(Colossians 1:9-14 TPT) Since we first heard about you, we’ve kept you always in our prayers that you would receive the perfect knowledge of God’s pleasure over your lives, making you reservoirs of every kind of wisdom and spiritual understanding. (10) We pray that you would walk in the ways of true righteousness, pleasing God in every good thing you do. Then you’ll become fruit-bearing branches, yielding to his life, and maturing in the rich experience of knowing God in his fullness! (11) And we pray that you would be energized with all his explosive power from the realm of his magnificent glory, filling you with great hope. (12) Your hearts can soar with joyful gratitude when you think of how God made you worthy to receive the glorious inheritance freely given to us by living in the light. (13) He has rescued us completely from the tyrannical rule of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom realm of his beloved Son. (14) For in the Son all our sins are canceled and we have the release of redemption through his very blood.
To fully understand redemption, we must go back to the beginning.
(Genesis 1:1-5 NKJV) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (4) And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
- The reason for the Heavens is the earth.
Six times God observed His creation and saw that it was good.
Good (HEBREW) – appealing and pleasant to the senses.
(Genesis 1:31 NKJV) Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
On the seventh time, God made note that His creation was very good!
Very Good (HEBREW) – vehemently appealing and pleasant to the senses.
- The reason for the earth is man.
The earth has no reason for existing outside of man. Unconscious nature cannot enjoy its beauty, contemplate, or use what it has produced.
EWK – “Ages on ages He wrought in storing up treasures of all kinds of wealth for his man. He filled earth’s bosom with deposits of iron, copper, silver, and gold and with uncounted varieties of metals, chemicals, and forces.
He covered the face of earth with mountains, valleys, ravines, plateaus and prairies, lovely creeks, rivers and streams, and with many beautifully colored flowers that thrilled with joy the heart of God’s man. Fruits and vegetables supplied food for man. The Great Architect of human need and joy knew man’s needs while yet unborn, and in creation’s wondrous plan, these needs were met.
God gave man the capacity to enjoy the beauty of His workmanship and to utilize its resources.”
- The reason for man is the Fatherly heart of God.
(Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT) Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. (5) God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.
Knowing that fellowship is the reason for man, we can easily understand that man could not meet the reason for his very existence unless he were created in God’s image.
To partake of God’s life, he must be in God’s class and in God’s realm. He must be made in the image and likeness of His creator.
He must be created as near like Deity as possible, to be God’s child and heir.
God created man to be able to function in three realms: spiritual, mental, and physical.
For man to say that there is nothing outside of the physical realm is like a fish to say that there is nothing outside of the realm of water.
- Man’s spirit was eternal and designed to rule his soul and his body.
God could not fellowship with a robot, so He gave man the right of choice and the ability to choose.
There can be no fellowship with a puppet.
Man was designed to make life’s decisions out of his spirit.
- Man’s mind was created intellectually perfect and sound.
(Genesis 2:19-20 ERV) The LORD God used dust from the ground and made every animal in the fields and every bird in the air. He brought all these animals to the man, and the man gave them all a name. (20) The man gave names to all the tame animals, to all the birds in the air, and to all the wild animals…
The man named and remembered the names of over 500,000 different species of animals, bugs, etc.
Scientists believe we use only 10% of our mental capacity.
- Man’s body was created to live forever.
It took man’s body 930 years to die after man sinned and died spiritually.
- God gave man complete authority over the earth and everything in it.
(Genesis 1:26-28 ERV) Then God said, “Now let’s make humans who will be like us. They will rule over all the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. They will rule over all the large animals and all the little things that crawl on the earth.” (27) So God created humans in his own image. He created them to be like himself. He created them male and female. (28) God blessed them and said to them, “Have many children. Fill the earth and take control of it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. Rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(Psalms 8:4-6 ERV) And I wonder, “Why are people so important to you? Why do you even think about them? Why do you care so much about humans? Why do you even notice them?” (5) But you made them almost like gods and crowned them with glory and honor. (6) You put them in charge of everything you made. You put everything under their control.
Adam possessed such complete authority over creation that he has in his hands the legal right to confer that dominion to another being; which he did in the fall of mankind.
- God could have spoken the entire human family into existence at once, but He chose not to.
He wanted Adam and Eve to be fellow workers with Him in bringing the human family into the world.
Why go into such detail in describing God’s creation of Adam?
- A low understanding of the creation of Adam has given us a low understanding of the new creation in Christ.
Why was man’s sin so devastating? Why did it require Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross?
The sin of the first man, Adam, was so devastating in every realm. It brought death into God’s creation for the first time.
(Romans 5:12 NKJV) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
But God in His eternal, infinite wisdom had a plan to pay the price to deliver His man from death once and for all. Part of this plan is to restore man back to the state he was before the Fall.
(1 Corinthians 15:45 AMPC) Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life]. [Gen 2:7]
(Ephesians 2:1-5 TPT) And his fullness fills you, even though you were once like corpses, dead in your sins and offenses. (2) It wasn’t that long ago that you lived in the religion, customs, and values of this world, obeying the dark ruler of the earthly realm who fills the atmosphere with his authority, and works diligently in the hearts of those who are disobedient to the truth of God. (3) The corruption that was in us from birth was expressed through the deeds and desires of our self – life. We lived by whatever natural cravings and thoughts our minds dictated, living as rebellious children subject to God’s wrath like everyone else. (4) But God still loved us with such great love. He is so rich in compassion and mercy. (5) Even when we were dead and doomed in our many sins, he united us into the very life of Christ and saved us by his wonderful grace!
(1 Corinthians 15:47-49 TPT) The first man was from the dust of the earth; the second Man is the Lord Jehovah, from the realm of heaven. (48) The first one, made from dust, has a race of people just like him, who are also made from dust. The One sent from heaven has a race of heavenly people who are just like him. (49) Once we carried the likeness of the man of dust, but now let us carry the likeness of the Man of heaven.