In Genesis 1:26, God said, “let us make man in our image and after our likeness.”
Replacement Theology on a whole different level
God never said, let us make man a god like us. Some people have erroneously taught that we were created in the same class with God to be like God.
Adam, the first man, was created to till the ground (Genesis 2:5) and manage the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). God never intended for them to know good or evil. God intended for Adam to refashion the earth into the image of the garden of Eden and to enjoy the bounty of his blessing.
The Seventh Day
God created the Seventh Day as a Sabbath. The Seventh Day was designed to be the crowning glory of the works of God’s hands, the completion of creation. In other words, Adam was given ONE creation day, the seventh day, 1000 years, to finish the work of creation on earth.
If Adam had finished the work, Eden, the city of God, would moved to the earth and God would be with man for all eternality. The fruit of the tree of life would have been Adam’s reward. This is going to happen during the millennial reign of Christ. According the Revelation 20, Satan will be bound with a chain and cast into the bottomless pit. According to Revelation 21, after the 1000 year reign of Christ is completed, the city of the New Jerusalem will move to earth and there will be a new temple in the midst of the city. We are told, that God and the Lamb are the temple of it. In Revelation 22, the curse is finally removed and the tree of life is restore.
The knotty problems of Details
God never gave up on his plans. This is the reason he made the Sabbath rest a part of the 10 commandments to the nation of Israel. God is very serious about the Sabbath. The reason why the Sabbath is important, is because through the Sabbath rest people came to depend upon and trust God for his blessings which are vital to growth. The nation of Israel had to give the land a rest period every seventh year. Every 50th year, they had to release their debts. They had to tithe the first fruits of the land. Israel never fully gave the rest. They continued to work on the sabbath. This caused them to be cast out of the land until the land was about to enjoy its full set of sabbath rest.
Sunday is a legal holiday, (holy-day), as far as the government is concern. If a holiday falls on Sunday, it is observed on Monday. Israel’s Sabbath is observed from sun down on Friday to sun down on Saturday, the seventh day. Christian’s Sabbath is observed on the first day of the week, Sunday, the day Jesus was resurrected from the dead. As a matter of employment, workers are given two days rest period. Saturday was seen as a day of rest and Sunday was a day of worship.
This concept of the Sabbath is encoded in our laws and they are called blue laws. The blue laws are dangerous in the sense that God never made a covenant with no other nation beside Israel. The New Testament, is a covenant that is based on an individual personal choice; whosoever wills. It is a covenant based on grace and not the 10 commandments. Christians have been in God’s Sabbath Rest for 2000 years.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meet and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
You shall be as gods knowing god and evil
The serpent tempted Eve with this reasoning, ‘if she ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she will become as gods knowing good and evil.’ Eve saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that it was a source, good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She took and eat the fruit the fruit and gave some to her husband. This is the exact reason why they were driven out of the Garden of Eden,
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” Genesis 3:22
You would think it was a good thing that man has become as God. Adam wasn’t created to be a god. He was created to serve, to be a servant and in this role he enjoyed the benefits of partnership with God. This concept is seen in Jesus coming to earth to serve and not to be served (Mark 10:29). You also see it in Revelation 22:3, in regards to man being God’s servants.
“And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.”
As far as earth is concern, partnership between God and man is first mentioned in Genesis 1:26-27 and is revealed in Genesis 2:19. The partnership was broken when Adam eat the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.”
God had to keep Adam from access to the tree of life because its fruit could give Adam the ability to live forever as gods knowing good and evil. God places a flaming sword at the entrance of the garden of Eden, to protect the tree of life. He also place Cherubim’s in the garden of Eden. Cherubim are angels who are associated with worship. The Cherubim temporarily held his until Jesus arrived.
Adam is now in a fallen state. He is in a pace where he can make his own decisions independent of God. In Genesis chapter 4, we see the downward spiral of Adam’s descendants. Cain and Abel is an example of what it means to be a god.
God still demands a sacrifice
God still demands a sacrifice. The system he created demands a sacrifice. The system reward based on obedience.
Cain and Abel brings a sacrifice as did their father Adam when he was in the garden of Eden. God changed the sacrifice from a fruit based offering to the blood of an animal sacrifice.
Cain brings the fruit of his ground as a sacrifice. Abel offers the firstlings of flock as a sacrifice. God accepts Abel’s sacrifice. God rejects Cain’s sacrifice. What’s the difference between the two sacrifices?
Abel’s offering was called a more excellent sacrifice by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. Cain persisted to operate under the old order of sacrifice.
God holds Cain accountable
God asked Cain a question
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?’
In other words, God asked Cain, “why are you angry? Why are you depressed?”
God said, “If thou does well, shalt thou not be accepted? The word, “accepted”, means to, ” have excellence”. God is saying, if you do what is required of you, you will be blessed in the work of your hands.
Then God says to Cain,
“And if thou doest not well, sin liveth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”
God said to Cain, ‘If you don’t do what is required of you, Sin is waiting at the door and it desires you but you must master sin.
Being a god demands that you master sin by doing what is required of you. In other words, give God what he requires of you!
What is sin? Sin is trespassing the bounds that has been set down by God. Who is God? He is the One who created the system.
Cain is languishing, Abel is prospering! Cain is talking with Abel of which the Bible doesn’t go into details. Cain rose up against Abel and killed him. God holds Cain accountable for his choices.
Cain chose to address his problem by murdering his brother.
“For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” 1 John 3:11-12
Adam’s generations ended at the flood. God was grieved that he had made man. He strived with people to do right.
Genesis 6:5-8
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repented me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”
The people of Adam’s generation lived 900+ years. Noah and his family were the only ones who escaped the judgment of that period. Men took what they wanted and wickedness was great upon the earth. Every thought and imagination of their heart was only to do evil continually. Man’s whole purpose and desire was to do evil.
One of the consequences of sin in Adam’s generations, man’s life span was cut to about a tenth of its original potential, to 120 years, according to Genesis 6:3. Man’s original life span was 1000 years and with the rewards of the tree of life, its potential was eternal life, everlasting life.
The very first thing Noah does he gets off the ark, Genesis 8:20-22
“And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
Noah’s sacrifice of obedience, a blood sacrifice!
- God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice
- God granted grace regarding men’s wicked imagination in that he promised to never destroy the earth by a flood.
- God lifts the curse off the ground by promising consistent harvest seasons. This is major blessing of grace because Noah fore-fathers struggled with the ground to get it to reproduce. According to Genesis 5:28-29, “And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: and he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath curse.”
- Noah gives God the required sacrifice! Noah’s name means grace
- God blesses Noah and his family, Genesis 9:1
The Benefit of the sacrifice
You need it daily. Your family needs it. Your community needs it. Your city needs it. The country needs it. The earth needs it. The blessing of God is not just in words. It empowers you to carry out the will of God. God’s original vision has not changed. God gave Adam dominion over all the works of his hands. God blessed him and said, be fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue have dominion over everything that flies, swim, crawl or creep upon the earth. The system was designed around Adam to work for him not against him.
One of the benefits of the cross of Jesus Christ
Jesus redeemed us from the curse being made a curse for us that the blessing…. Galatians 3:13. Jesus disarms principalities and powers, evil forces. He blotted out the ordinances that were contrary to us nailing them to his cross, Colossians 2:14-15. He opens the way to this into the very holy of holies, by this dispensation of grace, Hebrews 10:12-22
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is still in our midst but also is the message of the cross. Jesus is called the Lamb of God. The book of Revelation, chapter 5, the fullness of the revelation and power is flowing into the earth!
Secrets from the Garden of Eden 