Part 1 can be found here: http://www.surefoundint.org/2021/03/30/the-fundamentals-part-1/
The First (most important) of all Commandments – Mark 12:28-31
When asked what is the ‘first (or greatest, most important) of all commandments’, Jesus basically answers it in two parts and then adds a ‘bonus’. We are going to take some real time and delve into this ‘greatest of all commandments’ because it is THE fundamental foundational scripture in the Bible, according to Jesus!.
Let’s do some groundwork and set the stage.
A few days before Jesus goes to the cross, we find Him teaching and preaching the Kingdom of God and contending with the religious Jewish leaders: scribes – theologians and lawyers — and the Pharisees, Sadducee’s – (who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead – These sects are the Popes, Bishops, Rabbi’s, Priest and ‘Pastors” of Jesus day) – in the temple which finished with ‘the Great commandment’ which effectively silenced all contenders and ended the ‘debate’. This ‘showdown’ had been brewing for several years. What we will see is it is the Lord who brings it to a head.
The week before He is crucified in Mark 11, as He descends from the Mount of Olives, before entering Jerusalem, mounted on a donkey – (like David had Solomon do – 1 Kings 1:32-40) – with His disciples. He is met with much fan fair and accolades – (called the “Triumphant entry” or what many churches celebrate, the week before “Easter” as ‘Palm Sunday’. It is actually not very ‘triumphant’.) – from the ‘adoring’ throng that lined both sides of the long road that led to Jerusalem. They called out and hailed and lauded Him as King, the son of David with shouts of Hosanna – Oh Save Us! as He rode toward and then through the Eastern, “Beautiful” gate, Ezekiel 43:4! — (Also sometimes called the ‘Kings’ or ‘Judgment’ gate, this is the gate where those looking for justice from the King came, – 2 Sam 15:1-6. This is supposedly the same gate the Muslims have sealed up and turned into a cemetery seeking to stop the return of the Lord! Who will come through the same gate bringing righteousness and justice.) — The multitudes were cutting off palm branches and waving them as a sign of homage. Others were laying their clothing in front of Him as an act of ‘submission’ to His authority! The Jewish leaders were both envious and afraid as Jesus rode through the Beautiful or Kings gate, they knew exactly what this meant. They asked Him to tell the people to be quiet to which Jesus said, (my translation) ‘Not today boys, if they don’t praise me the rocks and the earth itself will.’ – (which would cause a massive earthquake, which did happen to some extent after He died, rending the veil in the temple from the top to the bottom, — a very thick veil (curtain)! – Matt 27:51-54).
After He rides through, He goes to the temple while all the world, the multitude, Jewish leaders, Romans and angels and demons are watching and waiting with great anticipation to see Him ‘bring the fire from heaven to consume their enemies’, as had been prophesied many times. Yet, He did and said, NOTHING – (Mark 11:11)! He goes into the temple, has a look around, makes a few observations, and then forth rightly turns and says to His apostles, – (again my paraphrase) – “Let’s go back to Bethany boys” – and proceeds to return to where they had just come from on the other side of the Mount of Olives. Leaving a heavily charged atmosphere of great anticipation totally deflated, confused and, for some concerned parties, the priest and Romans, exhaling in relief!
Can you imagine the let down!? So much anticipation, so much hype. He had raised Lazarus from the dead, performed many signs and wonders and ‘the multitude’ were now ready for Him to be their ‘King’, and reestablish the ‘Davidic/Solomon’ rule of Israel elevating themselves above all other nations, while throwing off the hated gentile Romans and the corrupt and arrogant Jewish elders and priest, whom the people despised, understandably so, as much if not more than the Romans. They even hailed Him as King, “Son of David”, so much that Pontius Pilate had the plaque, “Here is the King of the Jews” in all three prominent languages put on the cross! He was well aware of what they had cried out less than a week before and he was rubbing it in their faces!
The next day he returned to Jerusalem — cursing a leafy, bud-less and fruitless, fig tree on the way saying – “let no one ever eat fruit from you again” – (what did Adam and Eve cover themselves with after the fall?) – this time without fan fair, and proceeded to go into the temple and engage in battle with the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes – (but not the Roman’s, “judgment begins in the house of God” – 1 Pet 4:17) – launching the opening salvo by driving all the money changers and those who sold the sacrificial offering animals — (They were using the house of God and the Holy things of God to make huge profits, from which they had become quite wealthy, while oppressing the people, especially the poor!) — out of the temple while calling them a ‘den of thieves and robbers’. He then stopped those who were taking their goods through the outer court of the temple, disrespecting it, from taking a ‘short cut’ through it, – “not today boys” – making them go around the entire grounds (vs 16). Jesus, as King, set up His court and rule in the temple as they had wanted Him to do the day before, the problem was they didn’t really care much for His rule! The next couple of days were filled with conflict as the Jewish leaders sought to trap or catch Jesus trying to turn either the multitude or the Romans against him. Their attempts proved futile as each time He confounded them. Which leads us to the last question that Jesus was asked, and His answer ended the ‘showdown’, it is where we have ‘the first/greatest of all commandments’ from this point forward Jesus went on the offensive! Here is that dialogue from the gospel of Mark:
Mark 12:28-30
Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?“
29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
32 So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is ONE God, and there is no other but He. 33 And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.“
34 Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But after that no one dared question Him.
What we see here, at the end of the showdown/debate, is the Lord is asked a simple but extremely relevant and important question. This scribe, who had observed the Lord’s dismantling of all those who had challenged Him, recognized the Lord’s brilliance and wisdom, and simply asked Jesus what is the ‘most important’ or what is the foundational fundamental thing that we should do, the first commandment to be obeyed? He is basically asking Jesus to sum up the entire scripture, and what we are to do and how we are to live into one short, summary statement – (or as I now call it in today’s (2018) vernacular, a ‘Twitter’ statement, about 300 characters) – This is the whole of the scripture in a nutshell. Amazingly, Jesus answers this question! He sums everything up in those words in Mark 12:29, 30. He then proceeds to add the ‘bonus’, the second most important commandment, love others as much as you do yourself (which we will go through later). and then commends the scribe for his response, saying he is “not far from the Kingdom of God.”
Here is the point I am trying to make here. Everything that happened from the point of His riding into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple, the conflicts, the miracles was all about bringing us to this final point, this question and answer called the “Great Commandment”! If the Lord is asked to sum up the entirety of everything that is important and what we are to do in one summary statement, and then DOES SO; I think it is a really good idea to spend a good amount of time to read, study and KNOW – (ginosko and gnosis) – what He is saying and what it is we are to do. Let’s start unpacking it!
It’s All About Family for God, for God is “Family”, That’s Why He Created Us!
“Hear Oh Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One!” , is the first, and actually the most important part of this “Greatest of all commandments.” What is He saying here? It is the first words out of His mouth and therefore should be considered of primary importance! He tells us right at the start to HEAR, listen, ‘I am about to say something important, and you need to pay special attention to what I am about to say!’ ‘Oh Israel’ is us, the saints, both Jew and Gentile who KNOW – ginosko – Him. Scripture is redundantly clear on this. The New Testament “Israel” is not specifically the Jews or the ‘children of Abraham’. It is all of those who have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ who He will gather into ‘one flock’! John 10:14-16
So, what does “the Lord our God – (God Most High the Father with the Holy Spirit) – the Lord – (Jesus Christ, the Son) – is ONE mean? Well, it means that God is a FAMILY, they make up the “Us” God of Gen 1:26-27
26 Then God ** – (Elohiym OT:430) – said, “Let US make MAN *** (Adam OT:120/121) in OUR IMAGE – (tselem OT:6754) – according to OUR LIKENESS; – (demuwth OT:1823) – LET THEM HAVE DOMINION **** – (radah OT:7287) – over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, OVER ALL THE EARTH and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image – (tselem) –; in the image – (tselem) – of God He created him – (generic word for ‘person’) – ; MALE – (man, male gender XY) – and FEMALE – (woman, female gender, XX) – He created them.
** God — [Strong’s OT:430 Hebrew – ‘elohiym (el-o-heem’); plural of OT:433 – Elowah—Deity, God or Supreme God -; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative.]
*** ADAM – NOTE: The same Hebrew word – ‘adam/ ‘Adam – Strong’s OT 120 and 121, are the exact same word no difference at all, including in the Hebraic script! Yet Strong’s and other translators give it a double mention in their definitions. We will discuss the importance of this later on.
**** Dominion — [Strong’s OT:7287 Hebrew – radah (raw-daw’); a primitive root; to tread down, i.e. subjugate; specifically, to crumble off: – (come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule,- r, over), take.] The word radah is used 27 times in the Old Testament and always as dominion, rule or reign.
We should note that the US God, gave mankind dominion over “all the earth”.
Ps 115:16
The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; But the earth He has given to the children of men. NKJV
This is very important, as we shall see later that it was man – (first through woman being deceived – (1 Tim 2:14) – and then the man, ‘obeying’ her – (Gen 3:17) – and thus abdicating his position as head) – who turned over this authority, that the US God had given them, to rule and reign over the earth to the Serpent – (the devil, satan, and his minions) – who was a high ranking angel (possibly the first created one) – who rebelled against God that other angels also joined ‘him’ in!
Let us now note the Hebrew definitions for the words ‘image’ – (tselem) and ‘likeness’ -(demuwth).
IMAGE — Strong’s OT:6754 HEBREW – tselem (tseh’-lem); from an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure, especially an idol: – image, vain shew.]
Image/Tselem is similar in nature and spirit but not a clone or exact copy, man is God’s offspring — Acts 17:28-29. My children are not me, nor are they an exact copy of me, they are of my image and likeness. We, male and female, were created with aspects, attributes of the Father and the Holy Spirit in us! Jesus the Son is One with the Father, always has been always will be! John 10:30, John 17:22) but he is not the Father. Oneness does not equal sameness in the sense of clone, duplicate or exact copy! —
This image/tselem is the spiritual – “shade/phantom” – (at least to us in the flesh, who lost our spiritual sense/faculties at the fall) – aspect that man was created like GOD. As we know God is a Spiritual (phantom) being. (John 4:24) We had a spiritual, ‘light’, component to us that was to be the primary, ‘God’ part and center of our being centered in our ‘heart’! This image (tselem) word is used seventeen times in the Old Testament and is also used as a type of ‘idol’, (Num 33:52, 1 Sam 6:5, Ez 16:17) which is a type or copy, but not the original, itself. We see this used again as Adam had a son Seth, who was also in ‘their’ – (Adam and Eve’s) – likeness and image, but Seth is not an exact duplicate of Adam, he is not Adam himself! – Gen 5:2-3:
5:2 Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called THEIR name ADAM *** (Strong’s OT 120), in the day when they were created. 3 And Adam*** (Strong’s OT 121) lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness (demuwth), after his image (tselem); and called his name Seth: (KJV– King James Version)
There is no capitalization of a word in the Hebrew, thus the two “adams/Adams” are exactly the same word, as it is in the King James version! An additional definition was added and capitalized by Strong’s, to indicate a difference between ‘Adam’- (OT:121) the individual man and ‘adam’ – (OT:120) mankind, human being with his wife Eve that makes up the – ‘their name Adam’ in Gen 5:2, as seen above. The problem with that is that the original Hebrew text does not make the delineation, and for good reason. Adam was the first created man (adam) so Adam and adam are one and the same in this specific scenario. Furthermore, as we have already discussed earlier (Part 1), Eve was in Adam and was BEGOTTEN out of Adam and they were and are ONE. Therefore, in Gen 5:2 when describing both male and female being named ‘Adam’ it uses the ‘plural’ form of THEIR name, meaning both Adam and Eve together. Then it refers to Adam the singular man. Just as Jesus is BEGOTTEN out of the Father and they too were and are ONE, but Jesus is His own person!
[Strong’s LIKENESS— OT:1823 Hebrew demuwth (dem-ooth’); from OT:1819; resemblance; concretely, model, shape; adverbially, like: – fashion, like (-ness, as), manner, similitude,’OT:1819 — damah (daw-maw’); a primitive root; to compare; by implication, to resemble, liken, consider: – compare, devise, (be) like (-n), mean, think, use similitudes] – Spirit filled, physical representative, resemblance of a Spiritual being.]
This is the physical aspect of man, the ‘container’ from the spirit, soul and mind, when He crafted him from the ground. The Lord God’s original intent for man was to be “God” (Elohiym) his ‘image/tselem’ in the flesh” – a physical body – likeness – demuwth. Stop and think about that for a minute – Selah!
Do you struggle with this? I get it if you do struggle, but it is still true. Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was the “last Adam” the one who would restore us – those who are His – to our original Spiritual ‘image’. And this is what we will be when we are resurrected, spiritual beings, part of the Elohiym like Christ – but not Christ Himself! – 1 Cor 15:42-49. This word ‘demuth’ is used 25 times in the Old Testament and most of the time it is used as a descriptive, comparative, ‘looks like’ or ‘is like’ type of usage. Ezekiel uses this word 16 times in an attempt to describe the cherubim and the wheels and faces of the creatures, etc. He is not calling the ‘creatures’ a literal lion, etc. – Eze 1.]
It is extremely important to notice that ‘man’ – male and female – (as just mentioned) was created to be part of the Elohiym (God), (in His image) but they were NOT created to be the Supreme Elohiym who is later called the ‘Lord God’. ‘Yahweh Elohiym’ – Gen 2:4 – the creator God, which is the same “Lord our God” of Mark 11:28. Jesus Himself says that we, man (generic), are called ‘gods/Gods**’ ‘Elohiym’ OT:430. Do you still struggle with this? I still get it, but let’s delve deep and take a close look at John 10:24-39:
24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know [ginosko] them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are ONE.”
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God – [theos – Strong’s NT 2316].“
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are **gods”– [theos – NT 2316]? 35 If He called them **gods – [theos], to whom the word of **God – [theos] came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God – [theos]‘? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” 39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.
Jesus calls MEN – ‘gods’-‘theos’ – NT 2316 – and also GOD the supreme God – the ‘Lord God’ – ‘theos’ – NT 2316. It is the same word. It is a generic Greek word for ‘God’, any ‘god/God.’ Like Elohyim, Theos is always plural and is speaking of ‘Gods/gods’ – (but when speaking of the three person God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is referred to as ONE singular entity – ‘God’ or refers to the head or highest in authority God who is the Father.). In John 10:34 – (“Is it not written in your law, “I said, “You are god’s”?) – the Lord is referring directly to Psalm 82:6 –
“I said, You are gods** [Elohiym -OT: 430] And all of you are children of the Most High – [Elyown OT:5945 – lofty, elevated as a title supreme] ….”
Here is the whole Psalm, notice the context:
God (Elohiym) stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods (elohiym) – 2 How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 Deliver the poor and needy; Free them from the hand of the wicked.
5 They do not know, nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are unstable.
6 I said, “You are gods (Elohiym) And all of you are children of the Most High (Elowyn), 7 But you shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.” 8 Arise, O God (Elohiym), judge the earth; For You shall inherit all nations.
Please notice that we have God – Elohyim, the Supreme God, standing in the congregation and judging the other god’s, – Elohiym. And the Psalmist goes onto say that we (angels and humans) are all ‘god’s ELOHIYM and we are all the children, (both angels and men) of Elowyn, the Most High God, i.e. – ‘The Father’.
Elohiym/God/gods are the same word. Elohiym simply is a reference to a spiritual being! Angels and men have a spiritual being and that spiritual being will live for over (or be judged and perish forever in the lake of fire!)
[** IMPORTANT NOTE: This must be hammered home! In the English text of scripture, we will see that there is an upper and lower case (capitalized and non-capitalized) using of the word ‘Gods/gods’ in both the Greek of John 10 and the Hebrew in Ps 82. That is strictly an English translation use to differentiate between us – (man—male and female, angels) – and God, the ‘One God’ – (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). However, as mentioned above, there is no upper or lower case/capital letter usage of a word in the original Hebrew biblical text. There were also no ‘lower case’ Greek letters at the time the New Testament was written!) – What this means is simple, any time we see the use of ‘Elohiym‘ – God/god/gods (OT 430) – Psalm 82, or Theos – God/god/gods (NT 2316) – in the John 10 passage — it means the same thing; the plural or generic name and use of the English word ‘God/god or gods’ – spiritual beings!So, this means that us (men) and the angels – (and yes that include the ones who fell) – where also called Elohiym, which is ALWAYS, OT 430 as defined just above! The Psalmist, Asaph, makes the delineation between us, the angels and ‘the Lord God, Father’, by using the word MOST HIGH – Elyown -in the Psalm 82:6 passage, the highest in the order of the Elohiym. Whereas in John 10 Jesus uses the word “Father”, to represent God Most High – Elyown! We, men and angels, and yes God Most High, the Father Son and Holy Spirit are all Elohiym/Theos, yet we are NOT – and never will be – Elyown or the ‘Lord God’ – Jehovah Elohiym – the Father or the Begotten Son or the Holy Spirit, the three distinct Elohiym who are ONE and make up the ONE Lord God, the creator God the self and always existent God!! Jesus Christ is the only one who is truly both, part of the Elyown/ Lord God – (the God head) – and also fully man.]
So, we should stop here and re read these verses – (and Greek and Hebrew definitions) – again and maybe again and again and think about what the Lord and His Word is actually saying to us!
It is saying that the ‘One GOD’ – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – capped off their entire creation with US – men/Adam – male and female. We are the last made, not the last thought of or least important (Many of the first shall be last and the last first – Matt 19:30 – being created or born first does not mean being greatest) . Everything God did in the previous 5 ‘days’ of creation was to come to the point in time to create man (male and female) to be the ones that “He” -“They/Us” – would be One with and ‘They’ called it ‘very good’ – Gen 1:31 – while all other days of creating merited a ‘good’. And Jesus, the Lord, makes this very clear in His prayer to His Father (the only prayer He makes specifically for us (“those who will believe in Me through their word“), in the garden, just before He allows Himself to be ‘arrested’ and sent to the cross, FOR US – men, both male and female.
John 17:20-23 –
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be ONE, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be ONE in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be ONE just as We are ONE: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in ONE . . .”
It cannot be any clearer what the “Lord God’s” intent for us is; to be One with Him and the Father!
So, when we put all the puzzle pieces together, and have ears to ‘HEAR OH ISRAEL’ – God’s flock, people — what we should see and understand is that when Jesus uses the term “Our God” here in Mark 12:28, the word ‘our’, includes Him and us, it is a plural possessive word! He is saying that He has a God and that God is also Our God – (John 20:17) – He is saying that we were actually created to be in His image and likeness, God theos/elohyim and therefore part of His FAMILY. Let’s take a look at who is in the family and their respective places and position (dominions):
The Family of God
1.) God the Father, who is God Most High, the Supreme God of – ‘the Lord our God’. He is the Head of the Family. He knows all things past, present, and future (foreknowledge). He is the omnipotent and omniscient One, and He alone knows when the Son will return. (Matt 13:32, Acts 1:7)
God Most High’s favorite name is Father – Jesus refers to Him as ‘Father’ over 100 times in the gospel of John alone! He is exactly that, the Father, Elowyn, the lead or “Head God”, the highest in authority God. He is a good Father, and a benevolent and loving Head God. He loves His Holy Spirit and He loves His Begotten (not created) Son, Matt 3:17, Matt 17:5, 2 Pet 1:17 –
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
He loves all of His creation passionately and especially us the ‘apple of His eye’ – (Deut 32:10, Ps 17:8) – so much that He sent His beloved Son to buy us back into relationship – (John 14:6) – after we rebelled and rejected Him, and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Giving us a chance to once again call Him Father! (1 John 3:1).
2.) God the only Begotten – (the word ‘Begotten’ was defined in Part 1) – Son, Jesus Christ ‘the Lord’, ‘the Word – Logos’ – who calls God Most High ‘His Father – “who is greater than me” – (John 14:28). He is totally submitted to and fully trust His Father and is One with Him. He is both the King of the Kingdom that is to come and the Bridegroom to the coming Bride. He has all authority over heaven and earth that has been earned, not given to Him. Father God, is greatly pleased with Him, as He, the Lord CHOOSE to redeem fallen man back to Him, at great cost to Himself, and therefore Has joyfully raised Him to the Highest place equal with Him and is the most exalted of all, the name above all names –
Phil 2:5-11
… in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant*, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
*bondservant – [doulos: Strongs NT:1401
doulos (doo’-los); from NT:1210; a slave (literal or figurative, involuntary or voluntary; frequently, therefore in a qualified sense of subjection or subserviency): – bond (-man), servant.]
Jesus has ALWAYS existed with and in God Most High with the Holy Spirit. He has been God Himself, conscience and aware of who He is even before ‘the beginning’ of time! – John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word – Logos, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ….
… John 1:14
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only BEGOTTEN of the Father, full of grace and truth.
He calls “God Most High” – (the “Lord Our God” which He Himself is part of being ONE with the Father; but is not the Father.) – His Father and God!
John 20:17 “… go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.‘”
He is the only Son that God the Father through the Holy Spirit – (Luke 1:35) – conceived (begotten) Himself, not by natural means – (John 14:6). He now is seated at the right hand of the Father God (Acts 2:33) and has All authority in heaven and earth – (Matt 28:18) and He has given us authority here IN HIS NAME to execute HIS will as He directs. Apart from abiding (ginosko) in Him, “you (we) can DO NOTHING“ (John 15:5). He is the head of the church -the ecclesia – Ephs 4:10-17 and all the government of the church is on His shoulders (Is 9:6), He is the King.
3.) God the Holy Spirit – (OT 7307: Ruwach: wind, breath, blast, tempest) – and could also be called the soul mate and ‘Helper’ of “God Most High” of ‘the Lord Our God’ – (Gen 6:3, Matt 12:31,32). God the Holy Spirit, is the ‘Lord and giver of life’, the breath (or wind) of God, is the manifest presence and “Shakina” cloud of the glory of God is the one who is here in us – (for those who know Jesus Christ as Lord) – and with us. The Holy Spirit is submitted to and follows the Father’s directions – (John 14:16, 14:26) – and also the Son’s after Jesus finishes His task and rises from the dead – (John 15:26). The Holy Spirit is the most difficult ‘person’ of the three to even attempt to foolishly define – (for who is a man to even try to describe the Spirit of God!) – for the Holy Spirit is a ‘multi-Spirit’ but ‘One’ being’, a complex, multifaceted and deeply mysterious spiritual ‘person’ (Elohiym) that does a lot!
The Holy Spirit is ‘the Helper’ – (John 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7) – and one who comforts – (Acts 9:31). The Holy Spirit is a conglomerate Spirit being having “seven Spirits” – (Rev 1:4, Rev 3:1, Rev 4:5, Rev 5:6, Isa 11:2 — The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.).
The Holy Spirit is the one who implements the thoughts and will of God the Father and the Son. Creation was implemented by the Holy Spirit, as the Father and Son collaborated and created the ‘blueprints’ – (John 1:1-3, Gen 1:1-3, Ex 31:3 – see Note below – ##) – The Holy Spirit is the one who “convicts the world of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come” – (John 16:7,8) – “He/They” are the “Spirit of truth” – (John 14:16,17), the teacher – (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is the “another Helper to abide with us forever” (Eve, the first woman was the first helper God gave to man.) that Jesus prays to the Father to send to those who seek to obey Him. The Holy Spirit, like Jesus the Son, submits to the Father’s authority – (John 16:13). It is the Holy Spirit who comes in and lives in us after Jesus rises from the dead purchasing our salvation – (John 16:7, Acts 1:4-8, Acts 2:38, Acts 8:14-16, Acts 10:45, 1 Cor 3:16). The Holy Spirit is the power of God, through Jesus name, manifested through us by the nine “gifts of the Spirit” – (1 Cor 12:4-11) – and this is just a few of the attributes of the “Spirit of the ‘Lord God’, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is clearly part of “The Lord our God” – Elohiym Yahweh – (Gen 1:2) from the beginning –
(The only ‘Elohiym’ (Gods) in the beginning was God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, all other living things were created beings, and have a clear starting point: with the angels – who are also ‘Elohiym’ – who have a reasoning mind that can have ‘ginosko’ with God- like other Elohiym – being created on the 4th day, the animals and other living creatures on the 5th – that are not Elohiym who – are also called ‘good’, and then finally, but not least, man – with the woman in Him- (Eve was ‘BEGOTTEN’ out of Adam – Gen 2:21 and is also Elohiym) – are the last created Elohiym who have a physical aspect/bodies – created on the 6th day – which is called ‘very good’).
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[## Note: The very first mention of an individual being specifically filled with the Holy Spirit is a man called Bezalel. His job was to take all the ‘blueprints’ that God gave Moses (Ex 25- 30) – who had been trained in the courts of Pharaoh and knew how to design and build buildings – and IMPLEMENT THEM. Those are very detailed and exact plans, and they need the Holy Spirit to be able to help them understand and to bring them into reality ON THE EARTH and yes, SO DO WE!
Ex 31:1-11
Then the Lord – (Yahweh OT: 3068 – which would be the “Lord God” – NOT Elohiym – this is the singular, the Father with Son, the “I Am”) – spoke to Moses, saying: 2 “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, 5 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship.
6 “And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded you: 7 the tabernacle of meeting, the ark of the Testimony and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furniture of the tabernacle — 8 the table and its utensils, the pure gold lampstand with all its utensils, the altar of incense, 9 the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the laver and its base — 10 the garments of ministry, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, to minister as priests, 11 and the anointing oil and sweet incense for the holy place. According to all that I have commanded you they shall do.“
We should remember, the Lord Jesus Himself did nothing until He was filled with the Holy Spirit – (Matt 3:15-16) – who then immediately LED Him into the wilderness to be tested and tried for 40 days – Matt 4:1]
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These three are so in love – (1 Cor 13) – with each other, so in unity of heart and mind, honor, respect and prefer each other so much that they call themselves “One” – (Deut 6:4, Mark 12:29, 1 John 5:6-8) – They each also know their place, position and their respective domains.
Jesus specifically commends the Roman centurion in Luke 7:1-9 as having the “greatest faith of any one even in all of Israel” and even “marveled” at it! The reason? As a centurion, a soldier, and an officer; he understood authority and governmental structure and how it worked! He simple knew who he was and what his position and place and authority (domain) was, and he also knew what he wasn’t. He basically knew ‘his lane’ – (Joel 2:7-8) – his responsibility and the limits of it, and not only stayed in it, but was content in it! He was not jealous of someone else who may have had a ‘higher authority’, rank or power, nor was he seeking to take some position that was not his! (This “bitter envy and selfish ambition” is what filled satan and the rebellious angels and led to their fall, and then also mans! – James 3:14-16. Which is not being content with one’s place, position and domain! This also leads to competition and comparing oneself with others.)
This ‘Oneness’ is the central aspect of His “the One God’s” being and is the reason why we say God IS love – (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16). This oneness in love is the foundation of everything and what he created us, the angels and all living things of creation, to be part of and share in this ‘oneness’ IN OUR PROPER PLACE! Man’s place was to be a special place and Jesus came to redeem us and make it so we could return to that special place and position. Anyone who rejects Him and seeks to supplant the One God, deserves, and will find themselves in HELL not because God wanted it, but because they choose it!
4.) Then God, created the Angels (4th day of creation) to be MINISTERING SERVANTS/SPIRITS of the House of God (Heb 1:4-14) to do His bidding.
They too are called ‘sons — ‘ben’ – off spring in the widest application – root word is ‘banah’ which is ‘to build’ — of God’ — Strong’s OT: 430 elohiym – which we have seen is the plural form of God/gods, and sometimes used as a generic name for ‘God Most High’ in which case it is, as mentioned before — OT:5945 Elyown –highest or Chief God among the “Elohiym“. So, the ‘sons of God’ (ben – (baneh) -elohiym) – in the Old Testament, ALWAYS refers to angelic beings and never men or God Most High. (Gen 6:2, 6:4, Job 1:6, 2:1, and Job 38:7: … When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy.)
The angels are created in the spiritual domain and were never supposed to leave it. Yet there were some who did and a number of them are mentioned by name in the first book (parable) of Enoch.
Jude 6-7
And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Jude, the half–brother of Jesus, is quoting from the first book of Enoch – which he also quotes from directly in Jude 14,15 – was recognized as legitimate sacred text in Jesus’s day by the Jews and obviously by Jude, his half-brother and the brother of James. The Lord himself references Enoch when answering the Sadducees about the resurrection calling them ‘ignorant of the scripture’ and proceeds to refer to Enoch 15 to state that there will be no marriage between men and women in heaven and that we will be LIKE the angles in heaven. – Matt 22:29-32.
There are two accounts of rebellious angels that are specifically described in Scripture, one is the ‘king of Babylon’ and is called directly – “Lucifer” – ‘son of the morning’ or ‘morning star’ – probably the first CREATED Elohiym. The other is the ‘king of Tyre’ – (I personally do not believe that these two accounts are speaking of the same ‘elohiym’ – fallen angels. I believe one represents Baal, the male ‘god’ and the other “Ashtara” the female Goddess. There are many names for these two but they are the same through out.)
Isa 14:12-15
How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars – (shining ones, other angels/Elohiym) – of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation – (the elders and the assembly of God’s saints) – On the farthest sides of the north; – (Mount Zion) – 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, – (the Holy Spirit and the Shekinah Glory Cloud of God) – I will be like the Most High. – (The Father, God Most High, who ruled with His Son) – 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol -(the place of the dead) – To the lowest depths of the Pit. – (the abyss/sea, the bottomless pit)
He and his band of rebel angels and demons, will LOSE and all those who side with him will also lose and end in the lake of fire where they will be tormented FOREVER! – (That’s a long time, you don’t want to go there.)
Now here is the “King of Tyre” – who is obviously not a ‘human’ king who was called the ‘anointed cherub’ who was in Eden —: Ezek 28:11-19
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14″You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. 17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. 18 “You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. 19 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; You have become a horror, And shall be no more forever.”‘”
(Ezek 28:1-10 is a prophecy to the “Prince of Tyre” who is actually the human king (vs 2), however the real power behind the throne of Tyre is this rebellious angelic principality Ezekiel calls ‘the King of Tyre. Tyre and Sidon is where Jezebel came from and her father was the priest of Baal.)
We know that two thirds of the angels remained faithful to God as one third fell – (Rev 8:12, Rev 12:4) – and they too will be judged – (and we, men, will have a say in that judgement – 1 Cor 6:3) – and rewarded or punished for their faithfulness or rebellion.
5.) And then finally on the 6th day as we have covered, the ‘Us One God’, created us, men and women. He created men, the male, in the image of the Father and Son and he created women, the female, in the image of the Holy Spirit – Gen 1:27: So God – (Elohyim, plural God) – created man in His – (Their) – own image; in the image of God He – (They) – created him -(eth OT:853) –; male and female He – (They) – created them – (eth OT:853) –
[Strong’s them OT:853 Hebrew: ‘eth (ayth); apparent contracted from OT:226 in the demonstrative sense of entity; properly self, (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely): – as such unrepresented in English].Notice the word “Him” and “them” are the same Hebrew word “Eth OT:853”, this means entity or person and has nothing to do with gender. The same can be said for the words ‘His’ and ‘He” and in the context of God and as pointed out earlier, are not gender specific they are personal pronoun markers put in the English versions. ‘Their’, ‘They’ and ‘them’ is more accurate to the original Hebrew text as there are no personal identifiers outside of ‘God’ – ‘Elohyim’ OT:430).
The woman is called a ‘helper’ or help/soul mate “comparable to him” in Gen 2:18 and so also is the Holy Spirit, – “the Spirit of Truth” – who is called by Jesus “another helper” in John 14:16. The scriptural evidence to indicate that woman was created in the ‘image’ – tselem – of the Holy Spirit is exhaustive, but we will not go into this subject in depth here.
We were all created to be ‘Sons/Daughters/Children of God’ the Father, the bride and brother of God the Son – (there will be no male or female in heaven – Gal 3:28 – nor given in marriage or marrying either and we will be like (similar, not exactly the same) the angels in heaven who are sexless – Matt 22:30 – and the dwelling place -temple- of God the Holy Spirit – 1 Cor 6:19 – to be ONE with them, with the angels as stewards, servants and friends!
His family will have the same substance, character, and values as He does. That is why He must teach us and train us. It is why we go through trials, suffering and difficulties here! As God is merciful, forgiving and loving, He so desires us to be merciful, forgiving and loving. Yet only He can impart grace, divine ability to help us walk through them and it is this that ‘conforms and transforms us to His image‘. That is why James – (the half brother of Jesus) – tells us:
James 1:2-5 – “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
And also why Peter tells us this:
2 Peter 1:2-11
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
And why Paul tells Timothy:
2 Tim 2:3: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
Yet as we have seen, God always had a heart of mercy and love that comes forth from His compassion. It was what motivated him to send His only begotten Son Jesus and it is, – along with the Lord’s love of his Father – what motivated Jesus to come and lay his life down and endure the shame and pain of the cross and why He, and He alone, will be highly exalted above all other Gods – Elohiym! – Phil 2:5-10.
The Governmental Structure of the Gods, the Elohiym
So here, in a nutshell is the hierarchy of the Kingdom – government – of God – (the Elohiym/Theos) – 1.) God the Father – God Most High, with 2.) God the Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and 3.) The Holy Spirit, – these three together are the eternal, timeless ‘Lord our God the Lord is One’ of Mark 12:29. Then – 4.) Man, the human male. the glory of God in the physical creation 5.) Woman, the human female, the ‘helper’ and glory of man – 1 Cor 11:7. And finally 6.) The angels, spiritual beings, servants of the house, that are sons of God but are to serve and be under man’s (both male and female) authority on the earth. All have a position and a place in what C.S. Lewis called, “The Great Dance” and what I call the ‘The Great Romance’.
As pointed out earlier, there was a company of angels that were not happy with this arrangement and position so one came to lie to and entice Eve, through the serpent or dragon – the next one up the chain from them. What is really sad about the fall is the lie satan, – the serpent, the dragon, the devil – told Eve was that if they ate of the fruit of the ‘tree of knowledge’ that she would not die but be ‘as God’, knowing good and evil. It was presented as a promotion and exaltation; the truth was SHE WAS ALREADY AS GOD – she too was created Elohiym. The devil tempted and deceived her to not be satisfied with her place in the order, her domain, and thus she ate, seeking to be wise and equal to the “Lord God” and Adam joined in her rebellion through ‘obeying or “heeding her voice” – Gen 3:17. The rebellious angels that left their domain, caused the woman to seek to take a position that was not hers to take, and then she gave the fruit to the man who sat there and said and did nothing, thus in eating it, he too abdicated his position and supported her rebellion by choosing to obey his wife over the Lord God’s clearly stated directive. Thus, starting the inevitable wicked chain reaction that God said would happen which is the end result of direct rebellion and disobedience of stepping out of their assigned God given and ordained places and positions – ‘domain’. First rebellious and jealous angels rebelled and then caused the woman to rebel, which caused the man to abdicate and fall and rebel. This is what led us to our present broken, evil and fallen condition, which ultimately ends in death (both physical and spiritual – which is an eternal living death in hell separate from all love and goodness) as God said it would.
So now let’s move on to the second part of the “Greatest of all Commandments”.
And you shall love the Lord your God with All your heart,
For us to love the “Lord God” with all our heart, it is probably a pretty good idea to know what one’s ‘heart’ is. I can’t love or do something if I don’t know what it is that I am asked to love or do something with! If I said to you – surrender your ‘glopglop‘ to Jesus – you would understandably look at me with a puzzled look as if I was a little off. You would have no clue what I meant. Well, I propose that for many, if not most of us, we have as little understanding as to what our heart is then what our ‘glopglop’ would be. So, we will spend some time defining these very important words that Jesus told us to love God with, which summed up together is ‘our all‘!
“With all your heart . . .
Your ‘heart’ is where the Holy Spirit dwelt in Adam and Eve in the Garden, it is also where the Holy Spirit comes back to dwell in when one receives Christ and is ‘born again‘ in Spirit and Truth. It is the spirit (Elohyim/Theos) part of us and is to be the center of our being . Ps 86:11
11 Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart – [center of my being] – to fear Your name.
Here is Strong’s definition of it from Mark 12:29:
[Strong’s NT:2588 Heart kardia (kar-dee’-ah); prolonged from a primary kar (Latin, cor, “heart”); the heart, i.e. (figuratively) the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle:]We see there is a struggle to define the heart here. That is because it is not the physical heart, the muscle that pumps blood – (though it does make for a good analogy as the life is in the blood and the heart pumps the blood (life) throughout the body and is strategically placed in the body to do that job.) – and we really don’t have good words or language to describe it, because it is spiritual in nature and we do not have a good vocabulary to define or describe things that are outside our natural observable and definable dimensions. The Old Testament can help us out here a bit. Let’s look at the Strong’s Hebrew definition of heart from this verse:
Gen 6:5-8
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
So what we see in these verses is that man has a heart and we also see that God also has a heart and it is clear that this is not the physical heart pump, this heart is deeper, it has thoughts and feelings. –(Note that man’s heart and God’s heart use the same word – leb! This is His image – tselem.)
[Strong’s OT:3820 (Hebrew) Heart – leb (labe); a form of OT:3824; the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the centre of anything:]As the Lord tells us in Mark 12:29 to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, it would make sense to think that there are differences between each one of these in some regards.
The heart is not our soul nor is it our mind, but there is much crossover and they are, like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, inseparable and are therefore “One“. The heart is the center but what does that mean? Let’s go back to the beginning in the garden, when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of ‘knowledge – gnosis’ and we will find some answers! The Lord had said to the man (the woman was still in him) that the ‘moment, or day, they ate of it they would die’ (Gen 2:17)! Yet after they eat it seems like they do not die but live on, yes? Was God bluffing? Was he engaging in hyperbole? Not at all, every word God speaks is 100% truth! He is not a like a human parent trying to either threaten or bribe their child into compliance without backing it up.
We need to understand that “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship (first) in spirit and – then we can understand and worship – in truth” (John 4:24). So, when God said the moment/day you eat of that fruit you will die, God was talking about the Heart of man where the Spirit of God lived – as stated before, the image/tselem – elohiym/spirit – part of us. And that is exactly what we see, sadly, happen. The Holy Spirit departed from Adam and Eve the moment they ate from the tree of knowledge and their natural eyes were opened but their spiritual being (heart) ‘died’ right there! Their – (Adam and Eve’s) – ability to see, hear and talk in the Spirit with God naturally and intimately was severed completely, they became spiritually blind and deaf. They, the Elohiym part, DIED. The Holy Spirit departed, light left and our hearts were overrun by the evil one and became black with darkness and our thoughts became entirely wicked as Gen 6 (and Jer 17:9) tells us. It started a ‘domino’ chain reaction effect. First the heart became corrupt, then the soul, followed by the mind and then the physical body, our strength; eventually also dies and everything that was to be under our dominion also became confused and corrupt.
We lost our ‘cell phone’!
Here is an analogy of what happened when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge. It was like having our spiritual ‘cell phone’ taken away or broken! In a large part of the world today, especially in urban populations, there are millions of audio/visual waves all around us. We cannot see them or hear them with our own facilities, eyes or ears. Yet they are there, whether one believes it or not – (and your belief or unbelief has no impact on the existence of these waves – it just impacts your use of them!) – If you do not believe they are there, they do not disappear. However, you will never seek to acquire a cell phone to access them and maybe think that those who believe in such things are crazy or are a threat of some kind.
In any case, to be able to hear or see these natural ‘waves’, we must have a device, a cell phone or receiver that is created to both receive and send these signals and convert them into a medium that our eyes and ears can both see and hear as well as convert our voice and images into the signals to send it back to the one we are communicating with. If you do not have a cell phone or if it is broken or turned off, you cannot communicate using these waves, even though they are all around you. We simply do not have the capacity to communicate in this dimension without outside help; so it was in the garden!
Originally, we had a type of spiritual ‘cell phone’ – (not a man made electrical devise) -in our heart, our spirit man the Elohiym part of us – the Holy Spirit – was living in us we had unencumbered communication. We could talk and hear freely with God, who is Spirit, and communicate directly with God in that dimension through the Holy Spirit who was living in our heart, our center because we had this ability in us. We see Adam and Eve walking and talking with God in the cool of the day – (Gen 3:8). They had no difficulties communicating with God directly in the Spiritual dimension ‘wave length’ that God communicates on. That all changed the moment he/her – ate of the tree of knowledge, he/her, and thus we – his/her offspring – could no longer speak or hear in that dimension. We lost our spiritual faculties, our spiritual ‘cell phone’, they died spiritually and it was immediate! The Holy Spirit left, He had too, He is Holy, the Holy Spirit is God. His holiness – (pure fire and light) – would have instantaneously consumed Adam and Eve and they would of perished in their disobedience, rebellion and sin with no chance for forgiveness or redemption.
The end results? – The consequences were that when ‘He’/ the Spirit left our spirit man, our ginosko relationship with God died and we were taken captive by the evil elohiym. We lost our innate ability to hear in the spiritual dimension and communicative with the “Lord God” in His natural domain and we also became prisoners coming under a rebellious fallen angel(s), someone who was supposed to be serving us and in time submitted to us on the earth; for man was to have dominion over all things in this physical domain. Ultimately all of mankind, both male and female, became “slaves to sin” – Rom 6:5-10, which is what the the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ gave us the OPPORTUNITY to be freed from!
The evidence that the Holy Spirit had left is easily discernible by Adam and Eve’s reactions after eating the forbidden fruit. Their natural/carnal ‘eyes were opened’, they saw their ‘nakedness’, covered themselves with fig leaves, in an attempt to cover up their rebellion – (Remember, what kind of tree did Jesus curse in Mark 11?) – and went and hid from God out of fear, knowing they had disobeyed the Lord’s one and only command. The clock (time) started and it was just a matter of time before their bodies tasted death! This is why Jesus said in John 3:3 you must be born again, OF THE SPIRIT. When one is “born again” – (John 3:3), one’s dormant dead heart – (that happened at the bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge) is ‘born anew’ – made alive, resurrected– and the ability to hear and talk with God in His dimension begins to be restored; even if through a fallen and corrupted flesh — (which has it’s own carnal cravings) — a self-centered soul and natural, carnal fallen mind that prefers knowledge or information, gnosis, over intimacy, life, ginosko.
It was not just that our spirit man that died at the fall, it is also where we choose to rebel and go to war with God against His ways and His Spirit through the lust and desires of the flesh, in which our carnal bodies will eventually die and return to the dust from which it was made.
Gal 5:16-17
I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
When we speak of the ‘Spirit’ that lives in the ‘heart’ the ‘center’, ‘inner man’ of a person that Paul tells us to ‘walk in’; he is not talking about the ‘life giving spirit’ (which is also from the Holy Spirit – all things that have life get their life from God, through the Holy Spirit). God is the giver of life, as we saw in Gen 2 in the beginning. God through the Holy Spirit, the breath or wind of God, breathed into the man and He became a living being. He gives life and when He takes away the ‘life giving spirit’, which He will do to all of us at some point in time, one dies physically. It is a great mystery how this ‘life giving spirit’ works.
Somehow when we breath the air there is an exchange of life that comes out of the air and into our blood and is distributed through our bodies. This is why the Bible says, long before biological science confirmed it, that “the blood is life” – (Deut 12:23). Think about this; how long can a person live without food? Give or take, depending on conditions, thirty to forty days. How long can one live without water? Again, depending on the conditions, 3 to 6 days. How long can one live without air? About five minutes normally before irreversible brain damage, ten minutes and you are gone! (There are rare exceptions, normally based on cold and those are called ‘miracles’.) So, you could see that every single living thing ‘has the spirit of God’ (breath) in it or else it would not be alive!
Yet when Paul tells, the Galatians to ‘walk by the Spirit‘, he is talking about the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit person of God, that lives and dwells, by invitation, in the center of our being as it was before the fall. A place that was void and empty of all true goodness and righteousness, since the choice was made to choose knowledge (gnosis) over life (ginosko), before the Lord Jesus Christ enters into ‘abide’ – (set up a dwelling place). It is the ability to hear, communicate, comprehend and relate (ginosko) with God on a spiritual level from the heart! (The restoration of the “language of the Spirit and Angels” – (1 Cor 13:1), speaking in tongues – that occurred at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and filled the 120 in Acts 2 is a partial restoration to how things were in the garden before the fall and what occurred at the tower of Babel – Gen 11. The Holy Spirit was now able to once again come in and take residence in the heart of man and one of the first things that was done was the restoration of communicating in the Spirit through our heart, by the Holy Spirit, to God the Father.
1 Cor 14:2
For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. and goes on to say, He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.
1 Cor 14:14, 15 goes on to say:
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful (My natural mind does not understand it). 15 What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit (tongues), and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.
This comes from the from the heart, which is deeper than the soul or mind. The Spirit also prays through us in words to deep to express in our natural minds: Rom 8:26-27
Likewise the Spirit also helps – (the Holy Spirit is ‘the helper’) – in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
(We will discuss this and the ‘infilling of the Holy Spirit’ in depth in another part in the future – parts 5A and B)
You have no choice about having the life-giving spirit of God, YOU DO HAVE A CHOICE when it comes to allowing the Lord to come into to your heart and being ‘born of the Spirit’ as Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3! He will not force His way in, (EVER). He may encounter you, even dramatically, but ultimately the decision to let Him – (and the Holy Spirit – and they are not the same! – Act 8:14-16) – come in and dwell and rule in your heart, the center of your being, is entirely up to you. A dramatic encounter with God or even a manifested miracle does not equal salvation or surrendering your heart to the Lord to come in and rule and reign! In fact, it can lead to greater judgement! – (Matt 11:21-24)
The Lord, through the Holy Spirit, will ‘convict’ you of your sin, and tells you the truth to woo and draw you, and will do so redundantly, but ultimately the decision to receive and submit to Him is yours and yours alone. And when He comes in, He enters your heart (where the Spirit dwells) and will seek to be the Lord of your life, and begin the process of healing your soul and renewing and changing your mind; to “unite your heart (whole being) to fear His name” and this will put us into conflict. Why? Well, He is Holy, full of love and mercy and righteousness and justice and He will seek to change you and transform you into being like Him and restore you to your proper place in His Kingdom/government, one that walks in the Spirit, one that is not self-centered. One that WILLINGLY desires to love others, even laying down his own will and way; (like Jesus) and do His Father’s will and way and even to do so with joy! (I have found nothing more enjoyable in life than doing something that I know pleased my Heavenly Father or brought real joy to someone else. It truly is better to give then to receive! Acts 20:35). Yet, our soul, mind and body will not yield to the will of God without putting up a fight for ‘self’ rule and on top of this, we have an enemy, the evil elohiym who led the rebellion against the Lord God/Elohiym and caused Eve and then Adam to rebel as well.
“And With all Your Soul, . . .”
The soul is where one’s person, personality, their individual spirit being lives, and it is the seat of our emotions, feelings and preferences. The soul is where our ‘self’ lives, it is from the fall –and thus our birth – ‘self-centered’. It was created when God (the Holy Spirit) breathed into the man. Gen 2:7
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 being.
Like the “heart” it is not so easy to define, and many have struggled with it for generations. However, Jesus would not have told us to love God with all our heart and then soul if there was not a difference, and another scripture marks a delineation as well between the heart and soul:
Heb 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Here is Strong’s definition of soul, you can see their struggle.
[Strong’s NT:5590 GREEK Soul: psuche (psoo-khay’); from NT:5594; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from NT:4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from NT:2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew OT:5315, OT:7307 and OT:2416):\]And the Hebrew equivalent from the Old Testament:
[Strong’s OT:5315 HEBREW Soul: nephesh (neh’-fesh); from OT:5314; properly, a breathing creature, i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental): – any, appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, dead (-ly), desire, [dis-] contented, fish, ghost, greedy, he, heart (-y), (hath, jeopardy of) life (X in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind, mortally, one, own, person, pleasure, (her-, him-, my-, thyself-), them (your)- selves, slay, soul, tablet, they, thing, (X she) will, would have it.]It is the individual spirit of a person (breath), but it could be defined as the ‘heart’ of a person (the natural fallen, black ‘heart’) that Jer 17:9-10 speaks of:
9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
The Spirit of the Lord and the spirit of man were One before the fall. And when the Spirit of God left, the spirit of man, the soul, become corrupt and was overrun by the evil one – (whom they obeyed over God). The ‘spirit of life’ did not leave Adam and Eve or he would of died physically as well. So this fallen rebellious heart/soul is what began to rule our lives after the Holy Spirit left.
The soul is deeper and stronger than our intellect or mind. Before Christ comes to abide (be Lord) it is the soul that dominates one’s life. Our feeling being is here, it is also where our ‘morality’ our feelings on what is right and wrong dwell – (God put ‘right and wrong’ in our souls DNA) – it is, as said, the seat of our emotions and our sub conscience mind. The soul is very powerful and has a dominant, heavy influence on our mind, life and decisions. This is where feelings of pain, anger, rejection, bitterness, hurt as well as feelings of love, joy, compassion, happiness, peace, etc, reign. Our souls influence over our mind and body is immense. Everyone’s soul – (natural heart) – wars against the spirit of God, it is very self-centered as this is where ‘self’ lives. Much of what is called ‘mental illness’ is not mental illness at all, it is ‘soul illness’ – much of it from demonic influence – that has taken over our mind and will from the fall!
We are careful and hesitant to talk about soul wounds. If you bang your thumb with a hammer or get physically sick you generally have no difficulties telling someone that. Yet if you are offended, embarrassed, rejected or ridiculed, or if your person is violated; these cause deep powerful wounds to our soul that we do not easily share with others, if at all! These wounds can be devastating if not dealt with. The soul can be and needs to be redeemed (only through Christ) and healed through surrendering to Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to first call or convict you, then love you, forgive you, accept you and make you His own and then take up His rightful place as the Lord of your life, the center of your being, only then will one’s ‘heart (God’s and yours) be united to fear His name.’ And only then can the healing of one’s soul, (self) find it’s proper place under God. Only then will one truly be able to ‘love one’s self’, because we are now grafted back into the Father’s love and have found our proper place in His family.
And With all your mind
Our mind is where our intellect, intelligence, and will is and is the seat of knowledge and where we store and remember information it is also our conscience, where the soul, body and intellect interact. The soul and the mind are in partnership it is the intellectual side of ‘self’. It is also the battle ground for our will, the place we make decisions concerning what we believe, who we like or dislike, what we will do and not do and who we will follow. Our decisions are made here. The soul and the carnal flesh (body/strength) can dominate the mind and greatly influence our will. Our mind, is our thinking capacity and our ‘hard drive’ and our ‘ram’, it’s where we store information and knowledge and where our conscience memories and experiences are kept or willfully, selectively cast away, repressed or modified because of the pain, guilt or incrimination they can bring. It is prideful and stubborn, refusing to accept truth and facts that proves one wrong or puts one in a bad light. It is here that we choose to lie or speak the truth or not speak at all. It has been trained, taught and PROGRAMMED from birth. The mind will tell us to do things and to not to do things based on what input’s it has been given and puts a high value on self-preservation, self-gain. Everything the natural rebellious fallen mind does, even the ‘good’ things is based on “what’s in it for me” or to break that down, everything one does, outside of a ginosko relationship with Christ – (which is based on agape love), is motivated by one of two schools of thought. 1.) A hope of a reward or promotion to get something one wants or 2.) fear, to avoid punishment, or pain. [Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology]
Scripture calls this type of thinking or living – attempting to earn salvation or cover up our sin by ‘doing good/’righteous deeds’ or keeping ritualistic religious traditions – ‘the law’ – (Romans 3 – 8) and deeds done under this system are called ‘dead works‘ (Heb 6:1, 9:14.) and are odious to the One God. This ‘system’ basically acknowledges that there are consequences for bad ‘evil’ behavior that one wants to avoid and benefits or rewards for perceived or desired ‘good’ behavior that one wants to have for them’selves’. Neither one is the ‘love of God.’ It is the fruit of the ‘tree of knowledge’ of “good and evil” and Paul and the author of Hebrews goes to great and redundant efforts to tell us that this system of ‘hope of reward or fear of punishment’ by doing good deeds, or averting punishment by not doing bad deeds, is absolutely futile and will lead one eventually to hell. Why? There is no ginosko knowing relationship of love and trust (faith)! Which is what God created us for in the first place, one that we choose to walk away from!
1 Cor 2:14-16 tells us the true state of the ‘natural, carnal mind’:
… But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know – (ginosko) – them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known – (ginosko) – the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind – (nous) – of Christ.
The feelings and emotion-based soul and the physical passions and cravings of our flesh can and will easily over run the mind and the next thing you know you are doing things you know are wrong or self-centered or are not doing things that you want to do or know you should or ought to do! (Rom 7:14-20) Even if you know there could be real negative consequences to those decisions and actions or inactions. Since the fall we are ‘slaves to sin’ a consequence of choosing to rebel against a loving and benevolent God selling ourselves in to slavery and over to the devil – (and his gang of thug fallen angels and demons) — who was embodied in the serpent/dragon in the garden. Anyone who does not KNOW (ginosko), Jesus Christ as Lord and savior is like their ‘father the devil’! John 8:43-47 –
Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? 47 He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”
(Please notice the passion and emotion in the Lord’s words here! He was a man, fully man, fully God. God has emotions, He feels pain and hurt, He knows rejection. He also is full of love, joy, compassion and mercy.)
So, because of the selfish twisted desires of the soul and the cravings of the flesh (carnal physical body) there are those who seek to use their intellect (gnosis), mind or will, to subjugate and kill off their soul, their desires (Buddhism) and emotions, as they see emotion or ‘desire’ as the cause of all evil, – (this is a lie deception, from their father the devil). Though there are surely evil desires, and evil emotions not all desire is evil, neither are all emotions evil either. God has both desires and emotions and they are not evil, and He created us with both and they too were ‘very good’ – until we made a bad choice.
Now there are those who come from the following school of thought; they see emotions as weakness or vulnerability and they need to be eliminated. Others will use their mind to justify their selfishness and wickedness. In any case, one cannot kill their soul or divest themselves of all emotions without becoming something less than human, hardened or arrogant, unloving, uncaring, “Machiavellian” and evil. – (And this is the ultimate goal of the devil and his minions, to sear your conscience and make you after his image, a hard- hearted slave to evil) – Eventually these repressed feelings and emotions are going to bust out and will lead to great wickedness, like what we saw with Cain who was the first of a long line of murdering, evil rouges – (Gen 4). They eventually have a ‘debased mind’:
Rom 1:28-32
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge — (epiGNOSIS – NT:1932 – recognition or acknowledgement, conscience mind) —, God gave them over to a debased – (reprobate, worthless, depraved) – mind, -(Strong’s NT3563: nous) – to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing – (epiginosko) – the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
They have become corrupted – (like an irreparable hard drive) – to the point that God the Father no longer sends the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and thus they are turned over to a ‘debased mind’ and their conscience becomes seared – (1 Tim 4:1-2 > Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. . .) – and they are doomed to perdition!
Here is Strong’s definition of mind from Mark 12:29, 30. It is straightforward:
[Strong’s NT:1271 mind: GREEK dianoia (dee-an’-oy-ah); from NT:1223 and NT:3563; deep thought, properly, the faculty (mind or its disposition), by implication, its exercise: KJV – imagination, mind, understanding.]“And With all Your Strength“
One’s ‘strength’ in this verse is simple enough.
[Strong’s NT:2479 Strength: ischus (is-khoos’); from a derivative of is (force; compare eschon, a form of NT:2192); forcefulness (literally or figuratively): KJV – ability, might ([-ily]), power, strength.] – Our strength or force comes from our physical body, that was originally created out of clay.A few points about our bodies: 1.) They are made up of the elements of the earth. Everything we eat that sustains our physical body comes from the ground. In Genesis 3:17, God told Adam that because he had listened to/obeyed his wife concerning eating of the tree of knowledge, that the ground would now be cursed and because of this he would now have to do laborious toil to grow food to eat to survive and that eventually he and Eve would die (AS HE, the LORD GOD, TOLD THEM THEY WOULD).
What is interesting to note here is that God did not curse either Adam or Eve, there were consequences, but they themselves being cursed was not one of them! He did, however, 1.) curse the ground and we see a drastic change in our interaction with the creation, the animals, etc. that the Lord told man to take dominion over. They too suffered under the curse as everything that was to be under man’s dominion was turned over to the serpent and his band of thugs. The impact of that curse is obvious, because of this: 2.) We now have carnal desires that come from the cravings of the flesh. Not only was our relationship with God broken, but also our relationships between angels and men, men and women, our offspring, other people and the animals and all the physical creation was broken and the negative impact is obvious for anyone who has any sort of discernment at all. Man’s attempt to countermand the curse on creation is futile, and the end result is the entire physical creation will suffer judgment and death.
We also need to note that what we eat or take into our bodies can have a massive impact on our soul, minds and bodies – (drugs – pharmakeus – and the like is sorcery and witchcraft). The ‘Gnostics’ believed that what ever we did with our bodies has no real importance. They believed that only ‘the spirit’ was important. This is the way they justify doing whatever they wanted in the flesh; sex, drugs, whatever. It mattered not what one did with their body because God was only interested – in their twisted, demented ‘depraved minds’ — in what happened in the spiritual -or “metaphysical” realm. They even denied that Jesus came in the flesh, as a man or took up a human body and John speaks to this in 2 John 7-11 –
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.
9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
The reality is that He did come as a human man and had to become the “Son of Man” to take authority over the earth and the ‘lust of the flesh’ that came into us from the curse of the fall. It is interesting to note, that when Jesus died on the cross, his blood went into the ground that had been cursed. This gave the Lord authority over the earth which He declares clearly after He rose from the dead! Hallelujah!!!
Matt 28:18-20
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Ultimately the real sin of the flesh, is not the pleasure of enjoyment that God gave us through food and nature and intimacy within marriage – (Heb 13:4 — Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.) – etc., that we enjoy through our physical senses and being. He created pleasure and enjoyment and in fact we were created to bring Him — (Rev 4:11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. — KJV) — and each other pleasure and joy through the action of selfless, “other oriented” love! God did not have to give us eyes that could see and appreciate color, or ears that could hear and enjoy music, or the taste buds to enjoy the taste of really good food, or a sense of smell to enjoy the fragrance of a rose, or the warm feeling of a positive touch or beauty to behold. Yet He did so that we could enjoy them.
The sin, therefore, is not in the enjoyment or pleasure that comes through our physical being. IT IS THE UNBRIDLED PURSUIT OF SELFISH, PHYSICAL PLEASURES ABOVE ALL THINGS AND AT THE COST OF OTHERS, that is the real issue, a problem that will lead one to death and hell! There are those who say, “I have the right to do whatever I want with myself. As long as I am not hurting anyone else, I should be able to do whatever I want. Have has much ‘consensual’ – (that’s a word that needs to have some parameters to it) – sex as I want with whomever I want who is willing or I can seduce! Eat whatever and as much of it as I want. Get drunk or take drugs as much as I want, etc!”
Their argument is that they are an individual, independent person, – (their own little independent God) – and that what they do with themselves is their business and has no real impact on anyone else. This is a total lie and not true. The truth is no one is exclusively their own —
1 Cor 6:19-20 >Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
— No one came into being alone, if you are here you had at the very least a mother who decided to carry you, at quite a cost to herself, to term and not exercise her ‘right’ to abort you, even if your conception was a momentary flash of carnal pleasure seeking! No life is totally independent of impact on others whether we like it or not. God gave us life, it is His and we did not create ourselves and when we do things to our bodies that damage or destroy it, we are having an impact on others and on God, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (selfish)! — Ezek 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!” — Yet, if one does not heed the calls to turn, repent and be ‘born again’ of the Spirit (John 3:3) and allow Him to reign and rule over our wicked passions, perish is exactly what will happen –
Luke 13:1-5 >There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
Jesus’s physical blood was poured out on the earth at the cross. He broke the curse of that death and the power that sins of the flesh have over us. Those who don’t know – (ginosko) – the Lord are still ‘a slave to sin’, they cannot help it, it is their nature. Still, even after salvation our bodies are corrupt and they will be as long as we are in them on this earth.
1 Cor 9:27 >But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. –
Our bodies are not redeemed and death will eventually take it and it will return it to the cursed dust from which it came – Gen 3:19. Still, we are to treasure, respect and care for our physical bodies for it is our temple while on this earth and for those who KNOW Him, it is also the temple of the Holy Spirit while we draw breath in this realm. Once again here is – 1 Cor 6:18-20 >
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Summary of the Whole Person
One needs to understand that we were not created to be simply physical beings with feelings, emotions, a mind in a body. We were originally ‘spiritually wired’ in our DNA to be part of the company of “Elohiym” having a spiritual being, able to talk to God directly, with our own personal spirit/soul — emotional being – with our own mind –with intelligence and cognitive and deductive abilities — within an individual physical body that has physical needs and desires. Heart, then soul, mind and strength as Jesus said in Mark 12:28-30, all working together in unity from the inside out! The spiritual ‘heart’ part of us being the center and most important part, the God part of us. This was the ‘spiritual wiring –cell phone’ that was severed at the fall. And this is the ‘wiring’ the Lord Jesus came, lived, bled, and died and rose from the dead to reestablish; making a way for the Holy Spirit to be able to once again come into our Heart and reestablish His Life, Way and Kingdom in us. However this does create a battle between Him and our now old hard hearted, self-centered soul, and our twisted and demented mind and our carnal condemned bodies! Jesus Himself said, Matt 10:34-39
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
This simply means that Jesus came to wage war against anything that keeps us from coming to Him and being restored to His Father as a son or daughter, Himself as our Bridegroom and brother and as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. HE CREATED US, not our Parents! This is why the Psalmist – (King David) – is crying out to the Lord to teach him His way and to unite his heart – spirit, soul, mind to fear your name. When the spirit part of us died, the soul and mind got bent and fell and they are often in conflict and in fact can only be healed and come into unity, a whole person, by being ‘born again of the Spirit – (our new heart – John 3:3-20 )- through Christ, then by willingly submitting to and inviting the Spirit of the Lord, to come and baptize and fill our heart to rule and reign in us! Only the Holy Spirit; through compassionate mercy – (a motivating emotion of God) – grace, and truth; can both harness and heal the soul and the mind of fallen man and God’s Spirit can only come to live in us because:
- Jesus Christ took the consequences of our sin and rebellion upon himself, He took our place because He was the only one who could! God had to become a man for us to even have a chance of being forgiven and restored to both God and to take back our rightful place on the earth, as well to be restored to a relationship with a Holy and perfectly righteous God who, by His very nature, would destroy even the slightest hint of evil, selfishness and darkness which cannot survive at all in His Holy and pure presence! So, God, in agreement — as they were in Gen 1:26 when they made man ‘male and female’ — sent His only begotten Son to become a man and, unlike the first man Adam, lived a perfect life of obedience and submission to His Father, while taking our punishment upon Himself on the cross, choosing to taste death; and as His was a blameless; death — the ultimate consequence of eating of the tree of knowledge before God gave man leave to do so — had no hold on Him and He therefore rose from the dead and is now seated in glory at the right hand of His Father earning the Highest place – (Phil 2:4-8) – Having conquered, sin, the grave and purchasing our chance to be restored to God and have the Holy Spirit come and live in us as He did before the fall!
- One must willingly choose to repent, surrender their lives to God and willingly invite Him to come in and allow His Holy Spirit to rule in your heart. While the Holy Spirit will ‘convict us of what is right and sin and the judgement to come‘ (John 16:8). He will never force us to repent and obey. There is no love in that, no ‘ginosko’ which is what He truly desires which brings Him and all of heaven great pleasure. (Luke 15:7)
And when you do this the Lord did something amazing and wonderful: He also took back the authority and dominion that man was to have over the earth, AND HE GAVE IT, THROUGH HIS NAME, back to us!
Because God had — again in agreement between the “US GOD” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — given men dominion over all other living things on the earth (Genesis 1:26, 1:29, Psalm 115:16)! (except other men who were to be under the authority of God). Man — Eve, the woman, through deception and Adam the man through choice (1 Tim 2:14)– surrendered that authority and dominion over to the evil one and Satan declares this so in:
Luke 4:5-6: Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.”
At the time Jesus does not argue with him about this claim, for it was true. The Lord had a plan though. Authority over the earth and the kingdoms of men, that God had originally given to man, had been given over to Satan by man, first the woman, then the man, in the garden. This was not God’s will or plan. Jesus, the Son, who existed as a Spiritual being who was God and with God for all time – (John 1:1-3) – became man had, a human mother and God was His Father, by word or decree, through the Holy Spirit (John 1:14). Jesus who always did His Father’s will, allowed Himself to be crucified unjustly and therefore was raised from the dead and took our sin and thus making it possible to have the Holy Spirit come and dwell in our hearts again. He also took back dominion and authority over the earth, as we have seen, He told his apostles in Matt 28:18-20:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on EARTH. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Jesus then turned around and gave this authority back to us, who believe on His name. Which is why He tells us to “go in His name.” We have no authority on our own. We have all authority when we are in Christ, in obedience with the Holy Spirit ruling in our hearts, with our soul and mind in submission and agreement, bringing the desires of the flesh under discipline and authority, by the grace and ability He gives us.
2 Peter 1:2-4
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
End of Part 2
Part 3 can be found here: http://www.surefoundint.org/2021/10/04/the-fundamental-foundations-part-3/