We have previously expounded on
the fall of the man. It is critical that we understand what happened as a
result of man’s fall; with this, we can in turn understand the details of man’s
redemption. If man didn’t fall, then we would never have needed to be redeemed
and ransomed. The disobedience and fall of man was accompanied by fundamental
changes in the first man’s nature.
We must point out here that after
man’s disobedience, man started to function in a different way! Man became self-conscious as Gen3:7 shows. This type
of consciousness didn’t originate from God rather it originated from man’s
choice to scorn God’s will. Afterwards, man needed
to hear God speak in the physical realm (vs.8&9). Man hid from God’s presence (vs.8); prior to
this man had lived in the consciousness of his location in God. Fear came into existence (vs.10) and God
is not the origin of fear (2Tim.1:7). Also we see Adam get self-inspired
decisions as he changed his bone of bone’s name from woman to Eve (vs.20);
while these may to us seem so casual, it actually is not. Previously, the man
had functioned based on his relationship with God, after the fall, man
functioned based on self-will and self-knowledge. Now why was man’s function
altered as a result of the fall?
Things That Happened As A Result of Man’s fall
As a result of the man’s
disobedience, sin came into the world (Rom.5:12). Yes, the devil was a
sinner from the beginning, but sin didn’t enter into the world via the devil.
The custodian of the world was Adam; by choosing to become a subject of the
devil, Adam became the channel and means for sin to enter into the world. Here
we must understand that with sin came a
separation from God’s life – death. So death does not mean vanishing out of existence,
rather it means being cut off and separated from life. Death is defined by the
absence of life. Via man’s fall, death came (1Cor.15:21) and death spread to
all creation that had been made subject to Adam (Rom.8:20). Creation which God
made as good and placed under the authority of Adam became subject to
destruction & corruption as a result of man’s subjection to sin. So when
you see the ‘natural’ disasters today, don’t casually say: ‘it is an act of
God!’ rather understand that as a result of man’s choice, nature and created
things are no more as they were created by God.
So you may say: ‘and how does this all relate to me?’
Well consider the example of the tree which we earlier used, the root-stem and
branch analogy. If the root-stem is good, a bad branch can be cured, but if the
root-stem is compromised, a good branch on the tree is actually just a
living-dead. The same way with Adam, when Adam fell he was separated from the
life of God. He died the very day he disobeyed (Gen.2:17), yet we know that in
the body Adam lived another 930 years before death of his body. Now this is
what happened: when Adam disobeyed, his spirit was
cut off from associating with God. In his spirit he no more enjoyed the fellowship with
God. This was death; Adam was separated from the life and light of God. It was
a spiritual separation. So he needed his senses to hear God! God had to do
something physical to communicate with man after the fall. Via the knowledge of
good and evil, man became sense (in a way you may say brain) – ruled.
Man needed to see to believe, there was the need for
empirical evidence and proper computation to express ideas and thoughts to man.
God became mysterious to man, because God does not act based on the senses. I
like putting it this way: ‘God does not obey Newton’s third law of motion’ i.e.
God does not react based on an action. With man’s fall, the ways of God became both
a mystery and senseless to man. You see God does not live inside the time realm
as man does. God functions from the eternal realm (Isaiah57:15a). In our spirit
– born of God – we are able to relate with God and His realm as 1Cor14:2
explains. On the day Adam disobeyed, he died to God spiritually. It however took
930 years for the death of his body. James explains what the death of the body
means (James2:26). It involves the spirit leaving the body. This is where we
now understand what we mentioned earlier in Gen.2:17, where God said if Adam
were to disobey: ‘…dying thou shall die’. So we may see what God said to Adam this
way: ‘…in dying spiritually, you will physically die’.
It is of utmost importance to understand that Adam died
the day he disobeyed; his spirit only left his body 930 years afterwards. Adam
was for all humanity the stem from whom we were all to proceed. As soon as he
disobeyed, the changes that happened to him became applicable to all men that
were to come through him. So for Adam and God, it was not an issue of a sinful
deed, rather it was the result of the sinful deed. It became impossible for
Adam who could no longer in fellowship in his inner-most being with God to give
rise to progeny that would fellowship with God in the spirit. So as Eve became
the mother of all humanity (Gen.3:20), all who came through her line had to
look like fallen Adam as we see in Seth’s account (Gen.5:3). Adam after the
fall became the reference point for all man. After the fall, Adam was still a
spirit who had a soul and who lived in a body, however, his spirit no more had
God’s life, he had become a sense ruled person and his body had become subject
to death (i.e. his body could no longer act as an eternal vessel for his
spirit).
Our whole story was told to start to enlighten us all on
why when Jesus saves, He saves man completely: saves man as a spirit, saves his
soul and saves man’s body (1Thess.5:23). You see when our parents give birth to
us, in God’s sight (since our parents trace back to Adam), we are born as
humans without God’s true life! John explains in John1:13 that such
pro-creation is based on blood and man’s will. Paul calls such birth, giving
birth to the living dead in Romans5. On the other hand, when God gives birth to
us, our spirits comes alive to God as Jesus explains in John3:6. After our
birth by God, our soul/mind starts the journey of salvation of the soul
(1Peter1:9; Col.3:10) and this is executed by the Word of God transforming our
minds as Rom.12:2 says! The ransoming of our body only comes about at rapture
(Rom.8:23; 1Cor.15:51-53), when Jesus will transform our lowly bodies to become
like His own glorious body (Philip.3:21)!
So my dear
friends, if you are willing to listen: God didn’t give you a brain to use as
the primary means of living your life, rather God’s will is that you will reign
over your soul and body from your spirit. God’s intent is that by the union and
communion of your spirit with Him, you will rule over the transformation of
your mind and the careful treatment of your body as God’s own house.
Watch out for
our concluding aspect on the series: ‘Man’ in the next couple of weeks as we
delve into The Redemption of Man!!!
