First mention of a solution against death 5 Evil its law of death

There was a lovely harmony in the Garden of Eden. Man was free to walk around and live nicely. He also was free to think and to make choices. There it went wrong. The woman let her mind wander and got tempted by her thoughts, willing to know more.
We have seen that the yielding to the tempter or man’s mind doubting God‘s honesty is treated allegorically in the Edenic covenant as the serpent in the flesh. First man was full of life but now death had come to him. Temptation had taken over and evil had entered his mind. This evil is the “devil” or diabolos of the New Testament, which term is defined as “that which has the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14), elsewhere described as “the law of sin and death”, “sin that dwelleth in me”, “sin in the flesh” (Romans 7:20; Romans 8:2-3).

Hebrews 2:14-15 NHEBJE  Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,  (15)  and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Eve was taken in by her thoughts which proofed not to be good thoughts.  Those ideas opposing God’s Wishes are considered bad thoughts. Going against God His Will is as declaring yourself to be against His ideas and opposing Him or to rival God, taking on the position of an opponent of God or an adversary (satan) of God.

Evil thoughts got so much power in man that it brought death to them but also put its stamp on all the rest of mankind. The act of the first two human beings created an awful situation for us. The curse of death having come over man also brought plants and animals in danger. Because now the mind of man was filled with darkness and their way of thinking became so blurred that often they would take the wrong decisions. At the beginning of the universe man had received the plants as food, meaning they had to be vegetarians or veganists. By the years following their expulsion from the Garden of Eden they were not happy any more by eating only plants and wanted also to eat meat, also becoming more like the animals, a carnivor. By doing so they also became killers of animal. They had taken their power to be master over plants and animals to be able to kill other living beings. Evil or badness in this way creped further in their life and as such evil or satan has become master or chief ruler of this world now. The enmity against God was so strong it became deeply rooted in the next generations.  Paul described how that this “warred against the law of my mind” (Romans 7:23), and in doing so gave expression to the enmity described by God in the 15th verse of Genesis 3.

Romans 7:23 NHEBJE  but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

God talking about the seed to come (a seed of a new generation), wanted mankind a solution for what they had caused and for those who had nothing to do with that first fault or wrong choice of Adam and Eve. God had asked not to touch nor to eat from the tree, which was a law for man. They ignored it, but with it they also did not listen to God.  Also later the many Laws provided by God to guide man, got ignored. Through the flesh every law would be weak. But the seed or the send one from God was to show the world that he who also was in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, would be able to follow the Laws of God, not doing his own Will, but continually doing the Will of God. The action or attitude of that seed was going to contradict the thoughts of those taken by that ‘hissing in the mind’, the ‘serpent‘ or ‘evil’, the adversary of God, satan or the devil. Those coming after Adam and Eve also would have the choice to be after the flesh either to mind the things of the flesh or to love the things of the flesh. The loving harmony which subsisted between the Father and the son restored the relationship between God and mankind and could again bring liberation in the condemnation of sin in the flesh.

Romans 8:3 NHEBJE  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;

Though there is constant enmity or animosity between the lusts of the flesh and the requirements of God as set down in His law those who would come into the seed of the woman and would follow his teachings could make themselves stronger and become once again in the spiritual life or after the Spirit (o. pneuma) or the things of the Spirit (o. pneuma) . In order to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually (o. pneuma) minded is life and peace.

Romans 8:5-10 NHEBJE  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  (6)  For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;  (7)  because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.  (8)  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  (9)  But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.  (10)  If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

That the serpent is used allegorically of sin is shown by the punishment meted out to Israel when the people “spake against God, and against Moses” (Numbers 21:5). Serpents appeared among the people, the sting of which proved fatal (cp. 1 Corinthians 15:56), so that “much people of Israel died”.

1 Corinthians 15:56 NHEBJE  (56)  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

In panic, the rest of the people appealed to Moses for help, and he interceded with God on their behalf. He was told to make a serpent of brass, and to set it on a pole, so that the people might view it. All who did so in faith were saved from the death that threatened them. The serpent on the pole illustrated to the people what they should do to the “serpent” within (the carnal mind that inflamed lust): they must crucify it if they would live.

The serpent or evil could put the seed on the pole, Jesus Christ being put to death, as a symbol of bringing the curse of evil and death to its end, Jesus vanquish evil by giving his unblemished body as a ransom for all who had that sin of the flesh. His decision only to follow God His Will has overcome the fault of those who followed their own will, ignoring God’s Will.

Unlike the active serpents on the ground, there was no venom in the serpent on the pole (not by Moses, not by Jesus Christ); similarly sin must be neutralised in us if we would live. At the time of Moses the serpent on the pole could also representing that seed promised in the Garden of Eden,the Lord Jesus Christ who came in the nature common to all. On several occasions he compared his crucifixion with the “lifting up” of the serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14-16; John 8:28; John 12:32), thus identifying his nature with the allegorical significance of the serpent.

John 3:14-21 NHEBJE  As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  (15)  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  (16)  For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.  (17)  For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.  (18)  He who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.  (19)  This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.  (20)  For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.  (21)  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”

All About Evil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We do live in a time now that people should be able to see who God has send to the earth and has lifted up. Today there are still too many, even people who call themselves Christian, who do not want to believe Jesus is that seed God has promised and send to the earth. They still do not want to believe Jesus is really the son of God and not a god son. They still do not want to accept that Jesus did not his own will (which he would have done when he is God) and and that he did nothing on his own authority, but spoke just as his heavenly Father taught him.

John 8:28-29 NHEBJE  Jesus therefore said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I say these things.  (29)  He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

John 12:32 NHEBJE  And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to myself.”

In the seed, which always did only those things that pleased Jehovah God, would come power to battle the evil. All those who would come to recognise that seed and would come under it, multiplying in unity trying to put away those fleshly lusts would be able to put their flesh to death at the stake to gain life in the mind of Christ.

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Preceding articles

A multifold of elements in creation and a bad choice made

First mention of a solution against death 1 To divine, serpent, opposition, satan and adversary

First mention of a solution against death 2 Harm or no harm and naked truth

First mention of a solution against death 3 Tempter Satan and man’s problems

First mention of a solution against death 4 A seed for mankind

Next: First mention of a solution against death 6

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Additional reading

1. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #6 Words to feed and communicate
2. The Seed Of The Woman Bruised
3. Jesus begotten Son of God #10 Coming down spirit or flesh seed of Eve
4. Sayings of Jesus, what to believe and being or not of the devil
5. A question to be posed
6. Which man is mentioned most often in the Bible? Jesus, Moses, Abraham or David?
7. Who is on the Lord’s side
8. Chaff and the shoot out of the stock of Jesse
9. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
10. The God of hope filling us with all joy and peace
11. A book of life and a man born more than two thousand years ago
12. Not about personal salvation but about a bigger Plan
13. True riches
14. Let us become nothing, and Christ everything
15. Deliverance and establishement of a theocracy
16. Solution for Willing hearts filled with gifts
17. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
18. Message from the family tree in the Tanakh
19. Set free from any form of mental torment or self-condemnation
20. Were allowed to willfully break the Law of Moses
21. God loving people justified
22. No curtain placed over tomorrow
23. Has the Bible’s Garden of Eden been found — and restored
24. A promise given in the Garden of Eden
25. Around pre-existence of Christ

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Further reading

1. Where Did We Get Our Sinful Nature?
2. “Where are you?” N:o 25 The enmity in the history
3. As a believer your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
4. The Truth About Being Born Again
5. Walking in the Spirit
6. Be Still
7. Covenant and the law (Sir 24:23-24:23)
8. Looking at the Ocean and Seeing God’s Hand
9. Signs from God
10. Prophet Moses’ Obedience to Ishmaelite Prophet Jethro
11. Anatoly of Optina: “Wherever God is — there is peace.”
12. Debtor
13. Enmity
14. From The Heart The Mouth Speaks
15. The Fight You Won’t Win
16. Addiction #05 — Eating Animals (05/27/12)
17. Men think they need to eat meat to be manly—and it’s making them sick
18. How humans are not physically created to eat meat

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Related articles

• Eden is an allegory of your life.
• Why Should Adam’s Sin Affect Me?
• The Arrival of God and Goddess – 5-21-16
• Your Word for This Day: “Dead in Sin, Alive in Christ”
• Would you Adam and Eve it?
• The River From Eden Yields the Four Gospels
• Criticism of Bart Ehrman on New Testament Reliability and Credibility
• Sacrifice and Atonement
• Worship Song: President of Love
• A question to be posed

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

From these testimonies it is manifest that the ruach or spirit is all pervading. It is in heaven, in sheol, or the dust of the deepest hollow, in the uttermost depths of the sea, in the darkness, in the light, and in all things animate, and without life. It is a universal principle in the broadest, or rather, in an illimitable sense. It is the substratum of all motion, whether manifested in the diurnal and ellipsoidal revolutions of the planets, in the flux and reflux of the sea, in the storms and tempests of the expanse, or in the organism of reptiles, cattle, beasts, fish, fowl, vegetables, or men. The atmospheric expanse is charged with it; but it is not the air: plants and animals of all species breathe it; but it is not their breath: yet without it, though filled with air, they would die.
The atmosphere, which extends some forty-five miles in altitude, and encircles the globe, is styled the expanse, by Moses; and the breath of God, in Job. It is a compound body, consisting, when pure, of nitrogen and oxygen, in the proportion of 79 of the former and 21 of the latter, in 100 parts.* These are considered as simple bodies, because they have not yet been decomposed; though it is probable they have a base, which may be the ruach. This may exist free or combined with the elementary constituents of the neshemeh. Uncombined, it is that wonderful fluid, whose explosions are heard in the thunder, whose fiery bolts overthrow the loftiest towers, and rive the sturdy monarchs of the woods; and in less intensity gives polarity to light, the needle, and the brain. These three together, the oxygen, nitrogen, and electricity, constitute “the breath“ and “spirit” of the lives of all God’s living souls.

Statue representing the Rouach (ruach) Holy Spirit in the church market (Marktkirche) Goslar; contemporary work

Thus, from the centre of the earth, and extending throughout all space in every direction, is the Ruach Elohim, the existence of which is demonstrable from the phenomena of the natural system of things. It penetrates where the neshermet el, or atmospheric air, cannot. When speaking, however, of the motivity and sustentation of organized dust, or souls, they are co-existent within them. In this case, the ruach Elohim becomes the ruach chayim, or “spirit of lives”; and the neshemet el, the neshemet chayim, or “breath of lives”; and both combined in the elaboration and support of life, the neshemet ruach chayim, or “breath of the spirit of lives”. Living creatures, or souls, are not animated, as physiologists and speculative “divines” erroneously imagine, by “a vital principle”, capable of disembodied existence as the ghost of a man, or the transmigrating spectres of other animal species: — ghostly things, the laws and functions of which in the animal economy physiologists are unable to discover; and theologists are nonplussed to prove the existence of from the word of God. On the contrary, “souls” are “made living” by the coetaneous operation of the ruach chayim and neshemet chayim upon their organized tissues according to certain fixed laws. When the as yet occult laws of the all-pervading ruach, or spirit, shall be known, this subject will be understood; and men will then be as astonished at the ignorance of the “divines” and physiologists of this “cloudy and dark day”, respecting “living souls”, as we are at the notion of the ancients, that their ”immortal gods“ resided in the stocks and stones they so stupidly adored. This, however, is quite as reasonable a theory as that of “immortal souls” dwelling in sinners of Adam’s race.

The ruach chayim and neshemet chayim are lent to the creatures of the natural world for the appointed period of their living existence. But, though lent to them, they are still God’s breath, and God’s spirit; nevertheless, to distinguish them from the expanse of air and spirit in their totality, they are sometimes styled, “the spirit of man”, and “the spirit of the beast”; or collectively, “the spirits of all flesh”, and “their breath”. Thus, it is written,

“They have all one ruach, or spirit; so that man hath no pre-eminence over a beast; for all is vanity or vapour.”

“All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” {a}

And in the sense of supplying to every living creature, or soul, “spirit” and “breath”, Jehovah is styled by Moses,

“God of the spirits of all flesh”. {b}

Besides the ruach and neshemeh without, there are certain elementary principles, in a state of combination, within all living souls, which are related to them by fixed and appropriate laws, for the manifestation of living actions. The light to the eye, and the eye to the light; so also, the breath and the spirit of God to the constituents of blood, and the blood to them. These, acting and re-acting upon each other in the lungs of all breathing frames, cause that motion throughout their structure which is termed life. The following testimonies will throw some light upon this part of our subject.

– Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 34–35). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

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Notes:

• *. Since this was written argon and other rare gases have been discovered; but all scientific research favours the hypothesis here laid down.—Publisher.

• {a} Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 (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.

• {b}: Numbers 27:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ “Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation

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Preceding article:

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

to be continued

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Further readings:

1. The In-Between
2. 10 September ― 3 ‘Izzat
3. Contemplation
4. Our Place
5. Saints and Souls and Fairies
6. The Petition For Souls
7. What awakens our soul?
8. Divinity of man.
9. Time of Souls aka Halloween in Estonia
10. Transhumanism in Light of the Bible
11. Your Soul Is The Prize

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• JEHOVAH is the Greatest (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
• We start to die after maturity is reached. (theoristexplains.wordpress.com)
• The Atlantic ponders a weighty question: Did early hominins have souls? (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• The soul (chechar.wordpress.com)
• Did Neanderthals Have Souls? (theatlantic.com)
• Vayelech (thejc.com)
• Your Word For This Day: “I Walk in Peace” (thotam.com)
• DIG for Sunday the 20th of September…..the power of the Holy Spirit is essential…..Acts 1 v 7 and 8 (heilanword.wordpress.com)
• Gift of the Holy Spirit (yoursuccessinspirer.com)

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

John Locke, a leading philosopher of British empiricism, the theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.

How important, then, it is that we should have a scriptural understanding of the constitution of man. If it should appear by an exposition of the truth, that there is no such kind of soul in the universe as that conceited by the pagan Greeks and Romans, and gentilized into the doctrine of the apostles by contemporary perverters* of the gospel, the faith and hope of which it hath ulcerously consumed — and handed down to us by “orthodox divines” — and fondled in these times as an essential ingredient of a true faith: — what becomes of the “cure of souls” by the dogmatical specifics of the day? They are resolved into theological empiricism, which is destined to recede like darkness before the orient brightness of the rising truth.

Let us then endeavour to understand ourselves as God has revealed our nature in His word. On the sixth day, the Elohim gave the word, saying,

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

In this word was life, spirit, or energy.

“It was God. All things were made by it, and without it was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1–5)**

Hence, says Elihu,

“the Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life”; (Job 33:4) ***

or, as Moses testifies,

“the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a Living Soul”. (Genesis 2:7)****

Artist’s concept of a protoplanetary disk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Notes

*

Galatians 1:7–9 (ESV):  ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

**

John 1:1–5 (ESV): The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

***

Job 33:4 (ESV): ⁴  The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

****

Genesis 2:7 (ESV): ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

– Thomas, D. J.  Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., p. 31). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.

 

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Preceding articles:

Creation of the earth and man #9 Formation of man #1 Cure of souls

Creation of the earth and man #10 Formation of man #2 Mortal bodies and Tartarian habitation

Creation of the earth and man #11 Formation of man #3 Infant salvation and non-elect infant damnation

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Additional reading:

1. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
2. God does not change
3. Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?
4. Equal?
5. Doest thou well to be Angry?
6. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
7. Doctrine and Conduct Cause and Effect

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• User:Cosmic Ordering Secrets Review (appropedia.org)
• Research sheds light on end of Snowball Earth period (spacedaily.com)
• Into My Bookshelf: God is Not a Christian (charlotteblackwood.com)
• Sacred Moments (blueskiesandlollipops.wordpress.com)
• But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (1956msbess.wordpress.com)