glance:Genesis 1-3
  2. Recap: What Every Christian Should Know About Genesis 1-4
  3. The Calling of Genesis 3
  4. First Woman
  5. How Many Children Did Adam Have?
  6. Finding Eve Among Cain And Abel
  7. Adam’s Problematic Princess
  8. Adam, Eve & Noah
  9. NaPoWriMo: Day 2
  10. Daughters of Eve, You Get To Be Free!
  11. Womanhood After the Order of Christ

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

Flesh, be-nephesh-u, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”

This teaches that blood is the nephesh, or life of the flesh; hence it continues,

“and surely your blood, lah-nephesh-tikam, for your lives will I require”. {1. Gen. 9:5.}

We often find life put for blood, and blood for life, as elsewhere in the context.

“Be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the nephesh or life; and thou mayest not eat the life, nephesh, with the flesh.” {2  Deut. 12:23.}

File:Grafik blutkreislauf.jpg
The human circulatory system. Red indicates oxygenated blood, blue indicates deoxygenated.
File:Example of a pig carcass in the dry decay stage of decomposition.jpg
Example of a pig carcass (Sus scrofa) in the dry/remains stage of decomposition. All that remains is skin and bone and the surrounding vegetation is beginning to grow over the carcass.

But, to this it might be objected, that if the blood be the life, then so long as it is in the body it ought to live; on the contrary it dies with the blood in it. True. Moses, however, does not teach the dogma of an abstract vital principle; but life, the result and consequence of the decomposition and re-combination of the elements of certain compounds. The blood abstractly considered is not life; yet relatively, it is “the life of the flesh”. The following testimony will show the sense in which the phrase “the blood is the life” is used.

“I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood. For the life of the flesh is IN the blood itself. I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for nephesh-tikem, your lives: for it is the blood that atones, be-nephesh, for the soul” or life.

“Whosoever catcheth any fowl that may be eaten, he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof. Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.” {3.  Lev. 17:11–14.}

Nothing can be plainer than this.

There are three kinds of living manifestations, which are characterized by the nature of the organization, or being, through which they occur. Hence, we have vegetable life, animal life, and incorruptible life. The last is immortality: because the body through which the life is manifested, being incorruptible, never wears out; so that being once put into motion by the spirit of God, it lives for ever. Vegetable and animal life, on the contrary, is terrainable or mortal; because the materials through which it is revealed are perishably organized. Mortality, then, is life manifested through a corruptible body; and immortality, life manifested through an incorruptible body. Hence, the necessity laid down in the saying of the apostle,

“This corruptible body must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality”,

before death can be

“swallowed up in victory”. {4 . 1 Cor. 15:53, 54.}

This doctrine of “life and incorruptibility” (ζωὴ χαὶ ὰδθαρσία) was new to the Greeks and Romans; and brought to light only through the gospel of the kingdom and name of Jesus Christ. It was to them foolishness; and is to the moderns incredible, because they understand not the glad tidings of the age to come.

Incorruptible life might with equal propriety be styled spiritual life, as indicative of that with which spiritual bodies are endowed. But here I use not the word spiritual, lest it should be confounded with that intellectual and moral life a man possesses when the “incorruptible seed” of the kingdom takes root in his heart; and when, in “obedience of faith”, he passes from under the sentence of death to the sentence of justification unto life eternal. But, at present, we have to do with animal or natural life, which is all the life the fleshly sons of the first Adam can boast of. Enough, however, I think has been advanced to show the scriptural import of the text already quoted, that

“the Lord God formed man, the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul”.

The simple, obvious, and undogmatic meaning of this, is, that the dust was first formed into “clay”, which was then modelled by Jehovah Elohim into the form of the soul called “man”, as a potter shapes the substance of his vessels. Thus, Elihu said to Job,

“I also am formed out of the clay” {5 Job. 33:6.}

and again,

“We are the clay, and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand”. {6Isaiah 64:8.}

 

The fashioning of the clay being accomplished in all its component parts, which in the aggregate constitute man; that is, the dust being animalized, and then organized, the next thing was to set all the parts of this exquisite mechanism into motion. This was effected by the inrush of the air through his nostrils into his lungs according to the natural laws. This phenomenon was the neshemet el, or “breath of God”, breathing into him; and as it was the pabulum of life to all creatures formed from the dust, it is very expressively styled “the breath of lives” in the plural number. Some imagine that Jehovah Elohim placed His mouth to the nostrils of the as yet clay-cold man-soul prostrate before Him, and so breathed into them. Be this as it may; of this, however, we are without doubt, that God breathes into every man at his birth the breath of lives to this day; and I see no scriptural reason why we should deny that He breathed it into Adam as He hath done into the nostrils of his posterity, namely, by the operation of the natural, or pneumatic, laws. Hitherto, man, though a soul formed from the ground, had been inanimate; but, as soon as he began to respire, like the embryo passing from foetal to infant life, he “became a living soul”, not an everliving, but simply nephesh chayiah, a living breathing frame, or body of life.

– Thomas, D. J. Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 35–37). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

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Notes and Bible quotes:

1. Genesis 9:5 (ESV): And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

2. Deuteronomy 12:23 (ESV): 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.

3. Leviticus 17:11–14 (ESV): 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. 12 Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.

13 “Any one also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. 14 For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.

4. 1 Corinthians 15:53–55 (ESV): 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

55  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

5. Job 33:6 (ESV): Behold, I am toward God as you are; I too was pinched off from a piece of clay.

6. Isaiah 64:8 (ESV): But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

 

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Preceding:

Creation of the earth and man #12 Formation of man #4 Constitution of man

Creation of the earth and man #13 Formation of man #5 Living soul

Creation of the earth and man #14 Formation of man #6 The Uncreated One, neshemet ruach chayim and nephesh

Creation of the earth and man #15 Formation of man #7 Living creatures of the natural world

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Additional reading:

  1. Two states of existence before God
  2. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
  3. What is life?
  4. Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?
  5. Science, belief, denial and visibility 1
  6. Is there an Immortal soul
  7. Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
  8. Dying or not
  9. Decomposition, decay – vergaan, afsterven, ontbinding
  10. The Soul not a ghost
  11. I Can’t Believe That (1) … God would send anyone to hell

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Further reading

  1. Life-form
  2. Mortality
  3. Causes of Mortality over Time
  4. Heartless Immortal
  5. Uneasy Feelings
  6. Death demands a reality
  7. You are Gods
  8. We are all sinners and will always be sinners
  9. Look Up And Shout!!
  10. Memento Mori
  11. Its not the end..-mortal..immortal
  12. Christian Confusion: Two Degrees of Sin
  13. Beauty and eternity
  14. Living Life
  15. Meditation 12: Remember Death (memento mori)
  16. Fully Alive
  17. Freckled Jack O’Lantern
  18. into the darkness
  19. Incorruptibility
  20. on incorruptibility
  21. John Chrysostom: “For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven”
  22. Athanasius of Alexandria: God has made man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption
  23. Irenaeus of Lyons: What other visible fruit is there of the invisible Spirit than the rendering of the flesh mature and capable of incorruption?
  24. Irenaeus of Lyons: The breath of life rendered man an animated being, and the vivifying Spirit caused him to become spiritual

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

Creation of the earth and man

The earth before the creation of Adam the habitation of the angels who kept not their first estate — A geological error corrected — The Sabbath day and the Lord’s day— The formation of man and woman — The “great mystery” of her formation out of man explained — Eden — The Garden of Eden — The original and future paradises considered — Man’s primitive dominion confined to the inferior creatures and his own immediate family — Of the two trees of the garden — And man in his original estate.

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The general account of the work of the six days is contained in the first chapter of Genesis; while in the second is presented among other things, a more particular narrative of the work of the sixth day in the formation of the first human pair.

Let the reader peruse the history of the creation as a revelation to himself as an inhabitant of the earth. It informs him of the order in which the things narrated would have developed themselves to his view, had he been placed on some projecting rock, the spectator of the events detailed. He must remember this. The Mosaic account is not a revelation to the inhabitants of other orbs remote from the earth of the formation of the boundless universe; but to man, as a constituent of the terrestrial system. This will explain why light is said to have been created four days before the sun, moon, and stars. To an observer on the earth this was the order of their appearance; and in relation to him a primary creation, though absolutely pre-existent for millions of ages before the Adamic era.

The duration of the earth’s revolutions round the sun previous to the work of the first day is not revealed: but the evidences produced by the strata of our globe show that the period was long continued. There are indeed hints, casually dropped in the scriptures, which would seem to indicate that our planet was inhabited by a race of beings anterior to the formation of man.

The Creation, beginning of the antediluvian (i.e., pre-Flood) world. (Artist’s rendition by James Tissot)
Lot and his daughters flee from Sodom, his wife turned to salt behind them, and the burning cities, Albrecht Dürer

The apostle Peter, speaking of the “false teachers” that would arise among Christians “by reason of whom the way of truth would be evil spoken of” illustrates the certainty of their “damnation” by citing three cases in point; namely, that of certain angels; that of the antediluvian world; and that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now the earth, we know, was the place of judgment to the contemporaries of Noah and Lot, and seeing that these three are warnings to inhabitants of earth, it is probable that they are all related to things pertaining to our globe in the order of their enumeration — first, judgment upon its pre-Adamic inhabitants; secondly, upon the antediluvian world, which succeeded them; and thirdly, upon Sodom after the flood.

Peter says that “the Angels”, or pre-Adamic inhabitants of the Earth, “sinned”; and Jude, in speaking of the same subject, reveals to us the nature of their transgression. He says, verse 6,

“the angels maintained not their original state, but forsook their own habitation”.

From which it would appear that they had the ability to leave their dwelling if they pleased; secondly, that they were sometimes employed as messengers to other parts of the universe; this their name (ἄγγελος, angelos, one sent) implies; thirdly, that they were forbidden to leave their habitation without special command to do so; and fourthly, that they violated this injunction and left it. Having transgressed the divine law, God would not forgive them; “but casting them down”, or driving them back, “he committed them to everlasting chains of intense darkness to be reserved for judgment”. Hence, it is clear, when they were driven back to their habitation, some further catastrophe befell them by which their committal to darkness was effected. This probably consisted in the total wreck of their abode, and their entire submergence, with all the mammoths of their estate, under the waters of an overwhelming flood. Reduced to this extremity, the earth became “without form and empty; and darkness overspread the deep waters”. Its mountains, hills, valleys, plains, seas, rivers, and fountains of waters, which gave diversity of “form” to the surface of our globe, all disappeared; and it became “void”, or empty, no living creatures, angels, quadrupeds, birds, or fishes, being found any more upon it.
Fragments, however, of the wreck of this pre-Adamic world have been brought to light by geological research, to the records of which we refer the reader, for a detailed account of its discoveries, with this remark, that its organic remains, coal fields, and strata, belong to the ages before the formation of man, rather than to the era of the creation, or the Noachic flood. This view of the matter will remove a host of difficulties, which have hitherto disturbed the harmony between the conclusions of geologists and the Mosaic account of the physical constitution of our globe.

Geologists have endeavoured to extend the six days into six thousand years. But this, with the scriptural data we have adduced, is quite unnecessary. Instead of six thousand, they can avail themselves of sixty thousand; for the scriptures reveal no length of time during which the terrene angels dwelt upon our globe. The six days of Genesis were unquestionably six diurnal revolutions of the earth upon its axis. This is clear from the tenor of the sabbath law.

“Six days shalt thou labour (O Israel) and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

Would it be any fit reason that, because the Lord worked six periods of a thousand or more years each, and had ceased about two thousand until the giving of the law, therefore the Israelites were to work six periods of twelve hours, and do no work on a seventh period or day of like duration? Would any Israelite or Gentile, unspoiled by vain philosophy, come to the conclusion of the geologists by reading the sabbath law? We believe not. Six days of ordinary length were ample time for Omnipotence, with all the power of the universe at command, to re-form the earth, and to place the few animals upon it necessary for the beginning of a new order of things upon the globe.

– Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 10–12). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

Globe
Globe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Preceding articles:

The very very beginning 2 The Word and words

Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make”

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 3

Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4

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Additional reading:

  1. A look at evolution from a Christadelphian perspective
  2. Between Alpha and Omega – The plan of creation
  3. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
  4. Different principle about the origin and beginning of everything
  5. Science and the Bible—Do They Really Contradict Each Other?
  6. Blackness, nothingness, something, void
  7. Accommodation of the Void
  8. “Before” and “after” the Big Bang
  9. Nothingness
  10. Other stories about the beginning of times
  11. Creation purpose and warranty
  12. Is it “Wrong” to Believe that the Earth is a Sphere?
  13. A dialogue about the earth moving and spinning around the sun
  14. Angels
  15. Heavenly creatures do they exist
  16. Where does Satan lives?
  17. Satan the evil within
  18. Al-Fatiha [The Opening] Süra 1: 4-7 Merciful Lord of the Creation to show us the right path
  19. Around pre-existence of Christ
  20. Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant

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Further reading:

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

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.

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Preceding articles:

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

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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

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