PREAMBLE
Most of us are familiar with the story of creation and the common interpretation that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Thus, signifying that man is flesh or carnal and is destined to die. And after death, as we believe, depending on our religious leaning, the spirit is freed to meet God for judgment or to return to earth to live out his life on earth or remain in the grave until the last day when the trumpet shall sound and all will arise to face judgment. The question is, what do we then say about those who never saw death? Enoch and Prophet Elijah, for example, never saw death. ( Hebrew 11: 5; 2kings2:11). This should tell us that death is not inevitable.
We know that it was sin that brought death on earth. Remove sin and death will disappear. Many Christians say that man cannot live without sinning and they quote relevant chapters of the Scripture to support their assertion. The question remains, why did Christ Jesus come in the first place? Is it not to take away the sins of the world? To redeem us from our sins and reconcile us with God our father? OR are we saying he did not die for us again? where is our believe? Where is our understanding?
The only reason man continues to sin is his belief in the material sense of things, or belief of flesh. For the flesh, as it is written, is an enemy of God and is not subject to the law of God. It is earthy and sensual and tends to vanity only. The flesh does not know God. Proverbs 23: 7 says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Also, Jesus taught us the power of belief. To most people who sought healing from him, he cured by saying, “according to your faith, be it unto you”. He sometimes asks, do you believe that I can do this”. In Mark 11 : 23, he tells us, whatsoever we believe without having any doubt in our hearts will come to pass.
The belief and thought that we are flesh draws us away from God and takes us deeper into the worldly or fleshly things of life for what we strongly believe in and dwell passionately upon in our thought comes to play itself out in our lives. It drives our actions. We hear ourselves say when somebody has done something wrong, “after all we are human”, thereby, trying to excuse that act on the ground that we are flesh and portraying our belief and agreement that sin is inherent in us, hence, we are bound to sin. And what happens? We continue to sin. If we center our BEING and thought on God, the Spirit of God leads and drives our actions. It quickens the soul. The soul becomes subservient to the Spirit and follows its directives. However, without the Spirit of God directing it, the soul tends to vanity, lives and cloths itself in vanity as it continually gropes in darkness. It is the Spirit of God that knows the things of God, as the bible says, and therefore, leads us according to the will of God.
From time immemorial, man has believed so much on the action of the flesh and this has had tremendous impact on how we live our lives. St John said, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin for His seed remains in him. He cannot sin because he is born of God. (1John3:9). Therefore, it is possible for man not to sin once we have our priorities right. We must refocus our passion from the things of the flesh to the things of the Spirit. We must build our faith in God and God alone. In so doing, we can mortify the deeds of the flesh through the Spirit (Romans 8:13).
WHAT BIBLE SAYS
"In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him male and female created He them and blessed them and called their name ADAM." (Genesis 5:1-2).
When addressing man's nature from scriptural point of view, we focus attention mostly on Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2: 7 while ignoring the above chapter 5 where lies the true explanation of the nature of man. Here, Adam is gender nonspecific even when the bible tells us that God created man, male and female in his image and likeness.
God is a Spirit. (John 4:24). And, He is neither male nor female but possesses and manifests what we know as the masculine and feminine qualities or characteristics. God is not gendered as we usually say. We associate Him with Power, Might, Strength, Guidance, Protection and the like which we regard as male attributes; and Gentleness, Faithfulness, Care, Nurture, Humility and so on, which are female qualities; and Love. In love, we have the fullness of both the male and female attributes. This is the reason Love is the gateway to Christ like life.
We read above that God made them male and female and called their name Adam. Adam as God’s image and likeness is a man who possesses both the male and female attributes of God in their fullness, in union with one another and expressing them harmoniously as one body. Adam, though, not God, is in perfect unity with God, made to reflect the fullness of God on earth and blessed to have dominion over His (God’s) works on earth. It is the expression of this oneness that gives us our true identity as children of God, made in His image and likeness. In this oneness, we, in our individual capacities (and in effect collectively), are expressing the fullness of God, and our physical attributes, Names, differences or nationalities or self - will do not count and therefore play no role. In this state, as the bible says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female (neither man nor woman) for we are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatia 3:28). In this state, we reach the measure of the standard of Christ. (Ephesians 4: 13). In this state, we are perfect. We are made perfect in one and the only way to achieve this perfection is Love; love of God and His creatures. It is this state of oneness that God symbolized as man which He named Adam. Adam and Eve’s story is therefore an allegory- true and symbolic.
This man, Adam, is Spirit - driven and incapable of sinning as he does not have the capacity, tendency or ability to sin. He has dominion and the earth is in subjection to him. It is only in this state or nature that Adam can fulfil the perfect will of God. And, this state of Adam is the true selfhood of man. It is this state of oneness Jesus showed us how to live and the Spirit continues to show us. This is the perfect man God wants us to become.
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