The Genesis Enigma ~ Combined Thread

[cleminson]

Follows on from Genesis Enigma 7.

Chapter Five​

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Darwin et al


I have frequently heard people defending the six-day creation theory by dismissing Dinosaurs with the amazing statement, “Dinosaurs, what dinosaurs? It is all a lie.” Alternatively, the more conciliatory person might say, “Dinosaurs! They must have all died in the flood.” I have heard arguments that carbon dating is inaccurate and the geological strata were laid down only a few thousand years ago and that God could have just made it look as though it was millions of years old to fool people who want to believe in Darwin’s lies. After all they say, “He repented of his book at the end of his life”.

In fact, the story about Darwin’s repentance is probably false. An English woman, Lady Elizabeth Hope a contemporary of Darwin, propagated it. She claimed it in a lecture to some Moody Bible students at Northfield, Massachusetts, USA, in 1915, some thirty-four years after his death. In the lecture she claimed that Darwin had spoken to her a few weeks before he died at Down House in Kent, England, in 1882 and said, “How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.” Adding that he wished that he could tell a congregation of people that he “would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savoring the heavenly anticipation of bliss.”

With Moody’s encouragement, Lady Hope’s account was printed in the Boston “Watchman Examiner”. The newspapers, eager to jump on the Darwinist/creationist “battle”, continued to publish this story and from then on, the story spread among believers of every kind and these false claims are still being published today. Why did she wait until 1915, which was thirty-four years after Darwin died before she told her ‘story’? Any normal Christian given the great controversy raging at the time, would have immediately gone straight to the newspapers with the story, surely she would have done the same, if what she said was true.

These attempts to change Darwin’s life story were claimed as lies by his family. His daughter Henrietta who was at his deathbed, said that her father did not become a Christian before he died. “I was present at his deathbed,” she wrote in the “Christian” in February 23, 1922. “Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever.”’

Darwin’s son – Sir Francis Darwin (1848–1925), said that his father was an agnostic until the day he died. Francis was an assistant to his father and became a botanist of some renown, lecturing in botany at Cambridge. He was foreign secretary of the Royal Society, president of the British Association and was made a knight in 1913. He also edited the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887) in which he did not mention Darwin’s conversion. Darwin’s own writings indicate that just three weeks before his death, he was still a confirmed non-Christian.

Many commentators think that his work was a deliberate attack on belief in God, though Darwin said, “I had no intention to write atheistically”. He often articulated disquiet with the idea that some people saw him as anti Church and he much preferred to be regarded only as a biologist. Charles Darwin was not a Christian, nor an atheist, but he regarded himself as a deist. He believed that some great intelligence had designed the Universe and set up structure, order and natural laws by which all of nature was governed.

Charles Darwin’s wife Emma though not a Christian, was a staunch Unitarian and if Darwin had made a deathbed conversion and become a Christian, or even just renounced his belief in evolution, she would have shouted it from the housetops. In fact she had to edit some of his works where she deemed that his writings were too anti-Christian. Nora Darwin Barlow, Darwin’s granddaughter, called the story of Darwin’s conversion “a myth.”

However, the story was attractive to those who believe that the Universe was created in six days, so the story spreads from generation to generation even though it is very likely not to be true, I heard it preached as recently as 2005. I understand why some Christians have clutched at the “conversion” straw as proof that evolution was not factual but if we have to hold on to these threads to justify our belief, then our belief needs closer examination.

Darwin clearly was a Godless man and certainly not a Christian; however, this does not give us the right to consign all of his theories to perdition. Besides there were many people who were thinking along the same lines as Darwin at that time and if he had not published his works, someone else would have published a similar work supporting evolution. A young English naturalist called Alfred Russell Wallace outlined a theory nearly identical to Darwin’s. Both men are credited with the theory of natural selection, but Darwin had recorded his theory on paper while Wallace was still a child. So if Darwin had not published, then Wallace would have been the person vilified by Christians today.

Darwin did not repent on his deathbed, but even if it had been proved that Darwin did return to the Christian faith in his last years, it needs to be known that this would have no effect upon the modern belief in evolution or the modern scientific outlook on how the world was formed. However, the truth that the world was not created in six days and that dinosaurs did walk the Earth many millions of years ago, does not disprove Adam’s existence or his fall. Neither does it negate the fundamental truth and need of Christ’s sacrifice to give us a way back into a relationship with God.

The question now needs to be asked, “How, if you believe in evolution, can you believe in sin coming into the world through one man – Adam?” To understand the answer to this question, we need to take a fresh look at the Book of Genesis and be confident in what we read. We need to open our understandings and read the scriptures without the same blinkers that the devout fathers in Galileo’s time wore and then we will clearly see that the Bible does not dismiss all possibility of an ancient Earth.

Through God’s creation process, the Bible allows for plants, then dinosaurs, to evolve over huge periods of time, into the plants and creatures with which we are familiar. The potential for evolving species, was probably first noticed by Niels Stensen a Danish anatomist (better known as Nicholas Steno) in 1666, who can arguably be called the father of paleontology. Two fishermen caught a huge shark off the coast of Livorno in Italy. It was presented to a local Duke, who had the head sent to Steno, who was working in Florence at that time. Steno was astonished to note just how similar the shark’s teeth were to “tongue stones,” triangular pieces of rock that had been known since ancient times, often taken out of rocks in the area. Even though the rocks were well above sea level, he made a huge presumptive leap, when he averred that the “tongue stones” were in fact petrified shark teeth. At that time these and other fossils were popularly thought to have fallen from the sky, or to be freaks of nature.

Steno concluded that the corpuscles in the fossilized shark teeth were replaced bit by bit, by corpuscles of minerals. Thus there was no loss of shape as the fresh fallen teeth gradually turned from living matter to stone. This did not explain how fossils end up embedded inside rocks, so Steno studied the cliffs and the stratum within the hills of Italy to find the answer. He concluded that all rocks and minerals were once made up of muddy liquids, which over time hardened to be covered by other layers and so on, creating horizontal stratums, with new layers forming on top of older ones. As these muddy layers slowly transformed into rock, they held trapped various animal remains, converting them in time into fossils and preserving them in the various layers. He concluded that in their simplest form, these layers show a time sequence with the youngest on top and the oldest layers on the bottom. This is now referred to as Steno’s Law of Superposition, a snapshot of life over vast amounts of time in our Earth’s history. His work laid the basis of all modern paleontology and geology, allowing creation to have taken place, species by species over eons.

The majority of children in secular schools are taught about a four and a half billion-year old creation. Liberal Christian schools would also teach “creation” from the Bibles perspective as a “cute” Bible story. Fundamentalist Christian schools teach that the “hundreds of millions of year’s creation” is blasphemy and that in fact we did not evolve from amoeba but are the offspring of Adam, who was created on the sixth day, between four and seven and a half thousand years ago and was created in Gods image.

This leaves the majority of the world regarding those religions that uphold a six-day creation with disbelief. They marvel how people could not believe in evolution when there is so much evidence staring them in the face. God has always existed, in fact, He was there hundreds of millions and more years, before the Universe was created, “He always is.” Time is not an issue to God. Science clearly shows that it took a huge amount of time to get to where we are today, not because God was unable to build it in six days or six seconds but because He chose to build it over eons.

God did create Adam and all mankind; however, as we go through this manuscript and study Genesis more closely, our understanding of the timing of his creation and our place in it will alter dramatically from traditional thinking. There is an alternative way to read the scriptures in Genesis, that will challenge the Church’s problems with most of the emergent modern teachings of a “hundreds of millions of years creation” or as I prefer to call it “Gods Creative Process”.

Christian’s should embrace the vital truth of Adam’s rebellion against God and its penalty. As we have seen in 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” God was more concerned about bringing new life to mankind by sacrificing His Son. As far as God was concerned, long before Adam rebelled, He knew that he was going to sacrifice His Son, His only Son, His sacrificial Lamb, Jesus Christ. This sacrifice was the only means to forgiveness for an uncreated mankind. He knew that Adam would disobey Him, long before he was formed. In Revelation 13:8, it says “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” and in Genesis 2:17 scripture says “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. Some translations say “when though eatest of it thou shall surely die”, the “when” is the literal meaning.

To see if there is any possibility that we have got our understanding of creation wrong, we need to take a thorough look at the Book of Genesis and read what is written and not what we think is written.

*

We first need to consider by and for whom the Bible was originally written, because from Genesis to and including the Gospels, the Bible targets God’s people, the children of God. The Old Testament is written about and for a small group of people not the whole of mankind. It was only after Christ’s crucifixion, when Paul started preaching salvation to the Gentiles, that the rest of mankind, who were not Jewish, could effectively start laying claim to the Bible being applicable to their lives.
So prior to the first Gentiles becoming new sons of God, parts of the Adamic lineage, over many generations, turned away from walking in God’s path, until it was only the Jews that were left and it was these people that were God’s main target for His Word. Prior to that, the children of Israel; prior to that, Abraham and his family; prior to that, Noah and his family and prior to that, Adam and his family. So from Adam to Paul’s ministry, God was ministering to His people, he was not concerned with reaching the other races that lived on the Earth until Paul’s time and his ministry. It was only for the original children of God that this Bible was written, inspired by God and ignoring the other tribes and nations alive on the Earth at that time, unless they impacted on His people.
So Adam was the father of this select tribe, some of whom fell away from God over thousands of years leaving just the Jews at Jesus’ time, who though by now were of mixed genes, still had people that worshipped God. The genes of those who fell away from communicating and obeying God must be mixed through many races on Earth especially in the Middle East. The key word here is “mixed” and this work will maintain that the original pure Adamic genes became mixed with the genes belonging to the rest of Mankind. To understand this we need to back to the beginning, to the time before Adam was created and look at what the Bible actually says about the creation of a very special lineage of people.

 

[cleminson]

There are another fourteen parts to this paper, would you like me to post 2 or 3 or 4 per day. I suppose that the other question is, am I allowed to post as much as I am? Will I be allowed to post this on the Creationist Thread or is it going to create too large an explosion?

 

[cleminson]

Chapter Six

Creation


During the first period of creation (first day) in, Genesis 1:1 scripture tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth (in which the land was submerged under water). In Genesis 1:1 we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Or “When God began to create the heaven and earth”.)

At first the Earth did not have any form, was empty and “darkness was over the face of the deep.” The word translated “deep” in Hebrew is “teh-home”, which has a literal meaning of a surging mass of troubled water or a subterranean water supply. We know from the second period of creation (second day) that the waters “were separated” and dry land appeared. Initially there was no light of any sort on the Earth but there was something called in Hebrew “choshek”, which means “darkness or dark hiding place” and this “choshek” was over the face of the deep.

The first type of water translated as “the deep”, is mentioned in Genesis 1:2 and is translated from the old Hebrew word “teh home’” meaning troubled water. Once God moved over this water the water changed and became “mayim”. These two types of water mentioned in these opening verses from scripture “teh home” and “mayim” are both different from drinking waters. The first word for water “teh home” is translated as “the deep” and was disturbed water. The second word is translated as water from the Hebrew word “mayim” and is different because this water has a figurative meaning of “juice” or a created product i.e. a substance that is a by-product of life. The third type of water that is mentioned in the Bible is drinking water, as was mentioned in the scripture when Jesus asked the woman to draw water for him from the well. This is drinking water or “hudor,” which was different from both “teh-home” and “mayim”. To give the reader a better understanding of “mayim”, there was a place in old Palestine called Abel-Majim meaning, “meadow of water”. Meadow water is full of nutrients and certainly not suitable for drinking. This second water, “mayim” was not what we would call drinking water; it was a type of “soup” with the by-products of life in it or primordial soup and could well have been made up of amino acids containing the very first primitive enzymes that God might have used to create all life.

The transformation of the deep “teh-home,” to waters “mayim,” is interesting, as the water seems to have gone through a fundamental change after the Spirit of God moved over it. The water changed from a surging mass, to become water with the elements of life in it. I believe that this “mayim” was the start of god’s building block for His evolutionary creation process.

God then said let there be Light and there was Light. This Light was His Light, not a natural light, because the sun moon and stars had not been formed; they were to be created on the fourth “day.” Therefore the physical and visual means of measuring time, as we know it, did not exist.

He chose to separate this Light from the darkness. There is no indication of what period of time God chose to take in doing this, or whether it was physical or spiritual but He chose to call it the “first creation period.” God differentiated between Light, which He called “day” and the “darkness” which He called night and He separated the Light from the darkness.

The word in Hebrew for night in this connotation is “layil”, which means specifically, “of gloom and protective shadow” i.e. a place to hide. As there were no days or nights, sun, moon or stars, we need to look closely at the translation of “calls the light day and the darkness night.” We need to expand this translation to acquire its full meaning.

The full translation gives the impression that He called the Light (‘owr) “a period of time and heat” and the darkness (choshek) meaning obscurity or dark hiding place). This Light took up a different spatial position to the darkness, almost like two “opposite substances”.

I believe that this darkness was the much-reduced prison where God placed Satan and his minions, after their rebellion and expulsion from heaven. I believe that the heaven that Satan was cast out from with his fallen angels is a purely spiritual place. I also believe that the prison that Satan and his hosts were sent to was part spiritual and part physical and that this Earth is now situated spatially on our purely physical Earth. The translation of darkness from “choshek”, with its meaning of “dark hiding place and obscurity” suggest that something was hiding on or in that part spiritual and part physical place. If that is the case, was the Light perhaps God’s part spiritual part physical manifestation of Himself in the form of Jesus Christ?

We know from scripture that Jesus existed before the foundation of the Earth for in John 1:1-5 we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the Light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not”. The ISV Bible says in John 1:1, “In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. Through him all things were made, and apart from him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life brought Light to humanity. And the Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”

John is very clearly saying here that Jesus was with God from before the world was made and that in fact God created the whole Universe through Jesus, including our small but precious world. In John 8:57-58, Jesus was challenged as to how He claimed to have known Abraham “Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.”

It also says that it was His Light that shone on the darkness in that initial creation period. Jesus calls himself the Word and the Light, which strengthens the possibility that He was that first Light.

Abram paid Melchizedek a tithe in Genesis 14:18 and Jesus was telling them and us that He was there long before Abraham, in fact Jesus was clearly present at the beginning of creation and as such this Light must surely have been His.

To return to the Biblical account of creation, God had not created the sun or the moon at this stage of creation, therefore the twenty-four hour day as we know it, did not exist. There was no separation of day and night in the natural way until the forth period. So with this information and with the knowledge that in the first period, a solar day did not exist, we are able to come to a safe conclusion, that the word “day” with its literal meaning is mistranslated and should be retranslated as “period of time,” whatever the length of that period of time might have been.

The only reason to hold on to the six-day creation doctrine is that it disagrees with evolution and evolution seems to eradicate the possibility of Adam being the first man. As I have said, this need not be the case; I believe that evolution and Adam are not inseparable, both can exist in a Christian’s way of thinking.

To sum up the first period, this first day and night were not based on the movements of the sun, the moon, and the stars but on something else. A literal twenty-four hour day did not exist in this “first day” but the heavens and Earth were created, the earth was covered with water and was also covered with darkness. The sky did not have sun, moon and stars because they were created on the third “day”. The heavens occupied the space between the water (majim) above and the water (majim) below. Then a very special Light was created and the darkness was separated from this Light.

We must not try to compare our present day understanding of “day and night”, with the period of times explained in Genesis. Our “day and nights” are in existence because of the Earth spinning on its axis around the sun, as opposed to this first “day” and “night”, where Light and darkness existed at the same time but in their own, different places on the Earth and where there was no Sun.

We glean something else that is fundamental to God’s creation and that is a physical order that he brought out of the chaos and darkness, for our benefit. He did not need an organized physical Earth but we do. We need order and natural laws for our existence to continue. So in Genesis1 we read “And the earth was “without form” (could be translated as “Chaos”), and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Jeremiah uses the same expression “form and void”, when he wants to warn the nation of Israel of their sin, in Jeremiah 4:22-27 scripture says” For My people are foolish; they have not known Me; they are stupid sons, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. I looked on the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and, lo, they quaked; and all the hills were shaken. I looked, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled. I looked, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down before the face of Jehovah, before His fierce anger”. Jeremiah was prophesying that God was threatening to punish the Israelites with the chaos that existed before He brought order to the Earth.

This “bringing order from chaos” is common to the first three creation periods. There were orderly boundaries set between light and darkness, the different kinds of water, and between water and land. God was setting order and limits to his creation to make it a habitable place for his main purpose of creation, mankind. This is reflected in Job 38:4-12 where he challenges Job by asking,” Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding! Who has set its measurements, for you know? Or who has stretched the line on it? On what are its bases sunk, or who cast its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as it came from the womb? When My limit on it, and set bars and doors, and I said, you shall come to here, but no further; and here your proud waves shall stop. Have you commanded the morning from your days, and caused the dawn to know its place.” God was letting Job know that there is a Godly structure and purpose to his Creation process.

From this verse, could He also be telling us that God’s chosen “sons of God” existed in some form, before the Universe was created? After all the last verse says that the “morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy”, when the “cornerstone” of creation was first laid. This is also shown in Proverbs 8:22-23 where the prophet says “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” We know from Revelation that our names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the Earth. Philippians 4:3, “And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life.” And again in Revelations 3:5 “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.”

To emphasis this order He divided His creation up into “time” segments with the words in Genesis 1:5 “And the evening and the morning were the first day “This phrase is used in each of the first six creation periods; to draw a line between the different creations. Since the Jewish “day” was traditionally measured from sundown until sundown the next day, the fact that the days are marked as “evening and morning” suggests that Moses was dealing with a way of describing time that comes from a Jewish cultural background. However, this phrase was not used at the end of the seventh period because it has not ended; we are still in the seventh period.

Creationists would say that the world began between four and seven thousand years ago and therefore the seventh day is either still in existence or God is no longer resting. For we are told that God rested on the seventh day, so Surely this shows that if the seventh day is over four thousand years old, up to now, so the other six days could have been longer than a twenty four hour period of time.

During the second period of creation

 

[cleminson]

During the second period of creation, the division between “Light” and “darkness” was still in place and in Genesis 1:6 we read that during the second period of creation the Bible says, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate water from water”. Many biblical scholars believe that during this period thick clouds formed and a gap was formed between the water covering the earth and the water above (clouds?), this gap God called the “sky.” We must still remember that the only light was Gods Light.

God now ended the second creation time and once again, we are not told exactly how long this creation process took, but God choose to call it the second creation period. Remember “time”, as we know it could not be calculated, because there were no clocks, sun, moon or stars to measure it.

In the third creation period or On The Third Day, He first created dry land. We are not told how He did this but what happened next in this period of time, is the corner stone of this manuscript.

In two places in the Bible, God takes us back to this period, firstly in Genesis 1:9 and then again in Genesis 2:4-7 and I quote from the second place “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

I clearly understand from this verse that the first man (Adam) was created immediately after He created dry land and before He created vegetation, which was at the beginning of the third period of time. This thought will be confirmed later with other scriptures, but to continue, we can see from Genesis 1:9-13 plants were created during the third period of creation “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day."

We have to go back to go to the start of the third period of creation to find the time when the Earth was still barren. Scripture clearly states that this man was formed before plant life and animals appeared on the Earth. God created a special garden to feed him after he was formed. This was at the beginning of the third period, yet scripture also clearly states that Mankind was created on the sixth period of time. Does this apparent dichotomy mean that the writer of Genesis made a mistake? NO! All it means is that our understanding of these scriptures were formed in a time when the age of the Earth was not an issue. Rather like our fathers’ reaction in Galileo’s time, when it was irrelevant for people to think about the possibility that the Earth orbited the sun. It was just not an issue and only became one because our forefathers thought that the heliocentric theory went against the Scriptures.

When men dug up skeletons of dinosaurs they thought that they were the bones of dragons. This was sufficient explanation until the timing of these “dragons” death became an issue and early paleontologists like Nicholas Steno, started to look for explanations that were bound to go against the prevailing teachings of the Church.

However, during this third period of time, God choose to bring two forms of life into existence, a very special “human/spiritual life form” and then the first plant life. Adam did not evolve; he was formed by a supreme act of God and was different from all of God’s other creations, including humankind. He was formed like a potter would form a pot but instead of clay and water being used, God used His own “breath of Life” and the earths “dust”. He was a mixture of the physical and spiritual, earthly and yet part of God and he became a “living soul”. He was created to live in a heavenly place that was not on this Earth physically. Even though he consisted of God’s breath and earth’s dust, he was called Adam, which made him nearer to the earth than God like. Yet he was the first living soul able to talk directly to God. In 1 Corinthians 15:45 “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Adam was created before all reptiles and animals.

God then created vegetation, with seed baring plants and in Genesis 1:11-13 we are told, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

It is interesting that he commanded the “earth” to bring plants into existence – the earth produced life when God commanded it to. It does not say God created the plants from the earth; it says that God commanded the earth to bring plants into existence. Creative evolution could have taken place and once again scripture does not say how long God decided to allow in this period of creative evolution.

When He had finished, He once again thought that his creation of all vegetation was good. At some point in this creation period, He also built a special spiritual place where Adam could live - The Garden of Eden. Adam was asked in Genesis 2:15 to look after it, “and the LORD God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Eden was a spiritual place, somehow attached to this Earth but not part of its substance. In the same way that at the opposite extreme, the fallen angels are locked in their spiritual prison, on or in a spiritual Earth but this prison cannot be seen with our eyes.

God told Adam that he could eat the fruit of any tree in the Garden but not to eat the fruit of the tree called “the knowledge of good and evil” because if he did so, he would die. The amazing thing is that none of these plants had sunlight to grow by because there was no sun, moon or stars. So they must have thrived on Gods own Light, created during the first creation period. When God had done this, He ended the third period.

At the beginning of the forth period of creation, Gods first Light was still the only light, but in Genesis 1:14 we are told that God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so.”

As we have seen in Genesis1:1, only the Heaven and Earth had been created before this period of time, so up to this point in time the Earth must have either been a spiritual world or a place on its own in the universal space. Whether this forth period of time was heralded with the “Big Bang” or not, it is certainly the time when the Earth and all that was on it became part of the solar system as we know it. Where it started to benefit from the Sun’s warmth and light. It was not the center of the Universe but was given a perfect place in part of God’s order and creation to show us how great and timeless He is.

This is the first occasion that God talks about “measurable” time, as we know it; seasons, days, and years. It is in this forth creation phase, that normal days and nights come into being. This does not mean that the forth period took place in a twenty-four hour day; it was still an unmentioned length of time. In the same way the final seventh period of time has lasted over seven thousand years and continues.

Scientists are working out just how long after the “Big Bang” it was before our solar system was right for the Earth to become receptive to life. I would say that if there was a “Big Bang”, then what they arereally working out is how long it took before God decided to place an already created spiritual Earth into our solar system and onto a Planet we now call Earth.

The first three creation periods were not measured in units that we use i.e. hours, days, nor years, so we can only know them as creation periods. If the sun, moon and stars were in existence before as some think, then why does God specifically say “let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night”? If there had been sun, moon and stars created on the first day and it was this cloud-diffused light that provided the first light, then there would also have been twenty-four hour days, as we know them. During the forth-period God created the heavenly bodies for His own reasons and in doing so, he provided tides, weather and this different type of light.

God then lets us know more about these “lights in the expanse of the sky”, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. In Genesis 1:16 we are told, “God made two great lights the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good” and the forth period of creation ended.

These two accounts of the “separation” must describe two differing kinds of “Light” and “darkness.” In the first creation period in Genesis 1: 4 Scripture says, “God saw that the light was good (he does not say that darkness was good) and He separated the light from the darkness”. In this second creation of light and darkness, day and night, He says that both are good.

The two creations are different because in the second account of light and darkness the Bible talks about the “physical” light and darkness that we call day and night. This light and darkness is different because we know that the sunlight and/or artificial light replace the darkness. Darkness only returns into that space when the sunsets or the light is put out. In the first account the two were separated and remain separated.

In the first division of light and darkness, there was no mixing of light and darkness to form a sort of dusk. Light was placed spatially differently to where the darkness was placed i.e. Light is put into one place and darkness another. God says that he separated Light from the darkness. Once again, we can say that this Light and darkness are not the natural light that the Sun, Moon and Stars bring us.

In the first period account of separating Light from darkness, we can begin to see that this division between Light and darkness could describe the separation of Satan and his cohorts after their fall, from God i.e. the spiritual division between good and evil. Because at the end of the first period he only calls the creation of light good, he does not call the separated darkness good. “Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness.”

Compare the first separation to the second one in the forth period described in Genesis 1:17. In the second account of the separation of light and darkness, scripture says, “God set them (the sun, the moon, and the stars) in the expanse of the sky, to give light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.” In this second account of the separation between light and darkness, He calls both night and day “good.” God created these nights and days and he was happy with both.

This strengthens the argument, that the first separation of light and darkness was a spiritual separation. In the first account, the” darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” There is an implied division between the “darkness over the surface of the deep” and “the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Then the first” light” was created and God saw that this light was good. Scripture says that “God saw that the light was good,” he does not say it about the “darkness”.

 

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In the forth period of creation, there is another distinction between the two nights. The first darkness is separated from the Light and is hardly mentioned again whereas the second night is ruled over by the moon, stars, and is therefore not completely dark. This “night” time is also mentioned in many parts of scriptural texts.

To sum up the forth period, Adam would have witnessed God creating the sun, moon and stars and seen their new and different types of light. He would have become aware of the Earths seasons and times. God said that the sun, moon and stars should separate the light from the darkness. The first separation of Light and darkness during the first period was different from the second separation of light and darkness, which was natural and exists today. This new stellar and planetary creation gave us the sun and its light during the day and the moon and stars giving their light at night. Sometimes the sun and moon are together in the morning and evening skies. The facts about God’s Creation laid out in Genesis would have been passed down from Adam, who had witnessed it all with his own eyes, to his children, after the “fall”. From his formation to his recounting of the creation facts, could have been thousands and but more probably hundreds or even thousands of millions of years later.

During the fifth period of creation, both of God’s created Lights are still shining. We are now told in Genesis 1:20 that God said “And God said, Let the waters (mayim) bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” Once again it is interesting that God commanded the waters (mayim) to bring sea creatures into existence. In the previous period, He had commanded the earth to bring forth plant life, this time His command was to the “mayim – living water” to bring living creatures and bird life into existence. Once again He used a substance, “mayim” to create life.

God then goes on “And God said let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea, and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good”. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” God then ended the fifth period of creation.

Let us look more closely at this fifth period of the Biblical account. We are told that God said, ”Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea,” the word in Hebrew is “tan-neem’”, which translates as a marine or land monster, or, sea serpent, dragon, sea-monster, whale or even dinosaur. The translators had not heard of the word at the time of the translation into English. It was in 1842; that Sir Richard Owen first coined the word dinosaur, meaning “fearfully great lizard.” In Greek, deinos means “fearfully great” and sauros means “lizard.” All the translators since the Church’s clashed with Darwinism would have been too fearful even if they had known to insert dinosaur in their text, so they probably used the expression “great creatures of the sea”.

God goes on to create living and moving things, both fishes and reptiles in the water according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind in the air. Moreover, God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” Moreover, Scripture says, “Now the Lord God had formed of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.” So as it is clearly stated here that Adam was created before the animals and animals were created in the fifth period, Adam must have been created before the fifth period.

To sum up the fifth period, God created life in the sea, until it teemed with many different types of marine life and sea monsters. He also created birds through his will, from life that came out of the “mayim”. Whatever length of time He chose to take, a huge variety of birds appeared over water and land. There is little comment to add to this fifth period, other than to say that most paleontologists agree that life started in the sea or water. When He had done this, He ended the fifth period.

With both types of Gods light shining in Genesis 1:24, we come to the sixth period of creation, the final period of the Biblical creation. There are also two distinct creations mentioned in this period, the first was the creation of animals, after which God said that it was good. The second was the creation of humankind after which God said that He saw all that he had made and it was “very good.”

We are told that God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground and wild animals each according to its kind”. And, God saw that it was good.” Once again He commanded the earth to bring forth animal life just as He commanded it to bring forth plant life and once again He commanded the “water,” this time to bring living creatures and bird life into existence.

Then God in Genesis 1:26-27 said, “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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”.

For the first time God does not command the water or the earth to “bring forth” one of his creations. He did not form these people from the dust and His breath. Instead, in this passage, God uses the word “make” to describe the creation method which is Hebrew is ‛aśah or aw-saw’meaning; to do or make. In Genesis 2:7, when God formed Adam, the word “formed” is “ya tsar” or yaw-tsar’in Hebrew, which has a meaning of squeezing into shape, rather like a potter might squeeze clay into a shape.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food. And it was so.” Men and women are given the task to increase in numbers, fill and subdue the Earth, and then to rule over all living creatures.”

God saw every thing that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning – the sixth period of creation. Thus, the heavens and the Earth were completed in their entire vast array.

During the sixth period, God created two forms of life. The first were animals of both sexes and of various species, the second life form to be created as separate species or allowed by God to evolve, was humankind, I am not bothered which was true. The difference between the creations of both species of mankind is obvious where in the third period Genesis 2; God created animals after Adam had lived in the garden for a time, because at first Adam was happy to be with God alone. However, we are told that he became dissatisfied and wanted some other form of companionship. So God created the animals to provide Adam with company. Whereas in Genesis 1 He created animals before He created the rest of mankind.

God looked at the first part of his creation, animals of both sexes and declared that it was good. Then in Genesis 1:26-27, He created humankind, both males and females “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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

He told them to bring all of His creation into subjection under themselves. These people had no relationship with God, so the instruction must have been part of their creation. God called this final creation of mankind, very good. All the other creations are described as good but the creation of mankind is described as very good. This shows that God has a very special love for humanity. Mankind was made in God’s image but did not have the breath of Life, breathed into them, as Adam had.
Let us look at all the differences between the formation of Adam and the creation of mankind. These differences are real and prove that Adam and mankind were two different creations at different times.

Adam was formed in the third period, because plants were only created in the third period as written in Genesis 1:11-13, and yet in Genesis 2:5-7 Adam was created before the plants. “And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But there went up from the earth a mist and watered all the face of the ground. And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”.

However, mankind was created at the end of sixth period. Genesis 1:26-31 “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 heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth. And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth, which has in it, a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day”.

Adam was formed out of the dust of the earth and God’s breath. He had God’s breath of life in him and that made him a very special individual, a living soul, as in Genesis 2:7 “And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Mankind however was told to populate and subdue the entire world, in Genesis 1:28-30. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth. And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so.”

Adam was alive when God created the trees in the Garden of Eden including both the Tree of Life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:9 “And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. The tree of life also was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Mankind was created long after the trees were created in the world and they had no contact with the trees in the Garden of Eden.
Adam was given a restricted diet and told not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, as mentioned in Genesis 2:17 “but you shall not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Adam was also given instructions for a vegetarian diet, which applied to all his descendants until after the flood, whereas mankind was already eating meat.

God further draws our attention to the difference between Adam and mankind when He puts the dietary restriction on Adam regarding the Tree of Life but allows mankind to eat every fruit that grew from plants, as seen in Genesis 1:29-30, “And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food....".

 

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And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so.” In summary Adam was not allowed to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, whereas mankind was commanded by God to eat from all the trees.

Adam was created alone to be a witness to God’s creation and at first his only companion was God. Genesis 2:18 “And Jehovah God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” However, when God created mankind, He created male and female at the same time, as seen in Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”

Adam was created before all other living creatures; in fact he was asked by God to name them in Genesis 2:19 “And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.” In comparison, mankind was created after the animals. Genesis 1:25-26, “And God made the beasts of the earth after its kind, and cattle after their kind, and all creepers upon the earth after their kind. And God saw that it was good. 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 heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.” Whereas mankind was the last part of His creation and all that he had created before, was for their benefit. He was very pleased with his final part of creation as we read in Genesis 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

Eve was made from Adam’s rib long after Adam was formed. Genesis 2:22 “And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.” In comparison mankind’s women were made at the same time that their men were. Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”

The following passage shows a very important difference between Adam’s offspring (the sons of Adam) and the rest of mankind. If all of mankind had come from Adam, then the following passage in scripture does not make sense, because all mankind would have been called “sons of Adam” and we would have all had the same inheritance. Deuteronomy 32:8 “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” From what did He separated the sons of Adam? It could have only been from Mankind for if Mankind came from Adam they would also have been the sons of Adam and the separation would have been impossible.

The sons of men did not start calling out to God until at the time of Seth’s son – Enos, as seen in Genesis 4:26 “and to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos, then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” So there was another difference between the “sons of God” and the rest of mankind. The “sons of God” should have had a constant relationship with their Heavenly Father, through an existing inherited relationship but the rest of humankind did not start calling out to the true God until after Enos was born.

The sons of God were a unique group of people; they lived much longer than the rest of mankind. Methuselah lived to be nine hundred and sixty nine years old. On the other hand, as far as archaeologists can tell, humankind lived for about fifty years.

Adam was created at first to get his companionship from God but when God saw that Adam needed other friendship, He created animals of both sexes as companionship for Adam. In Genesis 2:20 we are told “ And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.”

It was only after that God saw that Adam was still needed a helpmeet, that he formed Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, whereas mankind was created male and female from the beginning, so that they had companionship with one another from the start.

When creating mankind, God uses the word “make” to describe the creation method which is Hebrew is ‛aśah or aw-saw’ meaning; to do or make. However, in Genesis 2:7, when God formed Adam, the word “formed” is used, which is “ya tsar” or yaw-tsar’ in Hebrew, which has a meaning of squeezing into shape.

These differences are crucial to the understanding of the differences between Adam and mankind and now we can go on to the seventh period of creation when both types of Gods light are still present. We are told in Genesis 2:2, that God had finished and so on the seventh period He rested from all His work. “And God blessed the seventh period and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” There was no repetition of the phrase “evening and morning” because the beginning of this creation period was the “evening” and the “morning” has not yet happened. This “seventh day” has lasted over seven thousand years to date and it is not yet “morning” i.e. this seventh period has not ended yet.

We still live in this seventh period of Gods rest and as such, we Christians are pleased to recognize this rest by celebrating the seventh day of the week, as a day off work.





Chapter Seven

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Adam

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Let us take a closer look at Adam and to the garden that God planted in the east in Eden. “Now God had planted a garden in the East in Eden and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Trees were the second part of Gods creation at the end of the third period, therefore, once again; Adam’s creation during the first part of the third period is established.

Then Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it”. Adam’s mission was different to that what God requires of humankind in Genesis Chapter 1:28. All God requires of Adam is to work and take care of the Garden of Eden and have fellowship with him in his creation. At first, there were neither animals to rule over nor a female to relate with, so Adam varied from mankind at first, in that there was no expectancy from God for Adam to have children.

In Genesis 2:16-17 God says “And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat of any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” In contrast, in chapter 1:29 God says to humankind “I give you every seed baring plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” Therefore, Humankind could eat any fruit on the face of the whole Earth but in comparison, there was a restriction put on Adam and he was allowed to eat any fruit, except that from the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil.” Meat was not part of Adam and Eve’s diet, nor was it part of the sons of God’s diet until after the Flood.

To mankind God said in Genesis 1:29-30 “Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so”. After the Flood God commanded Noah to eat in Genesis 9:2-3 “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon the animals of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon all that moves on the earth, and upon all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herb”.

This is not an excuse for vegetarianism because in 1Timothy 4:1-5 scripture tells us clearly that “But the Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.” This scripture tells us that vegetarianism or abstaining from meat is a doctrine of demons. Peter, in his vision on the island of Patmos was also commanded to kill and eat all types of animal including “unclean” animals, Acts 11:6-7 “When I had fastened my eyes on it, I looked and saw four-footed animals of the earth, and wild beasts, and reptiles, and birds of the heaven. And I heard a voice saying to me, Arise, Peter! Kill and eat!”

God blessed Adam by asking him to stay within the Garden of Eden and walking in close fellowship with Him, whereas mankind was told to populate the Earth. He protected him from the knowledge of good and evil, with a Commandment. God did not want him to judge, either good or evil, so forbad him from eating of that fruit. Unfortunately, for the Gentiles, Adam sinned against God and we had to wait for Moses’ Law to come before there was a possible way into forgiveness and until the resurrection of Jesus, for a way of Grace into a lasting fellowship with God.

Then God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him,” and God brought before Adam all the birds and animals he had just created. Was God stupid? Certainly not! Did he think that Adam could have a helpmeet as an animal? Yes, God clearly hoped that Adam would not need any other form of partner; this once again separates him from humankind’s creation on the sixth day, when God tells the humans to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” He provided the animals to Adam in the hope that he would find companionship with them.

It is possible that Adam could communicate with these animals, even as Eve clearly communicated with the serpent. The animals could possibly have produced young, as God had commanded them, and Adam would have seen this. We are not told the reason for Adam to be unsatisfied, but scripture tells us that after he had named all the animals “no suitable helper was found” for him. I believe that this shows clearly that God created Adam, from the dust of the ground and His breath but Adam should not have needed further companionship. However, realizing the cry in his heart for a companion, decided that it was not good for Adam to be alone, God had by this time, “formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man would call each living creature, that was its name.” And then, ”But for Adam no suitable helper was found. Therefore, the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he bought her to the man.”

This does not mean that God did not want to create women for He was very happy to create both men and women in the sixth period. It does show however, that Adam was different from humankind and yet he needed a female helpmeet.

 

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During the sixth period, Adam and Eve were both living in the garden and were able to stroll about and talk with God. We are not told if mankind had been created by the time of the “temptation” but if they were, they certainly had no access to the Garden of Eden because it was in a spiritual plane and therefore not visible to them. Adam and Eve must have also been able to communicate with the animals because the serpent spoke to Eve and tempted her to eat the fruit of the “knowledge of good and evil.” Eve had not been created when God told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and so when the serpent tempted her, she did not quote the commandment correctly and said that not only could they not eat of the tree, she also said that she could not touch it. However, she ate the fruit, then took it to Adam and told him that it tasted good and he broke the only commandment that God had given him, and tasted the forbidden fruit.

Adam and Eve did not die until Adam had eaten the fruit, God’s commandment was not to her, it was to Adam. So even though she picked the fruit and tasted it she did not die at that point in time. Adam did not pick the fruit but he did listen to his mate, tasted the forbidden fruit and in doing so rebelled against God and at that point they both died. Even though they were both still in the Garden of Eden, they were dead as far as their old lives were concerned.

The serpent tempted Eve using partial truth to subvert her thinking. In Genesis 3:4-6 we are told “And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make wise, she took of its fruit, and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate”. The phrase “and you shall be as God” in the KJV is translated as gods, i.e. the word used in Hebrew is in the plural El-o-heem’ this word is the plural of El-o’-ah meaning a deity or the deity. Adam, Eve and their offspring were to become godlike as far as the rest of mankind were to be concerned but never like the One True God.

In 1 Timothy 2:13 –14, Timothy makes this interesting point, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was part of the transgression.” The serpent deceived Eve but Eve being deceived, did not break God’s commandment. However, she was part of the sin because she tempted Adam. Adam on the other hand chose Eves temptation above God’s commandment and in doing he deliberately rebelled against God.

Adam disobeyed Him, died to his previous spiritual state, loosing all of his spiritual existence; in doing so he lost that special relationship with God in the Garden and found himself on a hostile Earth. Yet, he was still a vastly different being from the rest of mankind and still retained a close fellowship with God. He still had a relationship with God that we can only have when we reach Christian maturity on this Earth. Adam could not witness to mankind about his Creator as Jesus could, because he was not a sinless person or an unblemished Lamb, nor God.

However, where the first man, Adam failed, God sent a Savior, to bring a lost creation back to Himself. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, God gives us a comparison between Adam and Jesus “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” God sent his Son to quicken mankind and make a way for men to come back into fellowship with Him. A fellowship that “the fallen” Adam could not have shared with mankind in the same way.

The strange thing about the other tree mentioned in the Garden of Eden, the “tree of life” was that Adam and Eve did not need to eat from it; they were immortal by Grace. Adam had already lived for a huge period of time and there was nothing stopping him from living for as long as God wanted. There was no death in the Garden, so there was no need to have eternal life they already had it. They did not need to eat of the “tree of life” until it was too late and then God prevented them from doing so, for their own sakes. Eternal life as a fallen creature would have been a real curse and too much like the curse that is on Satan and his minions.

So why did he create the “tree of life”? It is clear in the “Book of Revelations” that the tree of life was meant for us; it is us that do the opposite of Adam’s first death when we pass after our own death back to the pre fall life and as such will have access to the tree. In Revelation 2:7 we are told “The one who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To the one overcoming, I will give to him to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God”. The tree of Life still exists in the Paradise of God and was planted for us. Eden still exists but is barred to mankind by Cherubim. It is about us but we cannot see it. Mankind can only eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life when they accept Jesus Christ into their lives, become new creatures and obtain that eternal life.

However, once Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the “knowledge of good and evil”, they immediately went through a fundamental change, they died. Their eyes were opened and they died from the spiritual level they were living in. God’s word was true. They became two different beings, until being driven out of the Garden of Eden to live on the Earth, as we know it. Sin and death now reigned in theirs and their offspring’s lives until it became their turn as mortals to die physically on Earth. Their personalities changed, they became aware that they were naked and tried to cover their own nakedness. The Garden of Eden, a place created by God to provide security, food and fellowship with Him, became a place of fear, guilt and blame. So they tried to hide from God, when he came for an evening walk in the Garden.

God knew that something was wrong but still asked Adam if he had eaten of “the fruit”. The new Adam, in his new “enlightened state”, tried to turn the situation round and blame God for giving him Eve, his idea of the source of the temptation. The new Eve tried to justify herself by blaming the serpent.

Because He loved them, God took their immortality away, so that they would not have to live forever in that “fallen state”. It is clear that God still loved them enough to sacrifice animals to provide them with clothing. I see this as a picture of the sacrifices that the children of God would later rely on for “forgiveness” and then the final sacrifice of the Messiah on the cross.

Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden and God placed Cherubim and a blazing sword at the entrance, to stop them from returning. Though they had both died the moment Adam ate the fruit they were still present in the Garden of Eden and they hid from God. After the eviction, they both died from that “heavenly” place in Eden, to survive on what we know as Earth. Their old lives were dead and it is at this point that they were demoted to become mere humans. In Genesis 5:1-2 we read, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. 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, in the day when they were created.” This creation differs from Genesis 2:7 where only Adam was created and in Genesis 1:26 where He made mankind.

God did his final creation from what was left after a rebellion and Adam and Eve were created as “humans” but with enormous intellect and abilities. They also knew how God had created this Earth, the details of which were passed down until Moses wrote them down in the Book of Genesis. As far as the rest of mankind was concerned, Adam and Eve must have appeared as godlike or super humans. This was the end of the final period of creation and from now on mankind entered the seventh period of time. God had achieved all He had wanted to in creation and He now rested.

Adam and Eve differed from the rest of mankind, in that they were still able to communicate with God. In the reverse way, Christians look forward to their physical death, so that they may live forever in Paradise and as joyous as their transition from death to life shall be, so “terrible” was Adam’s transition from life to death.

So Adam had become a human being albeit with special gifts and from this point in time we are told in Genesis 5:1-3 that, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. 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, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.”

Adam lived as a unique type of human; he was the first son of God, as it says in Luke 3:38 “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the Son of God”. He lived for a further nine hundred and fifty years. During that time, he had to contend with weeds and the all the elements that this Earth could throw at him to grow his own food. Eve’s punishment was to bear children in pain, which she did, giving birth to many sons and daughters, of which her first two sons were Cain and then Abel.

Cain became a farmer and Abel became a shepherd. One day Abel decided to offer God a sacrifice of his prize sheep and Cain offered a sacrifice of some of his fruit. We are not told at this time, why God preferred the blood sacrifice above the fruit one but Cain became aware of Gods preference of Abel’s sacrifice and became angry. God said to Cain, “Why are you angry and why are you depressed? If you do well, you would be accepted but if you do not do well, you will not be accepted. But be careful because the result of not doing well is that you will rebel and do something that is not right.”

True to God’s word Cain was overcome with jealousy and while walking with his brother in the fields, he killed him. When God came to ask him where Abel was, we get a clue to why He preferred Cain’s sacrifice, as we look at Abel’s attitude. Cain replied to God in a familiar way by showing his anger against God for preferring Abel’s sacrifice more than his own, saying, “am I my brother’s keeper.” He must have realized that God was “all knowing”, but still chose to try to cover up his murder. God then let him know that He knew that Able was dead and that Cain was guilty of murder. He cursed Cain from the land to become a wanderer and said that the land would no longer grow the crops that he was used to. This was one-step further than Adams curse, which still allowed Adam to grow crops, though he contended with thorns and thistles.

Cain said that it was more than he could bear, as he was not only being driven from his fathers land but also from the face of God. In fact God had never said that He would drive him from His sight. He never took away Cain’s ability to remain in fellowship with Him. This was something that Cain added to God’s punishment; a bit like his mother Eve adding that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil should not be touched. Cain also became frightened that as he was being driven away from his fathers land that the rest of mankind would kill him. So Cain entered the world of mankind as a stranger and mankind would have killed him, so God put some sort of a mark on Cain. The “mark” or 'oth in Hebrew probably means a sense of appearing, or a signal, a flag, beacon, monument, omen, prodigy, evidence. However whatever this “mark” was, the Bible tells us that it was a devise whereby men would know that he was protected.

Cain then left his fathers land and went to the land of Nod, where he married into mankind. His progeny became known as great men of ancient times and became inventors, musicians and composers. His linage is recorded in the Bible for a number of generations and in fact Cain’s contact with mankind might have been instrumental in causing man to call upon the face of God in the time of Seth’s son, Enos? Cain’s offspring were not known for their ungodliness, in fact many of Cain’s children, had names that included the name of God, as can be seen in Genesis 4:18.

We read in Genesis 4:26 “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” All the “Sons of God” from Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Methuselah, Noah and Abraham, all had living, talking relationships with God, so I presume, did Seth. If this is the case then the “men” mentioned in Gen 4:26 must be the rest of non-Adamic mankind.

Cain’s marriage and the resulting children, was the first product of a relationship between the Adamic genes and mankind’s genes and the offspring were the mighty men of ancient history and fable that are mentioned in the Bible. Could these people have been the offspring that became the gods that appear in most nations mythology?

I have read many accounts asserting this but I must stick to what the Bible says about them in Genesis 4:20-22 “And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents, and with cattle. And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those playing the harp and the organ. And Zillah also bore Tubalcain, the hammerer of every engraving tool of bronze and iron”. In Genesis 6:4 we are told “There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown”.

Adam and Eve had lost their sons, but God was faithful to them both and over several hundreds of years gave them many sons and daughters. We are not told to whom Adam’s third son, Seth, got married. Some say it was to a sister, given the difference between the sons of God and the rest of mankind it is possible that this was acceptable for the sons of God to do this at that time, remember Eve must have had the same genetic endowment as Adam, because she was taken from his rib.

 

[cleminson]

It is also possible that Seth asked permission from one of the fathers of the non-Adamic peoples to marry one of their daughters. If it was done properly it might have been acceptable to God and as He loved mankind, this seems to me to be the most likely scenario.

Seth’s offspring and their children were recorded in the Bible, as being skilled in many ways and doing great deeds but they were different to humankind and had a separate inheritance, for in Deuteronomy 32:8 we read, “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” If all of mankind had come from Adam, then this sentence does not make sense because all mankind would have been called “sons of Adam” and we would have all had the same inheritance. In fact Cain’s existence is not even recognized in Adam’s genealogy, only Seth’s lineage is recognized in Genesis 5:3, “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and called his name Seth.”

These sons of God were a unique group of people; they lived much longer than the rest of mankind. Methuselah lived to be nine hundred and sixty nine years old whereas the rest of mankind, as far as archaeologists can tell, lived for about fifty years. These relatives of Adam lived for hundreds of years for generation after generation and all of them would have had a special relationship with God. Some like Enoch, who lived for a relatively short three hundred and sixty five years, had such a close relationship with God, that it appears that he did not die, but simply was taken by God to be with him. Yet even though Enoch had such a close walk with God, he was still only a “son of God”, whereas Jesus was the only Son of God and He died willingly, so that the rest of mankind could become children of God. I propose that these special “sons of God” were vastly different to the rest of mankind, in that age.

Then about one thousand six hundred years after Adams fall, some of these sons of God saw that the human women were very attractive and just started to taking them as wives. It does not say specifically that this angered God but rather that the thoughts of their hearts were wicked, the Bible tells us in Genesis 6:5 that “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”.

Now maybe the “sons of God” bullied mankind into handing over their daughters or maybe God was angered that his people were not keeping themselves spiritually pure, maybe it was all of these and more but He reduced the life span of this special breed of humans to one hundred and twenty years. Whether this was due to the genetic mix between the sons of God and the human women or due to Gods simple commandment is not stated, however the offspring of these unions, produced people some of whom were described as being giants or bullies. These were also called mighty men and men of old. The next reduction in lifespan is mentioned by Moses in Psalm 90:10 and says; “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,....”

Once this mixing of the two types of genes took place, the offspring lived for about one hundred and twenty years but became lawless and turned from God to do their own will.
I see the flood as Gods way of cleansing the Earth of the people that had angered Him – His people, the sons of God. They were not breaking a written down law, because no laws had been given to these people but the relationship between God and most of them had broken down, to the point where their thoughts were continually opposed to God and aligned towards evil. His punishment was targeted at the sons of God and their progeny, not at the rest of mankind, though all suffered.

In all of this turmoil, there was one of the sons of God named Noah and he found grace in Gods eyes because he was a just man, perfect in his generation and continued to have fellowship with God. So God told Noah that He was about to kill all of his creation except for him, his three sons, their wives and a select group of animals.

He gave them instructions to build a huge boat made of wood. This boat was to have many compartments to hold animals both clean and unclean. The clean animals were for eating and for sacrifice, so he was told to take seven males and seven females of all the clean species. Because he was not expected to eat or sacrifice unclean animals, Noah was only told to take two by two, so that they could procreate and multiply.

Chapter Eight​

The New Creations


Why, if Christians regard themselves as “new creations in Christ” and different from the rest of mankind, should they have a problem with God creating two types of human beings? Christians believe that there are two types of people alive on this Earth at this time – those that are new creatures in Christ, new because they have the Spirit of God in them and therefore Christians and those who aren’t. So could there have been two types of people then – the sons of God who could fellowship with Him and the rest of mankind? God calls us “new creatures” after “new birth”, not changed humans, it seems that mystically, being born again transforms humans into a different type of being – a sons of God.

Adam’s first state in the Garden of Eden was closer to God than mankind can achieve on this Earth, because he was immortal and was a companion to God, without sin and rebellion. However after his fall and banishment, his new lesser, mortal and fallen, state is remarkable, because both he and his offspring retained the ability to have conversations and still walk with God.

This relationship between Adam, his offspring and God, seems to have eroded as the sons of God rebelled and took whom ever they wanted from the women who were not from the Adamic lineage, the women of mankind. In Genesis 6:1-6 we are told “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. 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.”

These two types of humankind existed then and do now. Christians, Jews and Moslems have always regarded themselves as “apart” from the world and in the same way Jesus saw His mission primarily to the Jews who were “apart” from the rest of his creation at that time. This is shown in the following passage from Mark 7:24-3. “And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into a house, and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her, for this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.”

As we can see from this scripture Jesus did not reject the rest of mankind out of hand, He said that His ministry must first be to the Jews but He knew that the gentiles were to be drawn to Him, once the Jews had had their chance. “But Jesus said unto her, let the children first be filled”. God has always loved all of mankind, both His own people and the “lost” but he is only concerned with the way his children behave. The only time he interferes with mankind is when they are impacting on the sons of God, His children.
Until and if the rest of mankind becomes new children, they are not part of His family and though he wants them to become His family, he will not violate their so-called “free will”. So God is not as concerned with the “world’s” manner of living as He is with that of His family – the sons of God.

At the time of Jesus’ life on Earth, the “target” of His ministry had reduced from the children of Israel, to the Jews. The Jews were a people made up of a remnant of Israel who had continued in the Laws of Moses. They lived in the land given to Judah, which is probably how they got their name. The rest of the children of Israel made up the various tribes that surrounded Israel and were regarded by the Jews as being out of the will of God.

An example of the attitude that these non-Jewish sons and daughters of Jacob had and their relationship to the Jews can be gleaned from the encounter of Jesus with the Samarian woman at Jacob’s well in John 4:6-29. We must remember that the Samarians were of the original tribe of Israel. “Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, how is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that sadist thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee I am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, what seekest thou? Or, Why talkest thou with her?”

I glean two main points from this passage; the first is that the woman from Samaria knew that the Jews regarded her as a non-Jew and therefore someone who was not “clean”, for in John 4:9 she says ”For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” And as part of the same point, Jesus recognizes the difference between the old Israel and the current Jews where in John 4:22 he tells her, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews”.

The second point is that she clearly identified herself with her lineage to Jacob when she says in John 4:12 “Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? It is also clear that the Samarians were still looking for the Messiah, because in John 4:25 she says “I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Gods chosen people were narrowed down to the Jews, a people through whom Salvation was to come.

Despite her ancestry from Jacob, she was still not considered Jewish by the Jews The Jewish people knew that they were the chosen people; they knew that they were the direct descendants of Adam and Abraham; they also were the remnant from the original twelve tribes.

In Old Testament times they were the chosen race, the rest of humanity was not. The Jews were descendants of the remnant of the original sons of God, through whom salvation was to come. In John 4:22 we are told that Jesus speaking as a Jew, told the woman at the well, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.”

So I believe that there have always been two types of people alive on this Earth; one group of people who are God’s children and another group whom do not know God. God’s whole purpose at that time was to his people, the only time he influenced other nations was for them to have an effect on His own people. But all this was to change.

 

[cleminson]

To briefly look at the difference we need to go back to Adam’s time after the fall and study the two different types of human beings. The first group of human beings was made up of God’s sons, Adam and the Adamic lineage. Conversely the second group was the rest of mankind, who were loved by God but never called the “sons of God”. The second example is the difference between Noah and his family and the rest of mankind. The third example is the difference between Abraham’s family and the rest of mankind. The forth example is the difference between the children of Israel and the rest of mankind. The fifth example, in the time of Christ is the difference between the Jews and the rest of mankind and finally the fifth example of there always being two types of people alive on the earth is that of the new sons of God and the rest of mankind. In 2Corinthians 5:17 we are told, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”, and in Galatians 6:15 we are told “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”
The seed of the Adamic “sons of God” was carried down through the generations to many nations in the Middle East but it was through a remnant, the Jewish peoples, that the Savior was to come. This process started with Cain and continued on down through to the time of Christ. Through most of their generations, parts of Israel’s lineage rebelled against God and were cut off. This process kept happening until finally, at the time of John the Baptist, there was only a small remnant of the original sons of God that still had that relationship with Him. It was through members of this final remnant that God was to bring the birth of the Savior. Jesus ministered to his people the Jews while He walked the Earth but as Isaiah prophesied, His people would not hear Him; Isaiah 53:3-8, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken”.
It was only after Paul’s conversion that some of his disciples only went out to minister to the Gentiles and we are the product of that ministry. We are now part of the final remnant of the original sons of God, grafted by grace into their tree and we are now the vehicles whereby salvation is preached to both Jew and Gentile and are the only reflection of the Messiah that most men will ever see. In the American Standard Version we read Paul’s words to the Romans 11:13-27, “But I speak to you that are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; if by any means I may provoke to jealousy them that are my flesh, andmay save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? And if the firstfruit is holy, so is the lump (the Jews): and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree; glory not over the branches: but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God's goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they continue not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: And this is my covenant unto them, When I shall take away their sins”.
The parable of this olive tree lets us see how God has pruned the sons of God from the very beginning, cutting off branches like the Samaritans and finally grafting on the Gentiles that believe His word.
We should not give up on the Jews, because Judah was chosen to be the remnant through which the Messiah was to come into the world and salvation to the gentiles came through the Jews. In Hosiah we get an important insight into God’s attitude to the children of Israel and Judah. Hosiah 1:4-11 “And Jehovah said to him, call his name God Will Sow. For still in a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. And it shall be, at that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said to him, Call her name No-mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel. But I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God, and will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. And when she had weaned No-mercy she conceived and bore a son. And He said, call his name Not-my-people. For you are not My people, and I will not be for you. Yet the number of the sons of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered. And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, you are not My people, there it shall be said to them, You are the sons of the living God. Then the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together, and shall set over themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. For greatshall be the day of Jezreel”.
God compares the amount of fruit on the olive tree, i.e. the numbers of Jews to grains of sand on the sea shore and God promises Abraham after the sacrifice in Genesis 22:17-18 “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice”. The gentiles were to be blessed through Abraham’s seed in the form of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus we were to be grafted onto the same tree as the original sons of God, to become the spiritual sons of God.

Chapter Nine​

The sons of God



In Genesis, Adam and Eve had walking and talking relationships with God prior to the “fall” that continued after Adam’s disobedience to God. The difference between Adam’s first state and his second state was that now he had died to the joys of the Garden of Eden. He experienced what shame was and covered himself and he also knew what fear was and hid himself from God. He knew the difference between good and evil, he was no longer a semi spiritual man living in a spiritual garden, he was now human and had to contend with earthly problems and feelings. However, even though they no longer lived in a safe world called Eden, God still had a relationship with and spoke to them. Their sons Cain and Abel, had the same relationship, in fact He continued talking to Cain, both before and after he murdered Abel. Most of Adams offspring had close relationships with God. Enoch for example had such a close relationship with Him that he did not die; God just took him.
During Job’s time the “sons of God” could still speak to Him face to face, as we can see in Job 1:6, where we are told that, “now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.” Satan presented himself again a little time later, when we read in Job 2:1 “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD”. Satan was only there because God wanted to bring Job to his attention. If it were a deputation of fallen angels, Satan would have headed them up. His presence at this meeting is secondary to the “sons of God”. In fact we know that the demons are locked in chains and are not free to present themselves before God.
This was not a group of demons coming to “present” themselves to God but a group of special humans who had a very special relationship with Him. These “sons of God” were a group of Adams lineage who had the opportunity of a group meeting with God and took it.
These could not have been normal men because the sons of men did not start calling out to God until Seth’s son – Enos was born, as seen in Genesis 4:26 “and to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos, then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.”
So there was another difference between the “sons of God” and the rest of mankind. The “sons of God” should have had a constant relationship with their Heavenly Father and have the ability to come into his presence, as we have seen in Job. Clearly Job had this relationship but his advisors either “wise” sons of men or “foolish” sons of God, either could not or had lost the ability to hear God.
The final problem arose between God and the “sons of God”, when some of them saw that the “daughters of men” were desirable and took them, without parental permission, as wives. It was the rebellious and bulling way that the sons of God took these women that brought about a bullying and unusual offspring. In Genesis we are told that God was very angry at the way that the hearts of these sons of God, turned away from Him. In Genesis 6:2-7 we are told, “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. 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 repenteth me that I have made them.” It appears from the phrase “they chose” that neither the daughters, nor their fathers had a choice in the matter. It appears that the sons of man were totally in awe and fear of “the sons of God”.
God was very angry that some of the “sons of God” were living outside of relationship with Him because He tells us that their hearts were focused on doing evil. So He decided to bring the flood to destroy all the living. There was however one “son of God” whom He found righteous – Noah, and God gave him the “blue print” of how to build a great boat, an Ark. Within this Ark he, his family and a selection of animals could survive the Flood, continuing the lineage of the “sons of God” through his son Shem. Why the lineage did not pass through Ham and Japheth, can only be conjecture, as the Bible does not tell us.

 

[cleminson]

So the sons of God in the Old Testament, started to ignore their heavenly father, they ceased to be in relationship with Him, and as their spiritual line mixed with the daughters of men, they ceased to be potential lights in the world.
Adam’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden was the first step away from relationship with God. From then on sin had entered his genetic line, Cain killed Abel and gradually, with a few exceptions, the sons of God turned away from their heavenly Father as the reward of sin took hold on all but a remnant of Adam’s lineage.

It is only a remnant of the sons of God that became the children of Israel and only a remnant of the children of Israel that became the Jews. Christ’s ministry was dedicated to this Jewish remnant and Christians believe that only when a remnant of the Jewish nation accepted their Messiah, His Holy Spirit gave the Gentiles the opportunity of becoming “sons of God”.

This was prophesied in Isaiah 42:1-6 “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he has set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light.”

Incidentally, the Messiah that Isaiah was prophesying about met all the requirements of the Son of God “I have put my spirit upon him” and “for a light of the Gentiles”. Whereas Adam was the first “son of God”, Jesus Christ was the first and only “Son of God”.
In the New Testament we start to get a clue to the status of the sons of God where it is clear that being a “son of God” is something to be aspired. In John 1:12 we read “but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name”.

Romans 8:14-23 shows that becoming a “son of God” was dependent on being led by the Holy Spirit. We read, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory, which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

We have seen that Jesus certainly met the requirement for being a son of God, as well as being the Son of God but does Adam meet the requirement to be called a son of God. Let us look again at the definition of the “sons of God”. We have seen that a son of God must be “led by the Spirit of God,” must “shine as lights to the world,” and must be a different creature to the rest of mankind in the world.

Adam had a walking, talking relationship with God, both before and after the “fall”. His walk before the fall cannot be compared to any human relationship with God, he simply lived in relationship. He continued to do so even after his decision to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. Then after he died and was ejected from Eden, things became very complicated for him, yet we know that both he and his children continued in relationships with God. Was Adam supposed to be a “light” to the rest of mankind? Possibly, I like to think that Adam and his progeny could have been lights to the world. The sons of God could have been witnesses of God’s great love for humanity. These sons of God had a relationship with the Father and mankind in that ancient time, must have wondered just who those strange very long living people were and like Satan had suggested in the Garden to Eve, they must have seemed like gods.

Adam found fulfillment in the companionship with God in the Garden of Eden before Eve was created and so it remained until God sensed another longing in Adam’s heart. So He created the animals in Genesis 2:19, “And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name”. It was only when God saw that Adam could not find fulfillment with his companionship with the animals, that He made Eve to be a helper and mate to him. As Adam had not sinned at this stage there was no need for him to be a “light” to the world.

Adam and Eve must have had a type of human form before they were evicted from the garden, because after the fall but while still in the Garden of Eden, they both realized that they were naked and made leaf girdles to cover themselves. In Genesis 3:7 we are told “And the eyes of both of them were opened. And they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made girdles for themselves”. Even though they had sinned against God, we shall see that they remained sons of God both before and after the fall, which leads us into the question of who the “sons of God” were.

Most modern scholars believe that the “sons of God” were “fallen angels” and I have read a number of books justifying this theory in scholarly detail. I disagree but the question has to be asked that if they were not fallen angels, who were they? I have come to a different and controversial opinion as to who the “sons of God” the “ben el-o-heem’” were and are.
To determine whom these “sons of God” were, I would first like to look at some of the theories that have come down through the ages, and then look at what scripture teaches.

The “sons of God” are first mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4 where scripture tells us in the NKJV “Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”
There has been much speculation about who these “sons of God” were and I would like to look in a more detailed at the other three theories.

The first theory is that “the sons of God” were fallen angels; the second view was that “the sons of God” were the sons of pre-Flood rulers or magistrates and the third view was that the “sons of God” were simply the sons of Seth. The first theory was that it was fallen angels who came to Earth and took human women as wives, producing a race of “super” humans of which some people believe that they were giants called in Hebrew “nephilim” but the literal translation of this Hebrew word is “bully”. This view was popular amongst many of the first century theologians such as Flavius Josephus and Eusebius. A number of the Ante-Nicene Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr and Commodianus also supported this theory.

Why it was assumed that the “fallen ones” could only be demons, when we have been told in scripture that the demons are locked in chains, I do not know. Surely the “fallen ones” come from the sons of the original sinner – Adam, who fell from Eden to our physical Earth. The Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, renders the Hebrew term nephilim as “gigantes”, which literally means, “Earth-born.” This is often misunderstood to mean “giants” – who the some of the nephilim may also have been.

Who ever they were, they have been the source of much speculation and controversy over millennia. The first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus’ quoted in his history of the Jewish people, “The Antiquities of the Jews”,says,“Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honors to God which were appointed to them, nor had they any concern to do justice towards men. But for what degree of zeal they had formerly shown for virtue, they now showed by their actions a double degree of wickedness; whereby they made God to be their enemy, for many angels of God accompanied with women and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians called giants. But Noah was very uneasy at what they did; and, being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their dispositions and their acts for the better; but, seeing that they did not yield to him, but were slaves to their wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those they had married; so he departed out of that land”.

There were two parts to Josephus’ theory, the first was that the sons of Seth had turned from God and the second was that in doing so, allowed fallen angels to have children with the “daughters of men”. This idea that the fallen angels were, fathers of the original mighty men and giants, was common in most early thought. The first century Jewish writer, Philo of Alexandria, shared Josephus’ views and wrote “On the Giants,” “And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all them whom they chose.” Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually called angels”.

Another source quoted to justify the error that “the sons of god” were fallen angels is the “The Book of Enoch”. However, it is important for the reader to know that the Enoch that is mentioned in Genesis 5 did, not write this Book of Enoch. The book does not contain the words of the ancient biblical patriarch Enoch, since he would have lived several thousand years earlier than the first known appearance of the so-called “book of Enoch.

This book of Enoch is a “pseudepigraphic” book, which means in Greek “falsely superscripted”. It is a collection of writings from different authors who wished to hide their true identities behind well-known names from the past. It is from a small part of this book and from one author, that the brother of James, quoted in his letter in Jude 1:14-15 “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Unfortunately certain early Christian authors such as, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus expounded “The Book of Enoch” as being true and on a level with scripture. This resulted in others jumping to this erroneous conclusion.

They argue that because Jude quoted from “The Book of Enoch”, therefore all that is contained in the book must be trustworthy. However, it has never been accepted as “inspired Scripture” by most scholars or preachers, especially as it is made up of a collection of works. It is very possible that Jude accepted one small part of the book or one of the many authors, but to say that he accepted them all is not wise. Even though Jude quoted from this book, we have no reason to believe he elevated it to the same level as Holy Scripture. The insertion of the quotation simply acts as a further emphasis to Jude’s main message that God will judge the ungodly and though he discusses fallen angels, nowhere does he mention angels marrying humans.

 

[cleminson]

Some scholars erroneously believe that Jesus got some of His revelation from the book, however, Scripture says that He received all of his revelation directly from God, In John 8:28 “Then said Jesus unto them, when ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things”. And again in John 12:49-50 “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak”. And again in John 14:11 “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake”. John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known unto you.”

It is argued that other works like “The Genesis Apocryphon” which quotes from the Dead Sea Scrolls, mentioning angels interbreeding with human women and “The Book of Jubilees”, which also argues that the “sons of God” were also fallen angels, must prove the argument and that most people in the time of the apostles believed that the “sons of God” were fallen angels. However, just because two ancient books exist, it does not make them scripturally accurate, nor do they prove the thoughts of true men of God at that time. There are plenty of books today that claim to prove thousands of theories but does that make them right? We need to look at the only Book to hold the truth and that is the Bible.

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The second theory was a Jewish one and seems to have appeared some time in the second century. Scholarly Jews decided that “the sons of God” were the sons of pre-Flood rulers or magistrates. In the same century, Rabbi Simeon bens Yochai cursed those Jews who believed that the angels were the “sons of God” and were responsible for bringing the nephilim and the rest of the “sons of God” into this world.
His interpretation was widely believed right through the Middle Ages to modern times but most modern rabbinical scholars reject Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai’s theory. I think that Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai’s supposition could be more accurate than other perspectives. The pre-flood rulers could have been the sons of God.

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The third theory came originally from Julius Africanus who was one of the first people to annotate Christian history. Little is known of his life and unfortunately, hardly anything remains of his books. However his ideas were important, chiefly because of his influence on the early writers of Church history, especially among the Greek school of historians. His name suggests that he was an African; later writers suggest that he was a Libyan of Roman descent. He wrote in Greek but all his works were written from a Christian perspective and they were a great influence on Augustine, the Christian Bishop of Hippo, who took Africanus’ work, developed it and in the fifth century, published a book called “The City of God.”

He expounded the theory that “the sons of God” simply referred to the genealogical line of Seth, who were committed to preserving the true worship of God. However he also propounded the theory that the “daughters of men” were the offspring of Cain. He wrote that the problem was that the family of Seth had interbred with the family of Cain, intermingling the bloodlines and corrupting the pure religion. This view is highly regarded by most modern biblical scholars and therefore seems to be the one that is mostly promulgated. I believe that the sons of Seth were sons of God and it is also possible that some of then did marry Cain’s daughters but I also believe that they married women from mankind.

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Having looked at some of the theories on the “sons of God”, I would like now to look at what scripture teaches because the Bible alone holds the truth as to who these people were.

First, let’s look at all of the Old Testament references to “sons of God.” As I have already mentioned, this phrase is translated from the Hebrew “ben el-o-heem’”. I will quote from the Modern King James Version from: Genesis 6:1-4 “And it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and when daughters were born to them, the sons of God (ben el-o-heem’) saw the daughters of men, that they were good. And they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose.) And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God (ben el-o-heem’) came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown”.

Deuteronomy 32:8 “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel (ben el-o-heem’)”. So sons of Israel can be translated “sons of God.
Job1: 6 “And a day came when the sons of God (ben el-o-heem’) came to present themselves before Jehovah. And Satan also came among them”.
Job 2:1 “And it happened that a day came when the sons of God (ben el-o-heem’) came to present themselves before Jehovah. And Satan also came among them to present himself before Jehovah”.

Job 38:4-7 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding! Who has set its measurements, for you know? Or who has stretched the line on it? On what are its bases sunk, or who cast its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God (ben el-o-heem’) shouted for joy?”
It is argued by many that all these scriptures refer to the angels because they were divine creations, created with “God’s Breath” or Spirit. However, I believe that the “sons of God” were not Angels or fallen angels but came from Seth, who came from Adam, the first son of God, who was formed from a mixture of “God’s breath” and the “dust of the earth” the “Adamah” in Hebrew.

One of the scriptures that some theologians wrongly use to justify their theory that the “sons of God” were fallen angels is Jude 1:6-7 “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (KJV) They say that because of the punctuation of verse 7, this Scripture appears to say that Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as the cities around them, gave themselves over to various form of sexual sins. Yes that is exactly what it says.

However they also maintain that the Greek text does not support this interpretation. They claim that because the verse begins with “hos”, meaning “in the same manner as” and makes a comparison between the angels and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah both committing sin. So far so good, they did both sin, but the error comes next when they claim that the punctuation of the English translation is misleading and that in fact the Greek text shows that both were guilty of the same identical sin. I believe that it would have been impossible for the fallen angels to consort with humanity because mankind had not been created when Satan and his cohorts were thrown out of Heaven. The fallen angels were cast out of Heaven because they listened to Satan and tried to usurp God’s place in Heaven, they were most certainly not cast out of Heaven for consorting with uncreated women. In fact Satan was already a serpent in the Garden of Eden, if he had not fallen by then he would have been an Angel of Light and would certainly not have tempted Eve.

Proponents of the “fallen angel” theory also use the scripture in Jude 1:6, where it says that the angels left their own “abode” which is “oiketerion” in the Greek, is the same word used in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, where it is used to describe the spiritual body of a resurrected Christian. In 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 we read, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation [oiketerion], which is from heaven”. (NKJV)

These fallen angels did not have bodies, as we know them, more like the body that Adam had in the Garden of Eden but before the first creation period and in rebellion against Him were sent to a place as their prison. This place is described in Genesis 1:2 as being “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”. This place was what God was to ultimately transform into our world but there were no humans alive at the time because he had not started his creation process. We read in Jude 1:6 that as punishment, God locked these fallen angels up with chains until Judgment day. Jude in his letter was comparing the severity of the crime of certain wicked people that had infiltrated the Church in his time, to the sin of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the rebellion of Satan and his cohorts before the Earth was formed. These sinful people in Jude’s time are described as turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

The passage from scripture does not say that these angels fell to Earth to assume human form to mate with the daughters of men. Jude 1:4-8 “For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at naught dominion and rail at dignities”. Everlasting bonds, not temporary bonds or until they see pretty women. No! Everlasting bonds.

If these promoters of the fallen angel theory want to continue with their theory and compare the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah with the fallen angels, then these angels would have become homosexual because the men of Gomorrah wanted to rape the two Angels because they thought they were men. God was comparing the two types of “rebellion” not specific sins.

God’s loyal Angels who are not locked up in God’s prison, did and can assume human form and even eat men’s food, as can be seen in Hebrews 13:2 “Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” and in Genesis 18:8 where Abraham entertains Angels before they bring judgment toSodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 18:1-8 “And Jehovah appeared unto him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, My lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and strengthen ye your heart; after that ye shall pass on: forasmuch as ye are come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto the servant; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat”.

So the loyal Angels can take on human form and walk amongst mankind without being recognized by most, however, there is no sexual intercourse in Heaven, therefore any need for genitalia. It stretches the human mind to extremes to decide that the fallen angels could get out of their prison at will, acquire genitalia and breed or commit lascivious acts, just because they chose to, especially as it is God that locked them up in hell, inchains of darkness, to await judgment. Would He have allowed them out to consort with women and then punish mankind for their wrongdoing? No!

 

[cleminson]

Christ Himself plainly said that Angels do not marry. In Matthew 22:30 we read “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven”, and in Mark 12:25 “For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are as the angels in Heaven,” and in Luke 20:34 – 36, “And answering, Jesus said to them, The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they who shall be counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Nor can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection”.

How the offspring of demons could be called the “sons of God” beggars belief, especially as in Romans 8:14 it says, “As many are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Demons, fallen angels or whatever else you want to call them, are not led by God’s Spirit and God would not have called these fallen angels that are locked in chains, “sons of God”. To confirm this, we are told in 2 Peter 2:4, that chains in Hell bind the fallen angels, “For if God did not spare sinning angels, but thrust them down into Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of darkness, being reserved to judgment”. Even if, as some believe that these chains are figurative, the fallen angels power has been negated; the only power they have is the power we give them through our fear and ignorance.

In Matthew 5:9 we are told that, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” Once again, there is no way that fallen angels can be described as peacemakers.
People that promote the “sons of God” being fallen angels also quote the tenuous theory that women should cover their heads to stop the angels from lusting after them. In I Corinthians 11:7-10, scripture tells us “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (NKJV)

However, this scripture does not imply that women in that time needed to keep their heads covered to stop angels from lusting after them. It acted as a witness to the angel that they (the angels) should stay under Gods authority. To the demons, if they can see us from their chains, it acted as a reminder that they should have stayed under Gods authority.

Another great proof against the “sons of God” being demons, is that if the fallen angels could have procreated with the “daughters of men”, the Flood did not, nor could not, have wiped them out and if they found women so attractive then, they would have carried on mating with women to this day and we would still have the bullies of old. Demons do not die in floods and as they are still in rebellion, they would have taken no notice of the flood, they would have waited for the first pretty woman after the flood and carried on.

Let us now look at the scriptures that finally prove that the fallen angels were not the “sons of God”. In Genesis 6:2-3 scripture very clearly says, “the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were good. And they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” It says very clearly that these “sons of God” were men with a limited life span. “And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh”. These “sons of God” were “men” and “flesh” and God was angry with them for “helping themselves” to the daughters of men. Fallen angels did not have limited life spans, only humans could have had limited life spans. If they were angels that consorted with the human women, scripture would have been clear. However, Gods anger was with the “sons of God” and He calls them “men” and they made of “flesh”.

Mark 12:24-25 “Jesus answered and said to them, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (NKJV) Jesus clearly states again that like the angels we will not need sex in heaven.
The same theme follows through in Luke 20:34-36, And Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” (NKJV)

The advocates of the erroneous theory that the fallen angels were the “sons of God” make the assumption that these verses do not state that angels cannot marry or have children. They say that Jesus was only referring to the angels that did not fall and was not referring to the fallen angels, who had somehow sprouted genitalia after the fall.
There is nothing in scripture to support their theory and in fact overwhelming support for the fact the fallen angel were not the “sons of God”. In Hebrews 1:5 we read “For to which of the angels did He ever say, “You are My Son; today I have begotten You”? And again, “I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be a Son to Me.” God never called any of his angels “sons” and certainly neither good or bad, “sons”. If He does not recognize them as sons, we should be careful not to twist the Bible to suit our own theories and in doing so make them the “sons of God”.

The theory of the “fallen angels” being the sons of God is clearly going into an area that most science fiction authors would revel in. The fact that these “sons of God” were clearly very advanced people has nothing to do with them being the progeny of angels but much more with them being the offspring of Adam, an ancient being, with vast knowledge gleaned over hundreds of thousands if not many millions of years. It follows that while the Spirit of God led them, they were sons of God. These people were a special breed of people and for a time and season; their genes had a dramatic effect on the human race.

To understand whom these “sons of God” really were it would be helpful to see what the Bible teaches us about the characteristics of the “sons of God. The best definition comes from the New Testament; where we are given a clear requirement for being a “son of God”.
As we have seen in Romans 8:12 scripture tells us “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” This definition was true in the Old Testament times and remains true right through to the present. It was because the “sons of God” in Genesis were turning away from God and not being led by the Spirit, that every thing started to go wrong.

As we have also seen another definition of a “son of God” can be seen in Galatians 4:6 where we are told “and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” And again in 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
To be called a son of God, the person had to be known by God the Father, led by the Spirit of God and needed to have a heart that recognized God as Father.
In Philippians 2:15 we understand why God wanted to have a people that were apart from the rest of mankind, when we read the following scripture in, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” The sons of God were to shine as lights in the world.

They should be a type of person who is different from the rest of mankind, to the extent that mankind would recognize these unusual people, (“the new sons of God”), as being different from themselves. In the same way, early mankind found the “sons of God” different in the Old Testament. In 1 John 3:1, we are told that “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” We are clearly being shown that the world does not know God and therefore cannot understand what the new sons of God are about.

So, once the Spirit of God leads us and we recognize God as our Father, we become sons of God, becoming new creatures in Christ, as declared in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Again in Galatians 6:15 “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”

If as the sons of God, we have become new creatures, led by the Spirit of God and shine, as lights to the world, then, were the sons of God mentioned in the Old Testament the same? To find out we need to look at the Old Testament characters and find out who they were and how they related to God.

Chapter Ten​

New sons of God


The first son of God was Adam, born of the Breath of God and the dust of the earth. This is confirmed in Luke 3:38 where we are told “which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” Adam was named as a son of God. In fact he was the first son of God and from him all the other sons of God came into the world. Jesus was the product of the direct lineage of the sons of God and God to become the only Son of God.

Adam was created when God breathed upon the dust of the ground and formed him to become a spiritual living being that had in him the breath of life. This creation was different from creation of humankind where God says “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In the first creation, Adam had to wait a very long time before he got his helpmeet, Eve, whereas male and female were created together for the creation of Humankind, during the sixth period and in a similar way in Genesis 5:1, both Adam and Eve became humans together after the fall.

The first man, Adam, was created a “part physical part spiritual” being, very unlike the humans of today. Created during the third period and living and walking with God in the Garden of Eden. Adam’s existence went on for millions of years, while God created the Universe and Earth we know. Adam was allowed by God to be a spectator in the creation process by watching and finally giving the animal names after he had had studied them, Genesis 2:19-20 “Now the Lord God had formed of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.”

Now we come on to an interesting point, the Bible makes this statement, “And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat of any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.“ Yet some may think that he did not die but was only “demoted” to an existence outside of the Garden and to becoming human after the “fall.” Some may think that he was banished from Eden, for disobeying God and that for some reason God did not mete out the “sentence of death.” However, the word “die” has an immediate connotation, like being put to death, executed and not allowing life to continue. Yet Adam did not physically die for many years. Did God break His word by not killing Adam immediately? No! Adam did “die,” the moment he ate the forbidden fruit and, as God had promised, the sentence was executed immediately.

His first death took him from having a “partly spiritual body,” with a walking talking relationship with God, to being a mere “super” mortal, with a limited relationship with God. This put him apart from the rest of mankind because they did not start calling out to God until after his grandson (from Seth) was born. However, Adams relationship with God changed abruptly. Where previously he lived in the sanctuary of the Garden, where God walked, talked to him and where God provided abundant nourishment. Suddenly everything changed and instead Adam had to struggle to grow his own food, like the rest of mankind. He had become a mortal, now began the “Generations of Adam”

 

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now began the “Generations of Adam” and God used the same terminology to describe the new Adam as he used to describe the creation of mankind, in Genesis 5:1-2 He says, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. 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, in the day when they were created.”

Adam and Eve were now recreated as humans, they had become like the rest of mankind but unlike other men, God still spoke to him and his family. Humankind would not call out to God until two hundred and thirty five years after Adam’s fall, when Seth’s son Enos was born. Adam’s second and this time human death, occurred nine hundred and thirty years after his expulsion from Eden, when as a mortal at the end of his life he died. Adam only died about one hundred and seventy five years before the flood, so he would have witnessed the increasing rebellion leading to the steady decline of his descendants, the “sons of God”. In Chapter 5: 5 the Bible says, “Altogether Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years and died.”

When Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, humankind was living in a state of unawareness of the God of Adam, it was only after Adam’s grandson was born, that the Bible tells us in Genesis Chapter 4:26, “At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.” Therefore, by the time Adam died, humankind had started to answer to God’s love for them and started to call upon the name of the Lord God.

Once again, we see the two types of “humans” alive on the Earth. Straight after the fall and after his expulsion from the Garden, Adam and his descendants all kept a talking relationship with God. Cain even had the effrontery to argue with God over the murder of his brother Abel. In comparison however, humankind had to wait a while, before they were drawn to the God of Adam over the various gods that they worshiped and “At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.”

It is irrelevant whether mankind evolved or was created in a “flash” in the sixth period, to be called “male and female”. What is important is that Adam was created; he did not evolve and was different from the rest of mankind. For Christ’s death to have meaning, Adam needed to have a unique and exclusive relationship with God prior to Eve’s creation and needed to be the only one to sin by rebelling against God’s first command not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. The result of that transgression was death and expulsion from the heavenly realm of the Garden of Eden. Leaving the Heavenly they both started living as humans, with all of our problems that we experience living our lives on this Earth. Thus Jesus’ sacrificial death has meaning and allows for the first time, “Life” to become available to all humans and as we accept that “Life”, we become sons of God and our access back into “The Garden or Paradise” is assured.

Had God planned to use the spiritual Adam before the “fall” to bring an influence onto his people created during the sixth creation period? Alternatively, was this new contact by humankind, with the fallen Adamic line, how God planned to bring humans to himself? Romans 5:14 tells us that, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.” Adams death reigned over the children of God until the law came in Moses’ time.

Whatever God’s reason was, it is clear that the Sons of God had an effect on humankind. It is also probable that Cain would have told his new family all about the living God, after He banished him. We know that he went into the land of Nod where he married into “humankind” and started a new “tribe” separate from the Adamic line, amongst whom were highly intelligent and skilled progeny, who were musicians and forgers of bronze and iron.

Archaeology shows us that humankind was probably worshiping all sorts of pagan gods at this time but somehow, some time after Seth’s son was born, several of mankind started calling out to the true God, as mentioned in Genesis Chapter 4:26. The Adamic line, the Sons of God, did not need to “start” calling out to God because they already had a close relationship with Him.

These thoughts raise important questions. What sort of being was Adam before the fall? I believe that he was part human and part spirit, created to be the first “spiritually aware human, created to be a witness and companion to His Light, during creation? I believe he was created to be a witness, so that we would have a clear chronology of God’s creation. It would certainly explain how Moses was able to write The Book of Genesis, because Adam had been there for all but the first two periods of Creation and so could have passed the historical facts on to his descendants. Remember, Adam died, when Lamech (Noah’s father) was about 75 years old. Therefore, the eyewitness account was only one generation old by the time of Noah and his son Shem was ninety-five when Lamech died, so had plenty of time to hear the facts about God’s Creation from one of his forefathers that knew Adam. Abraham was 16 when Shem died, so he knew someone (Shem) in his own family who knew someone (Lamech), who knew Adam. Therefore from eyewitness of Adam to Abraham was only two family deaths removed.

Do I believe that there were two types of people walking on the Earth? Yes, I do, in fact, there still are, and God loves both. There always have been two types of people on this Earth, firstly Gods chosen people, out of whom came the Messiah, who reaches out to the second group of people, those for whom His love is poured out but have chosen so far to ignore Him or who have not had the chance to respond to Him.

Through all generations from Adam right through to the present day, God has had His chosen people. The first example of His chosen people were the Adamic line as opposed to humankind. The second example of His chosen people were Noah and his family. The “third chosen” people were Abraham and his family and servants. The “forth chosen” person was Isaac, from whom came the children of Israel. The “fifth chosen” people were the children of Israel, as opposed to the many nations who did not have that special relationship with God. The “sixth chosen” people where the Jews who followed after God and His ways when the rest of the Israelites turned away from God and became people like the Samarians. The “seventh chosen” people were during Christ’s life, where he ministered mainly to his people, the Jews, as opposed to the gentiles who were not part of his main ministry. The “eighth chosen” people are the Gentiles who accept Jesus Christ and are grafted into His family to become sons of God. This lineage stretches to us today, the new sons of God and we are expected to be lights in the world, which is full of people that He loves, and He longs for them to become sons of God also.

An example of the difference between God’s chosen people and the rest of mankind comes in the New Testament when a gentile woman asked for a miracle from Jesus. In front of Jesus she likened herself to a dog, recognizing that He had come to the Jews first. In Mathew 15:26-27 we are told, “ And he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. But she said, Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs, which fall from their masters’ table.

He came to the Jews first but he rejoiced that the gentiles would hear his voice and also come to Him, as in Isaiah 42:1-6, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he has set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.”

The question now arises was God unfair to create a people who lived unaware of God, for what must have been over a hundred years. Did they all go to hell? Did they have a chance? It must be said that they were created in God’s image and as such must have had a conscience. Therefore, I am sure that they were judged according to their consciences. More than that, I believe the secret lies in what “sin” is, if you believe that it is possible to sin without knowing God, then, there was no help for them. If however you believe that sin is rebellion against God, and that you can only sin against God; then surely, only those who know and are known by God can sin. Mankind’s problem is that it does not know God and is therefore spiritually dead, not that it sins. Sin can be dealt with, once that person comes to God, until then they have no relationship with Him either before or after death.

I have heard preachers saying that mankind is judged because in Romans 1:20 we are told that “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” They are applying a scripture that is written for and targeted at God’s people who have gone into gross sin, not at people who did not or have not a relationship with God.

Sin came into the world through the disobedience of one man – Adam, i.e. rebellion against God came into the world through one man. Only God’s people could sin, because only they knew His will. The rest of humankind was judged according to their consciences, as they did not hear his voice. Christ died to save us from that first rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden, and in doing so, made the way for all of humankind to come to God.

To understand where we are today in relationship to the “fall,” we need to look at Adam, Eve, Cain and the other “sons of God” lives and understand how their relationships to God changed as sin took its toll.

A number of commentaries say that the first sin was not the product of Adam eating the forbidden fruit but rather that Eve listened to and also believed the serpent. I disagree with this theory, even though at first glance James 1:12-15 would appear to support it: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” These verses are talking about people who were being judged by God for their “own lust”. Adam and Eve already had the crown of life and they were certainly not aware of good, evil, lust or any other type of sin until after the fall. James is clearly talking about our reaction to temptation, from a post fall perspective not in the pre-fall state that Adam and Eve existed.

In Job 31:33, Job tries to pass on to his friends, the fact that he was not trying to hide his own sin unlike Adam after he ate of the fruit, “If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom.” Adam only had something to hide after he ate the fruit, it is then that he tried to hide from God; he did not sin when he spoke to the serpent.

God had not told Adam and Eve that speaking to the serpent was wrong; therefore doing so was not sinful. Even Eve’s lust for the forbidden fruit was not sinful; the first sin was committed when Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit, thus he broke the only commandment that God had given him and then and there, as God promised, he died. He now found himself as a fallen creature in the Garden of Eden, he tried to hide from God and because of his now inferior state, he had to leave and descend into our reality, in our dimension on the same Earth.

Eve had not been created when God told Adam “And the Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat of any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” As discussed previously, we are not told when, how or by whom Eve found out about not eating of the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil”, but when she spoke to the serpent, she misquoted the commandment. She said, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”

 

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Firstly, God did not command Adam not to touch the fruit or the tree; Adam was commanded not to eat the fruit. Secondly, Eve does not name the tree that they were not allowed to eat from; she only mentions the “tree that is in the middle of the garden”. The tree of life was also in the middle of the garden. We would say that Eve did wrong in deceiving Adam and in 1Timothy 2:13 –14, we are told, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression”. The difference from our deceiving and it becoming sin, and her deceiving, was that because she had not eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree, she had no knowledge of good and evil, so did not know that deception was wrong and was therefore innocent until she ate the fruit. We however live in a fallen state, where we have learned that it is incorrect to do certain things and therefore have a learned knowledge that deception is wrong. After she had the knowledge of good and evil, she recognized her sin but blamed the serpent for in Genesis 3:13 scripture says “And the LORD God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat”. fruit of the “knowledge of good and evil”. We can only presume that she was not or He would have mentioned it when He was judging her. She must, however have been told by Adam about God’s commandment to him, because she was able to tell the serpent about it. However, Eve could not judge good from evil at that time, as she was not commanded directly by God not to eat of the fruit.

Eve would not have had any concept of doing wrong when she ate and gave Adam to eat but because she was part of Adam’s fall she was told by God in Genesis 3:16, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee”. God does not mention her disobedience, but because of her connection to Adam, God increased her labor, gave her pain in childbirth, and told her that she would be ruled over by her husband in the future.

Adam however was reprimanded for breaking Gods commandment, as is shown in the following verses in Genesis 3:17 “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; ....”.

We are told that both the “tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” were in the middle of the garden; only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was banned as a food source in Genesis 2:9. However, they both could have eaten of the tree of “life”, until after the fall when God banished them from the Garden, to prevent them from eating of that fruit and living forever in a fallen state.

As Adam had already lived for billennia, the tree of life had little perceived value and so he had not tried to eat its fruit. His relationship with God was strong enough to prevent him from rebellion, until his relationship with Eve caused him to disobey the only law that God gave him, resulting in both their deaths.

God had protected him from the knowledge of good and evil, by a commandment. God did not want him to judge, either good or evil; so forbad him from eating of that fruit. Unfortunately, for mankind, Adam rebelled against God and the chosen people had to wait for the first covenant given to Moses in the form of the Judaic Law, to provide a way for finding forgiveness with a blood sacrifice. As we have seen in Romans 5:14 “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come”.

The blood sacrifice of a perfect lamb was the only way to receive forgiveness for breaking one of God’s laws. This blood sacrifice was sufficient right up to when God gave us the second and final covenant with the blood sacrifice of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. With this final sacrifice and Jesus’ resurrection, He gave us a way back into fellowship with Himself and cancelled the effect of Adam’s sin.

The Mosaic sacrifice was good enough for God up to Jesus’ death and resurrection, for in Hebrews 10:1-14 we are told, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hathperfected forever them that are sanctified”. So the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ was what God had planned before Adam sinned and animal sacrifice was a picture of what was to come.

When we look at Cain’s life, we see a son of God, who had the knowledge of good and evil in him and had a walking talking relationship with God. Through all of this, he was angry enough with God about His preference of Abel’s sacrifice, to murder his brother. He was then banished from Adam’s land and was told that he would become a wanderer and the land would no longer grow the crops for him. This as we have already seen was one-step further than Adams curse, who was still able to grow crops but had to contend with thorns and thistles while doing so.

Cain said that he was not only being driven from his fathers land but also from the face of God, a typically human response to feel that God was going to leave him “always”, for sinning. We have seen that God had never said that He would drive him from His sight and He never took away the opportunity for Cain to have fellowship with him but he left God’s abiding presence. Cain was given a mark so that mankind would not kill him and he left his fathers land and went to the land of Nod, where he married into humankind and his progeny became great men of old. His linage is recorded for a number of generations and he might have been instrumental in bringing the people in the land of Nod to an awareness of God’s existence, for eventually, some of them started calling out to God (in the time of Adams grandson – Enos).

Cain’s level of existence would be one level lower than the rest of the Sons of God, though God never took away the ability Cain had to speak to Him. It was possibly Cain’s crying out to come back into God’s presence that finally led the people around him to start calling out to God, the Bible does not say. He remained a son of God and as I have suggested, might have told the people who lived in the land of Nod about Creation, the Fall and how much this Great Creator loved his “sixth Period” human creation.
It is suggested that Cain married one of Adam and Eves daughters and took her to the land of Nod but I do not see how God would have cursed one of Adams daughters to be banished from her family and land, for the sin of Cain.

When Noah was 500 years old, most of the Sons of God had fallen to such a low state that we are told in Genesis 6:2-7, “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. 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 repenteth me that I have made them”.

The ‘carnal’ make-up of man and the Adam-adamah inter-relationship is once more highlighted. God decided to destroy mankind and the Lord said “I will blot out (eradicate is the nearest translation for the Hebrew word “emche”) men (Adam) who I created, from upon the face of the earth (adamah)... for I regret that I made them”. Once again we find the Adam-adamah play on words, showed that God was only interested in the “Sons of Adam, the mixture of earth and His own breath. They were the ones who had angered Him because they should have known better.

It appears likely that God’s plan for the Flood was the destruction of the Adamic line and the violent mixed race - “bullies”, all bar Noah and his family. All God’s people had become so rebellious that He reduced their life span to one hundred and twenty years, as well as finally deciding to eradicate them all, with all their livestock and animals. Only in Noah did he see a man who was perfect in his generation. In Genesis 6:9 “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God”.

God chose to take Noah, a person who was in the direct lineage of Adam, one of the sons of God, and start off again. Noah’s bloodline was no longer pure because giants appeared after the flood and became a thorn in the side of the Israelis, until David’s time. God realized that the bloodline was polluted and His focus became a people who’s every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was not evil.

After the flood, God said that he would never destroy man again and in Genesis 8:21-22, after Noah and his sons sacrificed to God, we are told “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”. Even though God knew that Noah was perfect in his own generation, He also knew that the Sons of God that survived the Flood still had the same condition as before the Flood and that the “imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” These people lived for about one hundred and twenty years and their family lines did so until the death of Moses, when man’s age was reduced to seventy or if fortunate for eighty years.

I find it interesting how the “adamah”, the dust in the sons of God, became more and more prominent as the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” took hold on their hearts. When Adam was created, the “adamah” element in him stayed under the influence of the” breath of Life” right up to the “fall”. At his fall the will of man took over and the adamah started to get the ascendancy over the “breath of Life” in the sons of God. At the time of the Flood, the sons of God had become so “carnal” that they went against God’s will and in Genesis 6:2, “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose”. God was willing to start again but after the Flood the same adamah trait was still present in the Sons of God. The mingling of the two human races was now established, so God kept the family line where the “breath of Life” was strongest. This continued until in Acts 2:2 we are told “and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting”. During Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out onto His chosen people, the Jews from many nations. Later when the Holy Spirit was given to the first gentile converts, we are told in Ephesians 1:4-5 “according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”.

 

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Chapter Eleven​

The Conclusion



I know that this manuscript will accomplish what ever it is meant to achieve and I am sadly certain that it will make a number of people very angry but for whatever reason, I know that I was supposed to write it and I have a sense that it is complete. I believe that I have communicated all the information that I felt was applicable and in conclusion I would like to reiterate the main points of this manuscript. The results are compelling and show that this interpretation of Genesis is as, if not more valid, than traditional beliefs of the creation account.
This is what I have gleaned from my search through the Bible.
Before the first period of creation, Satan and his hosts committed an act of rebellion and were cast out of God’s spiritual Heaven into a lower and separate place, a place partly spiritual and partly physical matter (earth), especially created for them. This physicality bound them from entering the purely spiritual place that is God’s abode. This new part physical mysterious dimension was a prison of chaos and darkness, where the fallen angels were locked (possibly by the “matter” nature of the place) in chains until judgment day. These could be literal chains or they could refer to their new partly physical state. Only two places existed, Heaven, which is purely a spiritual place and Satan’s jail, which was a mixture of matter (earth) and spirit, made up of shapeless, chaotic, dark and raging deep waters. A place that God called earth, not our Earth, a place that is invisible to us but was to be situated on, within or roundabout our purely physical Planet. So I see there being three plains of existence, firstly God’s Heaven, which is purely spirit. Secondly, that first earth, which is a mixture of spirit with matter and is Satan’s prison but also the “place” where the Garden of Eden exists. The third place was not created until the forth period of creation and is purely matter, consisting of our Universe, within which we exist in our physical forms on our planet Earth.
Going back to the creation of the second of God’s heavens (partly spirit and partly earth), we are told that God’s spirit moved on this prison, the formless chaotic waters; Light came and darkness was separated from the Light. Satan’s jail was subjected to God’s Light and his area of imprisonment shrank as Light took up a spatial position on this special place and God brought his regenerative and creative powers to act upon the chaos. He was to change a part of the shapeless dark morass, inhabited by the devil and his cohorts, into the Garden of Eden. For some reason Satan was still allowed to wander about within this place (his prison) in his new spiritual form but his minions, the fallen angels, were chained up and lost all power except for that which we give them through our own ignorance and fear.
This place existed before our universe was created; it was a spiritual and physical place, created to be a prison but was possibly to become the “seed of the Universe”.
God then continued with creation until the beginning of the third period of construction, when, with His breath and with the dust of the earth, he formed a partly spiritual Adam. He also created a spiritually protected Garden to the East of Eden, which was to be Adam’s home and our Paradise. No length of time is given for how long it took God to create Adam but after his forming he was told to work and keep this Garden.
So this part spiritual Earth at this time was both a spiritual prison for Satan and his hosts but within the safety of the Garden of Eden, where God’s Light was dominant, was a Paradise for Adam to look after. From his higher dimension Adam could have watched God create a lower physical Earth and could have witnessed God commanding the “mayim” to bring forth life, leading to all of creation. He could have seen the formation of the sun, moon and stars and seen the creation of all other life forms and watched and named the different life forms and observed as God changed the species until finally they resembled the creatures that inhabit our Earth today. Then in the sixth period of creation, mankind came into existence, either possibly by a God driven evolutionary process or on the other hand, an instant creative process. Until it is proved that Mankind evolved from a lower life form, I am willing to accept that they might have been created in an instant but I am not willing to accept that this period of Creation was when Adam was formed. However, whatever process God used to create mankind, during the sixth period of His Creation, God decided to call them both male and female and the Bible at this point says that God thought that His creation was very good.
Do not be surprised that Adam lived for so long before mankind appeared. Christians believe that they will live forever in heaven after they die physically, if this is possible, why could Adam not have lived for a mere few billion years before he fell? Time in God’s order can have no meaning to our carnal minds; our concept of time is limited by our restricted lifespan but Adam did spent a huge period of time in the Garden of Eden without any thought of his own mortality. What period of time it took for God to go from the third period of time, when He put Adam into the garden, to the time of Adams rebellion, we do not know at the present but during this time, he would have watched the Earth being changed from chaos to the more benign Earth that is our home.
After an unknown period of time, Adam rebelled against God’s commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” and after he had sinned, both he and Eve died to the innocent place they both had with God. This woman was not the Mitocondrial Eve mentioned earlier because mankind had already existed on the Earth for about one hundred and fifty thousand years before this and the mitochondrion gene comes from those people who were created at the end of the sixth period of creation. However, Adam and Eve were both driven from the Garden and access to the Tree of Life was removed from them, but awaits us in Heaven, Revelations 2:7 “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
They were forced out of Eden and descended to join mankind on Earth, an Earth where they needed to strive, hold together as family unit and work to survive. God did not cut off Adam and his offspring from fellowship with Himself but slowly the sons of God turned away from Him and their hearts became wicked. So God destroyed all the sons of God except for Noah, his sons and their wives.
Unfortunately we are told in Genesis that mans heart was still evil even after the Flood, in Genesis 8:21 scripture tells us “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”. Along with the good genes, some of the wrong genes survived the flood, through one of Adam’s sons; because of this the “bullies” of the pre-flood period came back into existence and remained until King David’s time.
Abraham, who was one of the sons of God, had such a close relationship with God that he naturally recognized Jehovah when He and two angels visited his tent before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham even tried to stop the destruction by arguing with Him.
The Law was given in Moses’ time, so there was a way into atonement and forgiveness for the children of God, the Israelites, but the law was not Gods final way for dealing with his peoples Adamic state and nature. He wanted to restore the “sons of God” life back to them and to do this He needed to sacrifice His Son so that that original Life could be restored to those of His people that responded to Him.
Before this could happen, God commanded them to maintain the purity of the original “sons of God” bloodline but this close relationship with God was slowly diluted as the sons of God amongst the children of Israel took wives outside of their faith and lineage.
As the children of Israel came closer to the time of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and his family were close enough to God to hear His words on the imminent arrival of the “canceller” of Adams rebellion, the restorer of Life, the Messiah. Because of this, God used John to call the people to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming.
Later as the final act of making a way for the whole of mankind to come to Him, God used the Jews to crucify his only Son Jesus on the Cross. He had decided to do this difficult thing long before the Earth was formed because He knew that Adam would sin and die, causing rebellion against God to be part of the nature of the sons of God. The crucifixion needed to be originated by the High Priest because that was the way that that He, through Moses, had decreed the act of sacrifice. So for Christians to blame the Jews for crucifying Christ is ridiculous, as it was God’s will that Jesus was to be sacrificed and like all important sacrifices, it had to be sanctioned by a Jewish High Priest.
I have expounded the Biblical account of all creation from Adam to mankind, showing two types of “sons of God”, the Old Testament sons of God who had varying relationships with their heavenly Father and like their father Adam, some chose to rebel against Him. In comparison the New Testament sons of God, are brought into a relationship with God by Jesus Christ and by God’s grace. The difference between the first sons of God and ourselves is that though we are capable of sin like them, we have Jesus who acts as our Advocate before God.
From this we can see God’s great love for mankind, showing that there is a way into His presence, though we are not necessarily from the original lineage of the sons of God. He spent hundreds of millions of years creating a scenario that He knew would result in the death of His only son. What His ultimate plan is, I do not know. However, He is drawing an unworthy people to Himself and in doing so, calls them “sons of God”. We are a people that were chosen and called to Him by his perfect Son, Jesus Christ to be lights in this world.

*​

As final proof, I would like to conclude this manuscript by comparing all the scriptures that I could find showing the glaring differences between the creationists’ view of how and when the Earth was created and the actual Biblical account.

*​

Adam was formed in the third period (day), because plants were only created in the third period (day) (Genesis 1:11-13) and Adam was created before the plants as seen in Genesis 2:5-7 “And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But there went up from the earth a mist and watered all the face of the ground. And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. “
In comparison, mankind was created at the end of sixth period. Genesis 1:26-31 “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 heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth. And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth, which has in it, a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day”.

*​

Adam was formed out of the dust of the earth and God’s breath. He had God’s breath of life in him and that made him a very special individual, a living soul, as in Genesis 2:7 “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
In comparison, mankind was not made with God’s breath but he was created in God’s image and likeness. Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” He was not made a living soul.

 

[cleminson]

In comparison, mankind was not made with God’s breath but he was created in God’s image and likeness. Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” He was not made a living soul.

Adam was only created in God’s image after his fall in Genesis 5:1-2 we read, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. 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, in the day when they were created”. Eve had become part of her husband Adam; they had become one, whereas before the fall they were considered two parts Adam and Eve.

*​

The commissions that God gave both Adam and mankind were vastly different. Adam was put into the Garden of Eden and told to tend it, Genesis 2:8 “And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed.” And in Genesis 2:15 “And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

In comparison, in Genesis 1:28-30, mankind was told to populate and subdue the entire world, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it.”

*​

Adam was alive when God created the trees in the Garden of Eden including both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:7-9 “ then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. The tree of life also was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

In comparison, mankind was created long after the trees were created in the world and they had no contact with the trees in the Garden of Eden.

*​

Adam was given a restricted diet and told not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, as mentioned in Genesis 2:17 “but you shall not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

In comparison, the rest of mankind were told that they could eat all fruit and seeds in the earth, Genesis 1:29 “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat”.

*​

Adam was also given instructions for a vegetarian diet, which applied to all his descendants until after the flood, whereas mankind was already eating meat.

*​

Adam was created alone to be a witness to God’s creation and at first his only companion was God. Genesis 2:18 “And Jehovah God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” and then He created the beasts of the field. In comparison, when God created mankind, He created male and female at the same time, as seen in Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”

*​

Adam was created before his female partner and all other living creatures; in fact he was asked by God to name the animals in Genesis 2:19 “And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.” In comparison, mankind was created after the animals, as we see in Genesis 1:25-26, “And God made the beasts of the earth after its kind, and cattle after their kind, and all creepers upon the earth after their kind. And God saw that it was good. 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 heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth.” Here we see one of the greatest arguments as to the difference between Adam and mankind. The animals were made as a helper for him, as seen in Genesis 2:18-21, “Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.” Adam was created in the third period of creation and witnessed the creation of the animals, whilst mankind was created after the animals in the sixth period of creation.

*​

Adam was the first act of living creation in the third creative period and correspondently mankind was the last part of His creation, in the sixth period. All that he had created before was for mankind’s benefit. He was very pleased with his final part of creation as we read in Genesis 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

*​

Eve was made from Adam’s rib long after Adam was formed. Genesis 2:22 “And Jehovah God made the rib (which He had taken from the man) into a woman. And He brought her to the man.” In comparison, womankind was made at the same time as man in the creation of humankind. Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”

*​

If all of mankind had come from Adam, then the following passage in scripture does not make sense, because all mankind would have been called “sons of Adam” and we would have all had the same inheritance. Deuteronomy 32:8 “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”

*​

The sons of men did not start calling out to God until during the time of Seth’s son – Enos, as seen in Genesis 4:26 “and to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos, then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” Whereas, Adam was still alive and in relationship with God, so his progeny, the “sons of God”, should have had a constant relationship with their Heavenly Father, through an existing and inherited relationship, as did Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses etc.

*​

The sons of God were a unique group of people; they lived much longer than the rest of mankind. Methuselah lived to be nine hundred and sixty nine years old. On the other hand, as far as archaeologists can tell, humankind lived for about fifty years.

*​

Adam was created and at first got his companionship from God but when God saw that Adam needed other friendship, He created animals of both sexes as company for Adam. In Genesis 2:20 we are told “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him”. It was only after this that God saw that Adam was still in need of a helpmeet, that he formed Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. In comparison, mankind was created male and female from the beginning, so that they had companionship with one another from the start and they were created after God created the animals.

*​

When creating mankind, God uses the word “make” to describe the creation method which is Hebrew is “aśah or aw-saw’ “meaning; to do or make. In comparison, in Genesis 2:7, when God formed Adam, the word “formed” is used, which is “ya tsar” or “yaw-tsar’” in Hebrew, which has a meaning of squeezing into shape.

*​

In Genesis 6:3 scripture tells us “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years”. God is saying that these sons of God were also made of flesh and blood like the rest of mankind. This verse would not make sense if God were talking about fallen angels. The ASV says, “And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years”. The fact that He says, “also is flesh”, shows us that He still regarded His sons as part spirit, yet because their flesh part of their existence was desirous of the wrong things, He reduced the length of their lives. The rest of mankind was still living to about fifty years old.

*​

In Job 15:7 scripture alludes to Adam, being created before the hills, “Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou made before the hills?”

*​

Today most Bible scholars would say that the first two books of the Bible are allegorical, sprinkled with poetic license but get angry when other say that the rest of the Bible is allegorical and poetic license. I believe that we should read the Bible as though we had never heard of it before and not ascribe sections of scripture to the “allegorical” because it does not fit our doctrine. If the reader reads the scriptures with an open mind, then these comparisons are not tenuous; they are real, dynamic and dramatic in their differences. I submit that they show conclusively that then, as now, there are two types of humans alive on this Earth “the sons of God” and “the sons of men”. God loves both but requires that the “sons of God” should reach out to the people that he also loves, the sons of men.

Adam would have witnessed the creation of the world as we know it as well as mankind and as he was still alive when his grandson was born, he would have rejoiced as he saw mankind turn from their idols and cry out to the one true God for the first time. He would have seen some of his own progeny rebelling against God and be saddened that “seed of rebellion” had been introduced by himself, into his lineage and thus into mankind through his own actions. Yet he would have thrilled as one of his progeny, his great-great-great-great grandson Enoch had such a close walk with God.

The testimony of God’s creation would have spread by mouth because these “sons of God” lived much longer than man at that time. Noah’s father Lamech was sixty-five years old when Adam died, and Lamech would have told his son Noah about it all. Reu (Abraham’s Great-great-great Grandfather) was about one hundred and twenty one years old when Noah died and Abraham was seventy-seven years old when Reu died. The eyewitness account of God’s creation from the beginning of the third period would have been passed through four members of the family from Adam to Abraham and as the repeated accurate telling of their forefathers history was very important to the early people, it is sure to be very accurate.

Adam witnessed the most wonderful epoch, when he saw the Earth, as we know it formed and God create the plants and animals. He walked and talked with God learning about His ways and Heart, some or all of which, he would have told to his children, the “sons of God”.

 

[cleminson]

As I stated in the beginning of this paper, Galileo, speaking through the person of Salviati, wrote in his book “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”, “I conclude from this that our understanding, as well in the manner as in the number of things understood, is infinitely surpassed by the Divine; but I do not thereby abase it so much as to consider it absolutely null. No, when I consider what marvelous things and how many of them men have understood, inquired into, and contrived, I recognize and understand only too clearly that the human mind is a work of God’s, and one of the most excellent.”

I hope that those who disagree with my findings will forgive me for using my God given brain to find a solution to something that was troubling me. I also hope that by now I have started to convinced you that it is very possible that God formed Adam during the third period of creation and that God’s creative evolution is a far more likely scenario than existing theories regarding a six day creation.

As I stated earlier, Luther is quoted as saying about Copernicus’ theory “So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the Earth.”

Creationist friends of mine have already asked me, in so many words, “So it goes now. You want to be clever by not agreeing with doctrine that others esteem. Why must you do something on your own? Why must you attempt to turn our doctrine on Creation upside down.“

My only answer is that Scripture supports my theory. Though I realize that the leap from accepting a geocentric Earth to accepting a heliocentric Earth that Luther did not make in his lifetime. Is as big as the leap that Creationist Christians should make in believing that Adam was formed during the third period of creation and that a God driven evolution is a real possibility. There is a difference however, Luther could not find any Scriptures to challenge the traditional geocentric beliefs and even if he had wanted to, would not have found any Scriptures to back up the heliocentric theory that we so readily believe today. Yet we have many Scriptures supporting the third “day” creation of Adam, allowing for a God controlled evolution to have happened and yet most of us still choose to follow the traditions of our fathers rather than the Word of God.

It is not my intention to offend the reader by not agreeing with what they may esteem but I must offer to others that are troubled with traditional Creationism, a solution that I have found that answers my Creationist/Evolutionist conundrum.

Finally I must end by paraphrasing the Papal and Lutheran rejection of the Copernicus’ theory by stating that unless someone can show me from Scripture how the theory laid out in this paper could not be a “probable reality”, I will not accept it as a “harmless possibility”.


THE END

 

[cleminson]

I have been writing this Paper for 22 years and it is only in the last 4 weeks that I have heard of Theistic Evolutionists. It gave me great joy to discover that there were like minded Christians. I was wondering how to promote this work and realised that there are various Governments that are trying to reach the folk in the three main monotheistic religions, with no success. I sent a copy of this paper to my MP who is a friend and on Monday I heard that he wants me to put a presis together, so he can put it before senior Parliamentarians. This will happen next Friday. Any critisism of this work would be of great help to me but if you can't do that please pray that it all goes well.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I hope someone can help you. It's too much material for me. We can certainly pray, though.

 

[cleminson]

Thanks Tinker Grey. I have already done the precis, so Prayer would be great.