Does the bible relate in all ages ?
19 Jan 2019
2 Cor 8: 9 ,"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."
Gen 1: 26-27,"
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
What is our trouble ? Well basically it is this .Our bible reading takes us into what , for us, is quite a new world- namely, the Near eastern world as it was thousands of years ago, primitive, barbaric, unmechanised, agriculture based. God dealing with Jews , Abraham , Moses and later Jesus . Its all intensely interesting but far away. It all belongs to that world , not to this world currently. We feel that we are so to speak , on the outside of Bible. Yes God did all that, How can we record of all that God did in that age , help us in this digital age…. We believe there is a large gap or chasm between the truths of the 2 worlds . We cannot see how it links….. The link is GOD himself .
World Economic Forum list / economic issues have listed the problems the world faces currently in ascending order...
11. Gender equality -- Human element
10. Lack of economic opportunity and employment (12.1%) -- Human element
9. Safety / security / wellbeing (14.1%) - Human element
8. Lack of education (15.9%) - Human element
7. Food and water security (18.2%) - Nature & human element
6. Government accountability and transparency / corruption (22.7%) - Human element
5. Religious conflicts (23.9%) - Human element
4. Poverty (29.2%) - Human element
3. Inequality (income, discrimination) (30.8%) - Human element
2. Large scale conflict / wars (38.9%) - Human element
1. Climate change / destruction of nature (48.8%)- Nature & human element
If you notice the above survey, the major concern is linked with humans. And most of the issues have been close to similar with man ,since ages.Subsequently , it leads us to ask many question about we humans ourselves. So ,lets find the link starting from the beginning onwards. Hence, like to bring your attention to Genesis chapters , to discuss 3 aspects or questions which has been asked by all generations in the perspective of their life .When we filter them down, it is more or else, similar questions that we ask fundamentally :-
Why and how was man created ?
Why did he create us as man and woman ?
How can we achieve our Purpose and comprehend our life in all ages ?
When we read books or poetries , we understand & relish them better ,when we have a better understanding about the Author. We can understand the working or mechanism of a Machine or an equipment when we read the Owners manual / understand the internal principle/the thermodynamics…. Similarly, to understand our own being , the conscious, subconscious mind … we need to gather an understanding of the Owner or the Creator. When we try to find the problem or feature of a Car from the external visual we see , it is difficult & tedious to find the actual fact / truth. If you notice a Car , the creator in no way even resembles with it externally . Everywhere we can see this stark distinction between the creator and the creation very clearly in the external . There is a need to start from the actual internal principle or from the Owners wisdom or manual . What are we trying to do here . The Author has written the poem or script in his own embodiment of thoughts & being. Similarly when we find that man has been created in the image of God our journey forward makes it easier. When we gather a wisdom about our own Author or Creator,our understanding of our own inner & outer being becomes more clearer and easier to connect with reality. There is a need to understand to know your inner being or spirit ,to know ourselves better . Are we trying to understand the Car only by its external features & ignoring the main internal parts . This understanding about our inner man gives us an identity in life. Our life becomes meaningful & purposeful. God is a spirit & he has put in a component of his being in us , our inner man/ spirit ( aids God consciousness) . Gen 2: 7 , Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. The Hebrew word for breathe is Nismat - breathe / spirit is seen in Prov 20:27 .The human spirit (Nismat, נִשְׁמַ֣ת) is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one’s inmost being. Genesis 7:21-22, Hebrew phrase נִשְׁמַת־רוּחַ חַיִּים (nishmat ruach hayyim), the breathe of spirit of life . We have an outer flesh body man (aids world consciousness, Rom 8 : 7) . Our soul or mind (aids self consciousness) is connected to this Outer man & inner man . Gen 1:26-27… The Hebrew word for” image”, צֶלֶם (tzelem) . This word צֶלֶם is related to the Hebrew word for "shadow" צֵל (tzel). A shadow is an imperfect image resembling the real thing which casts it. The “image of God”, tzelem Elohim, can therefore also be understood as tzel Elohim, “God’s shadow”, in the sense that it is an imperfect copy of the perfect real image. God made Man in his own image or likeness. We man are also in the same spree …Men are trying the same, to make robots in the image and likeness of man….
When we read the first chapters of Genesis , there are certain truths we understand…like to expand on those truths
Firstly Human beings have been created by God. I think this begs for an explanation. Why did he create us? To answer that question accurately , we need to ask more questions. Who is God ? and Who is man ? Brief answer is , God is personal , infinite, moral, holy ,incomprehensible,first cause. No matter, no physical concrete reality explains its own existence . God is the only being whose reason for his being is in himself.
Who is Man ? Man is personal , finite, fallen being ,God’s creation . When you create something, you have a reason for creating it. What does the poet feel looking at his poem ? What does the Artist feel ,looking at his art work ? But does the world as we know it give an adequate answer to that question?
God created man for a specific reason too. The Old Testament, Gen 1: 26, speaks of man bringing the world under his dominion. It speaks of being created to show forth God’s glory (Isaiah 43:7). It speaks of the earth being filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. But what do we see ? We don't see these God's purposes in the world about dominion over the nature , Glory of God and the knowledge and wisdom about God ,as we look at the human race.We see a world in rebellion against the Creator. Truly speaking , the world is in the image of its king , satan, with envy , malice , strife and all darkness. Its about self achievement and selfish ends .Just like Adam & Eve when they fell ,were filled with this major self- consciousness , on how to defend the self, blamed the other to justify ownself. The image of God was replaced with the image of satan. What is the image of Satan : Eph 4 : 18-19 . We lost the righteousness and holiness of God after we fell . It is the state of spiritual death . No human being could ever match that glory as Adam and Eve had ,before they fell, as we lost it because of sin .
What is the image of God in its perfection ? Eph 4 : 21-24. Its goodness, righteousness and holiness of God. 1 Cor 1: 30 & Heb 1: 3 . Christ is the perfect likeness of God.
Why is it that no amount of human goodness, human works, human morality, or religious activity can gain acceptance with God or get anyone into heaven? I want to explain this with a small incident while I was meditating this verse 2 Cor 8: 9 . I had pain around my eyes since a week , it was giving me a pain and slight blurr in focusing and in vision. It was an eye infection .Now I know why God gave me that pain. I was told to by doctor to give warm compresses. Sobha gave me a white handerchief, which was kept safely apart , ironed, brand new and super clean. She gave this to me , told me to soak this in Hot water and slowly massage it around the infection. Do you realise that I could not apply the warm water directly over the eye. It will burn my eye away . But I had to use this white clean handerchief to wipe away my infection. Christ has come to us like this white cloth , he had to go through a hot crucifixion experience in order to heal my sin and bring the vision out of my sore eye. What the whole world is actually trying is to put this warm water with their own hands and apply it on their face . The result is only that your hands get burnt .We are trying to heal our sin with our own working of the hands, our own laws and our own righteousness. In fact I cannot do it with any part of my own body . The more I try to work out my own righteousness to the law ,the more I burn myself . I need someone else to give me a white cloth . No matter how much ever I clean my hands and legs, there will still be some kind of bacteria on my hand. And my hand cannot take the heat of the water .We know of people who try to get this healing by washing there hands and legs .We cannot be washed clean and healed with any human efforts because we ourselves are a bad towel . Ps 49: 7-8 ,"7 No one can redeem the life of another
or give to God a ransom for them—8 the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough— &
Isaiah 64 :6," All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
How did God work this out for us…?
2Cor 5:21, God made the one who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the right-eousness of God . God made the one who is holy , righteous to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the right-eousness of God .
2 Cor 8: 9 . Rich in goodness , righteousness and holiness
. I could never receive my healing & vision without this clean brand new white cloth . This likeness comes into us by God’s Holy spirit . Unless God himself comes and resides in us , we cannot get cleansed. The Cross and ressurection of Christ was followed by the entry of the Holy spirit into the lives of men. His purposes in creation are incomplete without the work of Christ. God’s purpose about Adam, could only be executed by Christ . Jesus said , I have overcome the world…. My father has glorified me . 2 Cor 4: 6 .
“Only in Christ can the purpose of creation be achieved.”
Why did God create man ? It has several key answers .Look at the world ,,, What do people need basically , what does a employee need from his employer What does a wife look from her husband and viceversa. What does Parents look from their children and what do children look from their parents. What does a man seek from another man. What does a Bride need from the groom . There is one common thing . To make it simple , if my son were to ask me ,why he was created, I would say , 'cause I wanted it , we as parents wanted you so dearly . God wanted us so badly . I would tell Joshua and Nethen , that we wanted you and to possess you . The feeling of being Wanted , is great . The vision in throne room in heaven starts with a praise and worship and ends with a remark .. Rev 4 :11 after the angels praise God, they finally say 11 You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You have created all things, and because of Your will they were, and were created. 1 Pet 2:9 says you are my chosen race . John the Baptist said ,” 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom.” Isaiah 62: 5 says, a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. . Do you realise that God rejoices over us ,that’s why he created you . How marvelous is that thought . We are placed here right now, not just randomly but the product of immense love and wanting with all joy.
Are we like God? Well, yes and no. Yes, we are like God. We know this because in Genesis 9:6 God said to Noah, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” In other words, even in a world where sin abounds (with the likes of murder), human beings are still in the image of God. They may not be killed like mice and mosquitoes.They are valuable. You forfeit your life if you murder a human being (see James 3:9).God created us in his image, but we have marred it almost beyond recognition, and Jesus is the answer. He comes by faith, he forgives, he cleanses, and he begins a reclamation project called sanctification that will end in the glory that God intended for human beings in the first place. Therefore, since we know that we were created in the image of God, our sin and corruption begs for an answer. Furthermore, the human body was the form in which God the Son would be incarnated or ‘made in the likeness of men’ (Philippians 2:7). Thus God made man in that bodily form which He Himself would one day assume—the form in which He wished to reveal Himself. Heb 10:5 5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.’ A body You have prepared for Me.' What kind of body did God prepare for Jesus? He wasn’t made like the angels. He wasn’t made like Adam before the fall. It was like ours. God saw the Cross before he created Adam. Why ? Heb 2: 14-18 (which is the revelation given to woman , who symbolizes the Church the bride , in Gen 3: 15)
“Only Christ completes our comprehension of the marriage covenant.”
In 1 Peter 3:7, Peter says that a Christian husband and wife are “fellow heirs of the grace of life.” What does this mean? It means that in Christ, men and women recover what was meant by being created male and female in God’s image. It means that together as male and female they are to image-forth the glory of God and together as fellow-heirs they are to inherit the glory of God. (see Mark 12:25; Luke 20:34–36). In my Sunday school , a student asked a very genuine question, why should we get married……….? It was a genuine question from a child who was distressed with the life around her.
When sin entered the world, the effect on our relationship as male and female was devastating. God comes to Adam after he had eaten the forbidden fruit and asks what has happened. Adam says in Genesis 3:12, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.” In other words, it is her fault (or yours for giving her to me!), so if somebody must die for eating the fruit, it better be her!
There you have the beginning of all domestic violence, all wife abuse, all rape, all sexual slurs, all the ways of belittling woman whom God created in his own image.
Genesis 3:16 pronounces a curse on fallen man and woman like this: To the woman, God says, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” In other words, the result of sin and the curse of our age is conflict between the sexes. This verse is not a description of the way things should be. This is a description of the cursed way things are going to be while sin reigns. Dominating men and devious women. This is not the meaning of male and female in God’s image. It is the foulness/ dreadfulness of sin.
The other truth in these verses is that God created us male and female. And this too points to Christianity and begs for the completion of Christ. How? In at least two ways. One comes from the mystery of marriage. The other comes from the historical ugliness/ unpleasantness of male-female relationships in sin.
He calls Genesis 2:24 a “mystery” because God did not reveal clearly all his purposes for the marriage of male and female in Genesis. There were hints and pointers in the Old Testament that marriage was like the relation of God and his people. But only when Christ came ,did the mystery of marriage got spelled out in detail. It is meant to be a portrait of Christ’s covenant with his people, his commitment to the church. Now when the apostle Paul quotes this verse in Ephesians 5:31-32, he says, “This is a great mystery, and I say it refers to Christ and the church.” And, with that as his clue, he unfolds the meaning of marriage: It’s a symbol of Christ’s love for the church represented in the husband’s loving headship toward his wife; and it’s a symbol of the church’s glad submission to Christ represented in the wife’s relation to her husband. And the meaning of marriage is not known in its essence or fullness until we see it as a parable of Christ’s relationship to the church. No one can fully grasp what it means to be male and female in marriage until they see that marriage is meant to portray Christ and the church. And no one can know the true destiny of being created male and female in God’s image until they know that male and female are fellow heirs of the grace of life.
When we unite as man and woman in marriage , symbolic of the Chruch & Christ… the unity brings about the power of God in our life and in our Family, in our state and in our country . Satan is the one who is trying to rip this apart, starting with the division of the family. In all our family lives we are dominated by a spirit of fear . That’s when we lose stability in marriages. It is out of fear that all sort of lies and pride evolves. Look at the Adam & Eve , were found hiding after they sinned, a state of fear which led them to all sins . The Family is united by the presence of the Holy spirit . There is power and love established. 2 Timothy 1: 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Power of God is evident when we remain united as a family in Christ. For this reason, from the very beginning of creation, the home has been under attack. Satan attacked the home by tempting Adam and Eve in the garden. He attacks the home because it destroys the image of God, and therefore, our societies become farther and farther away from God, as the family decays and erodes. The family is the foundation of society, so when the home falls, the church falls, and when the church falls, the nation falls. He knows ultimately when Christ unites with his bride, the church ,when the count of gentiles saved is complete, its game over.. that’s when, he would be eternally cast into the lake of fire. Its his intention to remove this power out of our lives , so that his destruction is prolonged and deferred. Rev 19: 18- 20 where the marriage supper of the Lamb is mentioned .This is definitely a good reason to remain married . The spiritual truth behind it something what we need to ask the Holy spirit to teach us . This is what we need to convey to our generations…Marriage signifies God's love, and his arrangement in uniting the church for his 2nd coming . This gives us a true reason to all questions about existence of Man,Woman & marriage.
And finally no one can fully understand the meaning of singleness as male and female in God’s image until they learn from Christ that in the age to come there will be no marriage, and therefore the glorious destiny of being male and female in God’s image is not dependent on marriage, but on devotion to the Lord. 1 Corinthians 7:8, 32-35 - Singleness as male & female .. Paul also explains the Marriage is a temporary institution for this age until the resurrection of the dead. The essence of its meaning and purpose is to represent Christ’s relation to the church. But when the reality comes, the representation as we know it will be laid aside. And there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage in the age to come.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Where did this happen ? On the Cross . God saw the cross before he made man . Cross was not for Jesus alone but to the whole humanity , because it signifies that the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Gal 6: 14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.
What is this richness ? Jesus gave his Life as a ransom to us (Mat 20:28). Richness of the Holy spirit
How can we achieve our true Purpose and comprehend our life in all ages ? The answer is that we cannot achieve it . We need Christ also to accomplish it , its only through him that it is possible.
Christ completed Man’s purpose & meaning in our life , Paul says Eph 3 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. We need to connect every siituation of our Life with Christ to give us a true purpose & meaning . May God bless you with this word .