As I read social media posts and
listen to videos made by those who
purport to be minsters of the gospel
and by those whom they have
influence, I must ask the question,
have we lost the plot of the gospel?
Does the hope that God has for His
life with man which He declared in
Genesis 1, match how you see the
culmination of God’s plan?
So, before we go any further, lets
address what that hope is and what
it is not.
Genesis 1:26-27
26 And God said, Let us make man
in Our image, after Our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth.
27 So God created man in His own
image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female
created he them.
Notice that God states His desire in
verse 26 to make man in His image
and after His likeness, however in
verse 27 it only ever states image.
Now, just so there be no wiggle room
here, let say it as definitively as
we can, to be in the likeness of
God, would be to be immortal. No one
who can die can say they are in the
likeness of God.
Being that Adam died, we can say
with certainty he was not in the
likeness of God.
So here is the question: How many
men have ever appeared in flesh that
can never die again? Which would be
in the likeness of God.
One, the man Jesus Christ.
Hence the revelation of Jesus
Christ, the Amen, the faithful and
true witness, the
beginning of the creation of
God.
Revelation 3:14
And the angel of the church of
the Laodiceans write; These things
saith the Amen, the faithful and
true witness, the beginning of
the creation of God;
You see, the book of revelation is a
creation book, not a gloom and doom
book. The first Adam died, Jesus,
the second Adam lives forevermore in
the likeness of God in glorified
flesh at the Father’s right hand.
Which declares His justice for all
men.
In Genesis, God stated His hope for
His life with man, promising to be
the One to bring it to pass.
So, was there anything in what God
stated in Genesis and revealed in
the man Jesus Christ, who came out
of the grave in the image and
likeness of God, that said, God
hoped you would just behave
correctly? Was there anything that
said, you needed to humble yourself
and pray to bring it to pass?
Was the hope for God’s life with man
that He destroy the temple in 70
A.D., would that be the culmination
of His hope?
Was the culmination of His hope seen
in Him punishing man for their
disobedience?
All these answers would be certainly
not.
If we want to call the gospel we
preach, truth, the beginning and the
culmination of God’s plan can only
ever be seen in Christ.
So, knowing what God’s hope and His
plan was for man from the beginning,
let’s go on.
Why? The why is very simple, God who
has no beginning and no end, wanted
others to share in the life that,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit had
together. God’s love for man was
everlasting love, which means with
perpetuity. The way that God could
have His hope for His life is for
Him to join Himself to them and they
would be one flesh. If that sounds
familiar, it is the reason why God
gave Adam, Eve, was to persuade him
of how He felt about man, in how
Adam saw his help meet, Eve. And
when Adam saw her, the first thing
he said was, she is bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh.
The way for Adam to be in the
likeness of God was for Adam to be
persuaded of God’s love for him, to
the point that he would join himself
to God and they would become one
flesh. You see love can only come
through persuasion.
If you tried to lock someone up,
capturing them so that they would
love you, that cannot ever produce
love. Love can only be born in a
heart persuaded of your love and
goodness toward them.
So, it is in this state (of
persuasion) in which we see Adam in
Genesis 2, not having yet joined
himself to God. And in that state
God sees something in the garden
that can bring harm to His beloved,
and so He says, (as any loving
Father would) do not eat from
the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. For in the day that you
eat of it, you will surely die.
You see, not being joined to God
immortal, God knows that Adam could
die if he were to eat of that tree,
but God says, in the day
you eat, it will become a certainty,
you will die.
Note that He did not say in the day
you eat your heart will stop beating
and you will drop over dead. And I
only mention this because many have
made conclusions (about this only
being a spiritual death) based upon
that not happening, but the verbiage
here means that having joined
yourself to death (the corrupt
wisdom of the serpent now contained
in the tree of good and evil and not
Christ) from that day you eat, it
would become a certainty that you
will die and return to the dust of
the ground.
Also note that God didn’t give a
command to test Adam to see if he
would obey. Would a good earthly
father tell his child not to run in
the road to test him or rather so
that his child would not suffer harm
or death? If we know how to be
good father’s, why would we think
less of our heavenly Father?
Now then, after Adam ate, what was
Adam’s problem? Was Adam’s problem
that he just didn’t know who he was
in Christ? Was Adam’s problem that
he couldn’t follow the rules, or
that he produced bad fruit? Those
could only ever be symptoms of
Adam’s real problem.
He was dead in his transgression. Or
said another way, he was dead having
rejected the only life that could
never die. He was married to death,
he was perishing and would return to
the dust of the ground.
For us to say Adam’s root problem
was anything else other than death
is to completely ignore what just
clearly transpired in Genesis 1 to
3.
Adam was dead and death would reign
over all his seed after him.
So, we come to the gospel, which
means good news. What would be good
news to Adam?
Would the good news be that God
wasn’t mad at him for disobeying and
eating from that tree? Or that He
wasn’t mad at him for the bad fruit
or individual sins that might come
from him? None of that would help
him with his root problem, he’s
married in bondage to death.
The church tends to preach
forgiveness as the “appeasing of
anger”. But biblical forgiveness
is not about appeasing anger but
rather God divorcing you from and
sending away from you the thing
which was reigning over man, death.
The forgiveness of sin is not
talking about God forgiving you (as
in not being angry with you) for
your individual sins or faults which
can manifest in you each day.
But sin, which is a noun, is
speaking about the sin that
brought death into the world through
Adam rejecting God’s way to share in
His life and the forgiveness of that
sin being sent away from you, its
sting removed from you.
The good news (to Adam and all
people) is that God came as a man
to divorce all men from their union
to the death that reigned over
them, that entered through Adam
(Genesis 3 & Romans 5:12).
In Romans 5, the Holy Spirit through
Paul states that death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even reigning over
those who had not transgressed in
the same way as Adam. He does not
say Adam to Moses by accident, he is
saying that death reigned before the
law was given, as many will say the
law is the thing that was killing
them.
But no, Paul is clearly pointing out
two things; that God didn’t bring
the death that reigned and neither
did the law. In fact, he says that
the law is the knowledge of sin,
meaning, pointing to the thing that
brought death and was killing us.
The last time I checked if something
is telling you what is killing you,
that’s not a bad thing.
Death was the thing which had to be
conquered, and the law was (set
apart for a specific purpose, i.e.,
“holy”) the thing that pointed to
the One who would come as the Lamb
of God to destroy the death that
reigned. Adam’s sin of rejecting
God’s way to share in His life was
the thing which brought death, and
not the law of Moses, so the faith
of God to man, has nothing to do
with destroying the law but Christ
crucified was the faith of God
toward man.
Christ (the second Adam) crucified
to the life He could have in the
world through His own strength so
that He, being baptized into our
death might end our union to the
death that reigned over all men.
It is only the carnal mind that
thought that the law was telling
them they could be justified to life
by performing carnal commandments.
Christ never looked at the law to
perform carnal commands to be raise
to life and immortality, but He
looked at the law and knew that He
as the Lamb of God could be baptized
into our death, taking it into the
grave and coming out one new man,
free from sin and death.
The good news of seeing that the
death that reigned over man has been
conquered means you are free to live
(being persuaded of His life and
love) unto God, and that access to
the tree of life has been restored
and you can now freely eat from the
tree of life.
God’s solution to man’s problem, to
Adam’s problem, was to raise a man
from the grave in immortal flesh,
who refused to be justified by
anything other than His Father and
His promise to raise Him up from the
grave, not allowing Him to see
corruption. He was crucified to the
life He could serve Himself in the
world.
We have a high priest who sits as a
man in glorified flesh at the right
hand of God in the power of an
endless life.
We are saved by the hope of the same
life that came out of the grave in
the bodily resurrection of Jesus
Christ and this sure hope puts our
flesh to rest, that we also will be
justified to the same life by
trusting in the promise of the
Father of eternal life (which was
from the beginning and revealed in
immortal flesh in Jesus Christ.
The hope of the gospel is being
attacked. But it is no small thing
that Paul said we are saved by hope.
If we do not have a high priest who
sits an immortal man then we have no
hope.
If you remove hope from the gospel,
you remove the gospel itself. Jesus
said my flesh rests in hope.
And the hope that His flesh went to
rest in was the Father’s promise to
not leave Him in the grave or allow
Him to see corruption.
Likewise, our flesh rests in hope
when we see He has conquered our
death in the flesh and promised to
raise us up to the same life that
came out of the grave in immortal
flesh and bone.
Romans 6 says that since we have
been planted together in the
likeness of His death so will be in
the likeness of His resurrection.
Hope is the certainty of the gospel,
to inherit His life and likeness in
the resurrection. This sure hope
allows you to rest in that life
right now, just as Jesus was able to
rest on the cross, for the joy that
was set before Him. This hope is the
only word that will satisfy the
flesh and put it to rest, just as it
did in Jesus.
I will say it again, if you remove
the hope of the gospel, you have
removed the gospel.
I speak about hope in more detail
here:
(http://jesusfinishedwork.com/what-is-the-hope-of-the-gospel.html)
Lastly, God gave the first Adam a
command to subdue the earth, which
Adam did not do. But Jesus, the
second Adam WILL subdue the earth.
Jesus HAS passed tense conquered
death in the flesh, yet Paul points
out in 1 Cor 15:25-26 that He must
reign till He has put all enemies
under His feet.
Revelation 21:4
And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any
more pain: for the former things are
passed away.
There is most certainly still death,
sorrow and crying in the earth.
Matthew 5:5
Blessed are the meek: for they shall
inherit the earth.
I see that many today are erring
because they do not know the
scriptures, specifically they do not
know the plot of the gospel which we
are discussing that the scriptures
declare, that death was God and
man’s enemy and must be removed in
the day He comes to clothe us in the
likeness of His life in the
redemption of our bodies. And if we
don’t understand that we will look
at the verses referencing “the last
days” and start saying, where is the
promise of His coming? And falsely
conclude that these last days must
be past.
But the last days are a specific
reference to the last days of
death in the earth. Since the
day that Jesus conquered death in
the flesh, we have been in the last
days of death in the earth. As long
as there is still death in the
earth, we are still in the last
days.
Some will say, what about Jesus
speaking about this generation?
While in the very same book of
Matthew Jesus uses the phrase
“generation of vipers”, this is not
speaking about a specific 40 year
generation but the period of time
where those in the earth are still
believing in the corrupt wisdom of
the
serpent until the day that is
removed from the earth.
This generation (of vipers) will not
pass away, until all be fulfilled.
Heaven and earth will pass away but
my words shall not pass away.
Matthew 24:34-35.
And what is it that will be
fulfilled but the thing we have been
speaking about, men being clothed in
likeness of God in the new heaven
and new earth.
As my Pastor Greg Henry has said,
“If our eschatology finds its
fulfillment in anything other than a
glorified earth inherited by humans
in glorified bodies no longer
subject to death or decay it’s
shortsighted.”
I would add that it is shortsighted
in that it ignores the hope and the
promise of God which was from the
beginning and has never changed or
waivered.
Heaven was never God’s back up plan
for man when Adam brought death into
the world. In the creation story, we
see God says after each day, “it is
good”. This word good in Hebrew
actually means complete.
But there was one day that God did
not say, it was good and that was on
day two. What was it that was not
complete about day 2?
Genesis 1:6-8
6 And God said, Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament and
divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament: and
it was so.
8 And God called the firmament
Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.
In day two, heaven and earth were
separated by sea. And in Revelation
21:1 we see in the new heaven and
new earth there is no more sea.
Revelation 21:1
And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away; and
there was no more sea.
Man subduing the earth would be
joining heaven and earth as one, no
more separation. Some have said that
“we” as believers will bring this to
pass but 1 Cor 15:25-28 says that it
is Christ who reigns and He is the
One excepted (the Son, the second
Adam), who will put all things under
His feet.
In closing, I want to say that I
realize all the detail that is not
mentioned in this note but my
purpose for writing it was so that
as you go forward in studying the
details, you would not forget the
plot that was from the beginning.
And that the plot can be fully seen
in Christ. God did not change His
mind midstream; His promise and His
wisdom did not skip a beat when man
died.
But the One who promised was able to
also perform.
Romans 4:21
And being fully persuaded that, what
he had promised, he was able also to
perform.
Grace & Peace to all who read this.