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.