We learned that when the Serpent lured the first two humans into Sin, he decapitated the entire human race from God’s living Word. Because the Word is the sole Source of created life, Adam, Eve and their descendants were mortally wounded by their rebellious disobedience to Him, serious damage was done to their genetic coding, which they passed on to their offspring. Now, each generation passes that Sin-damaged, Death-ridden nature onto the next. And so people are not able to live and operate as God’s image and likeness unless they first reconcile with God’s Word and He is able to save and restore them. So apart from His Word, we can’t live and operate as one with God. Therefore, we aren’t able to be truly, completely human, as God originally designed and intended us to be.
Cain and Abel were the first to receive this deviant, damaged fallen nature. Because they were born disconnected from the rightful Headship of God’s Life-giving Word, they were trapped in the spiritual state of living death. They had no access to the company and fellowship of God that their parents had enjoyed before they fell into Sin. So it was vital for Adam and Eve to pass along to them the Gospel of Salvation that God’s Word revealed to them when He covered their nakedness. The sons had to know the Truth concerning God’s Perfect Righteous Nature, and what He did to make reconciliation possible with their parents and the entire race that would descend from their union.
The Genesis portion of God’s Torah wastes no time revealing that God is intent on restoring all of us. So God must show us what Sin is, what it did to us, and what He must do to make sure His Perfect Righteous Nature and the laws of Creation and His Standards of Truth and Reality are perfectly balanced and observed in relation to us. He must enable us to satisfy His Perfect Justice. Everything about us must be made new so that we can be properly aligned and balanced perfectly with God’s Order and Standard of Righteousness. And it’s obvious that only our Creator, the Perfect God Himself, is the only one able to do that perfectly. That’s why we must learn to look to and rely upon His Word, to be for us whatever He knows we need Him to be:
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God (through His living Word) made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
We’ve learned that when God deals with us, He does everything through His Word. The Word creates and sustains and provides for everything that God makes. He is the ‘Spiritual Garment that covered the two spiritually naked people in the Garden of Eden. And He is the Coverer and the Covering for the whole human race. There is nothing we Sin-corrupted, mortally wounded humans can devise or do to effectively and sufficiently cover ourselves! God must do it. And He has…through and by His Word!
Thus we see that the polarity of God’s Salvation is a one-way ‘energy flow.’ Salvation comes to us entirely from God. There is nothing we can do to ‘help’ or ‘supplement’ the work He must do to create, maintain and redeem us. He must give us the ability to see and know this Truth. And because He has empowered us to judge and choose, we must choose to receive…in our bankruptcy and personal ineptitude…what only His Word can be and do for us. Whatever we may try to do or accomplish in our fallen state, apart from God’s Word, will be useless. We cannot change or alter what Sin has made us to BE. So Salvation is never about a two-way, give-and-take relationship between God and us. When through our first parents, we fell into Sin, we all died! So we’re spiritually bankrupt and helpless. Only our Creator can provide what is necessary to restore our nature! And we must repent of our rebellion and attitude of radical independence from Him and receive our Salvation and Restoration from His Word and Holy Spirit. This is what the Bible reveals.
In Genesis 3, God confronts the Serpent and tells him what his fate will be as a result of his rebellion and malicious destruction of His beautiful Creation. The Word notifies the Serpent and the powers of Darkness and the entire victimized, fallen human race that He was sent to reconcile, reunite, cleanse, forgive and regenerate God’s image and likeness. God reveals that His Word will destroy the works of the Serpent, and that the Serpent and his agenda will be crushed and defeated once and for all.
In the beginning the Serpent was an awesome angelic being, one of the Seraphim! But because of his refusal to accept His Creator’s Reality, he rebelled and fell into Sin and Darkness. And because of the damage he did to God’s human image and likeness, and the rest of Creation, he condemned himself and those that serve him, to eternal, self-inflicted disgrace, debasement, defeat and exile from God and His Eternal Kingdom of Light. Now the powers of Darkness will exist in the Unreality and Insanity that ensues from being eternally separated from God.
So in Genesis chapter 3, God repeats, in different terms, the same thing He revealed in chapter 1, namely, that He continually separates the Light of His Word from the Darkness of the Serpent’s rebellion and state of Sin:
Genesis 3:14-15
“The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman (Israel), and between your seed and her Seed (the Messiah); He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel.” (Emphasis added.)
God’s Word is revealing what His Father commissioned Him to do as ‘the Seed of the woman.’ Thus we can see that there is a revelation link that connects Genesis 3 to texts like Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 31:31-37, and Revelation 5:11-14. Now the Serpent and those he enslaves occupy the Darkness side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence that separates what belongs to God, from what does not. The Serpent wanted enmity and warfare…and God is notifying him that enmity and warfare are what he shall have until the time for his total, eternal defeat and ultimate downfall arrives. And because God does everything through His living Word, the Word will be the Redemptive Covering for the human race and the Blood Covenant Champion that will redeem, rescue and restore us. He notified the Serpent that He would become one of us in order to rout him and undo the damage he has done to us. The Serpent will be forced to bow before our Redeemer and give back everything he tried to usurp from His Supreme Authority.
Psalm 110:1-3a
“The Lord says to my Lord (the Word): ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’ The Lord will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of Your enemies…’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Matthew 28:18
“…Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.’” (Emphasis added.
So because Cain, Abel and all other humans are born spiritually dead, and because our state of Sin keeps us under the Serpent’s domination, we’re marooned on the wrong side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence. And there’s nothing we can do or say that the Perfect Truth, Justice and Righteousness of God can accept or endorse. Whatever we try to do, or offer to God, is Sin-corrupted, twisted and dead. That’s why He sent His Perfect living Word to reveal Himself to us and to reveal our true state in God’s sight. When we know the real Truth, we’re able to realize and admit our dire need for salvation. Then the Word reconciles us to God and enables us to believe and trust Him and allow Him to cover us with His Perfect Righteousness and Perfect Blood Covenant Atonement:
Isaiah 64:3b-8
“You came down, the mountains quaked at Your Presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing (receiving the gift of Your) Righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your Name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your Face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You our Potter; And all of us are the work of Your Hand (Your living Word).” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
The Blood Covenant Substitute Pattern
Apparently, Adam and Eve believed and received what God sent His Word to be for them. And it was obvious that Abel learned and took to heart what his parents passed on to him and his brother. I say this because of the way Abel deferred to and received the successful, Word-imparted, God-approved way of approaching and interacting with God. Abel acknowledged his living death state and spiritual deadness and bankruptcy before God. So instead of offering a self-generated gift that came from his own Sin-corrupted effort, he followed God’s Blood Covenant Substitute Pattern instead. He presented a pure, Sin-less sacrificial substitute offering to God, in keeping with the Ultimate Sacrifice that God’s living Word, our Eternal Covenant Representative, offered in eternity to God, in our place and in our name.
The Word Himself is the Gift Offering, the Lamb that satisfies and pleases God…He offers His Sin-less substitute-life throughout eternity to His Father in our name. He offers His Perfect Representative Life to God in the place and name of our condemned, Sin-corrupted living death existence. The Word’s Perfect sacrificial Human Life is the only right and acceptable offering, for only He is the true and perfect Human Image and Likeness of Almighty God, and He is our Eternal Covenant Representative. So, if we receive this Lamb from God and offer Him back to God, by faith in His Perfection, God will gladly and fully credit us with what His Word has done in our name. And He will accept our offering:
Genesis 4:4
“Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering…”
Through his Sin-less substitute offering, Abel revealed that he was putting his faith and reliance upon the Covering provided by God’s Word, the Eternal Lamb of God… the one who would, at the proper time, appear on Earth as ‘the Seed of the woman’ and the Messiah of Israel. Yeshua is God’s chosen Messiah, the Servant that provides Redemption for the entire world. Abel’s sacrificial lamb prefigured God’s Word who is humanity’s only legitimate, God-approved Covering and Coverer. Adam and Eve received that Covering from God’s Word and passed that revelation to their sons. Abel received it and acted on it. Thus he appeared before God, fully covered and protected, under the ‘Shadow of the Messiah’s Wings.’ And this is the vast difference between men like Abel and men like Cain:
Matthew 23:34-39
“Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Emphasis added.)
Can you see it beloved? Can you see what the issue is for all of us, for all Jews as well as for all Gentiles? Can you see why the demonic murderous Serpent and his powers of Darkness do their utmost to blind the human race to the awesome eternally all-sufficient and effective Provision God has made for those of us who will repent of radical independence and come under His Word’s Eternal Blood Covenant Protection? The Serpent and his duped slaves do not want Peace with God. They want rebellion, enmity and warfare against God! And God sent His living Word to accommodate them! And by His sacrificial death on the Cross He has already broken the Serpent’s grip on the authority he usurped from Adam. He has routed the Serpent and defeated his powers of Sin, Darkness and Death, and has taken back all authority, which has always been rightfully His. The Serpent and his minions still try to resist by striking out at us, but thanks to our Master, the final outcome has already been decided: they have been routed and have already lost the war:
Matthew 10:34-39
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. 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. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who (like Cain) has found his (radically independent) life will lose it, and he who (like Abel) has lost his (radically independent, living death, worldly) life for My sake will find it.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Yeshua is rightly called in Scripture, ‘The Prince of Peace,’ but He is here to bring God’s Eternal Peace only to those who truly desire to be at Peace with God. He gives Peace to those who admit their bankruptcy and helplessness and turn to Him so that He can become their Peace and Righteous Covering in the sight of God. The Word is our Defender and Champion and the Absolute Conqueror of God’s demonic enemies! In that capacity He is also ‘Captain of the Hosts of Almighty God.’
Joshua 5:13-15
“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man (the Seed of the Woman, the Lamb of God, the living Word of God made flesh) was standing opposite him with His Sword drawn in His Hand, and Joshua went to Him and said to Him, ‘Are you for us (Israelites) or for our (Canaanite) adversaries?’ He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as Captain of the Host of the Lord (and as the ‘Seed of the Woman’ and ‘the Lamb of God,’ to deliver Israel and all the families of the earth, including your adversaries, from their enslavement to Sin and to our demonic enemies).” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ‘What has my Lord to say to his servant?’ The Captain of the Lord’s Host said to Joshua, ‘Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy!’ And Joshua did so.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
So in the book of Joshua, which comes immediately after the Torah, we see a further ‘unpacking’ of this awesome Revelation. God’s Word then brings our Salvation forward in space and time, throughout the rest of Scripture…and takes it to its Ultimate and Final Fulfillment in the Book of Revelation, revealing more and more of its significance…all the way to God’s Final Judgment.
The Opposition between God’s Light and the Serpent’s Darkness
This awesome dynamic of opposition between God’s Light and the Serpent’s Darkness was what was taking place between Cain and his brother, Abel. The cleansing, purifying, transforming Authority of God’s Word and the Power of His Spirit were working in Abel. But Cain had not allowed God’s Word to penetrate and captivate his heart. His heart retained the malice, rage and murderous hatred of the Serpent. Murder is a manifestation of the Serpent, living and operating from within a human being’s fallen flesh! Notice that both sons of Adam appeared to reach out to God; both seemed to perform religious acts that seemed to relate to God and to have spiritual meaning. But only Abel’s offering was in line with God’s Perfection. Only his act was genuinely God-originated and effective. And this shows us why God always looks through and beyond the external appearances of things. Things are very often not what they appear to be on the surface. Beneath the surface, there is often a very different reality lurking. In that case, the surface is a false front, a deceptive façade behind which the real truth lies hidden.
The Sin nature in our fallen flesh is still with us, even after our spirits are regenerated and we truly belong to God’s Word. And it is possible for it to continue to contaminate and color the way in which we perceive things and the way we think and feel and choose. This is why disciples must learn God’s revealed Truth and be trained in His ways. This is very important in terms of whose fruit we will be bearing in the Last Days. Men will have to live with whatever fruit or results they achieve, in time and in eternity. God will hold them accountable. That’s why we must be trained to see things as God sees them and to sow the seed into ourselves that He gives us to sow. But whether we obey God or not, the fact remains that the way we choose to ‘see’ and judge what is before us, will set off a very important chain reaction of events that will follow. The way we see and regard a situation or a person will cause us to begin to think about them in a certain way. It is as if the way we see and judge a thing begins to create a ‘cattle chute’ within which our mind and its thought processes become confined. Once that perception captures our mind, our thought process is forced to travel accordingly. It flows through the structure that our perception has created. So our mind becomes like a cow or bull that is caught in a narrow passageway. Now it can’t reverse its course. Nor can it go to the right or to the left. It is forced to proceed forward, into an inevitable destination or ‘holding pen’ that awaits it at the end of the chute. That holding pen represents the inevitable actions and results that flow from that particular perception and the thought process that gave birth to our actions and their results.
The way we see something and think about it causes us to begin to feel about it in ways that are consistent with the way we are seeing and thinking. And then we reach a critical point in the process: the way we feel causes us to take corresponding action. And in light of the sixth commandment, which we are now considering, negative, critical, angry, resentful perceptions, thoughts and feelings cause us to boil over with uncontrollable rage or deadly, premeditated, cold-blooded malice or fear. In either case, we are driven to destroy the object of our fear or resentment or contempt. And when our thoughts turn into action, we erupt and lose control and lash out, allowing the Serpent that is manipulating us from within, to commit murder through our flesh and in our name.
The Fruit of our Choices comes from the Root that Generates it
The naturally independent, self-absorbed process of perceiving, thinking and feeling that is characteristic of ‘decapitated hearts’, is the ‘root’ that produces God-less actions and results, including, murder. Self-centered perceptions give rise to self-adoring thought processes, feelings and actions. Once that process is activated, its fruit begins to ooze up to the surface. This is how Cain, and other humans like him, began to feel compelled to murder his younger brother. The act emerged from the Serpent’s radically independent venom that kept boiling in Cain’s heart…even while he was making his offering to God!
So the sixth commandment, as initially expressed in the Torah, focuses on the fruit, or the end result – the act of murder. But his noxious destructive perceptions and thought process were what gestated and gave birth to the act. So to make sure we properly interpret and understand this commandment, God’s Word made flesh, Messiah Yeshua, expanded, amplified and clarified what He said originally, from atop Mt. Sinai. This time He spoke from atop another mountain…in first century Israel. He explained and further unpacked what He first said in the Torah in portions of Scripture like Matthew 5-7. That portion is commonly called, ‘The Sermon on the Mount’. And this is how Yeshua further explained this commandment:
Matthew 5:21-22
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and, ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” (Emphasis added.)
Galatians 5:19-21
“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Emphasis added.)
1 Samuel 16:7
“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart!’” (Emphasis added.)
Cain’s external activity appeared to be very proper, pious and religious. But his act of murder exposed what was really in his heart…the way he had actually been viewing and judging God, and his brother, who was obeying God. His murder of Abel revealed the thought process that followed the perception in Cain’s soul. That is what the Serpent used to drive him eventually, to commit the actual murder. The act proved that earlier, even when he appeared to be religious and seemed to be worshipping God, his offering was a deceptive fraud. Even then Cain was fully under the Serpent’s influence.
Abel’s obedient faith proved that he was truly repentant and obedient to God. Thus he was truly covered by God’s living redemptive, restorative Word. And that’s why God accepted his offering. But the Darkness that ruled in Cain’s heart, despite his pious religious exterior, revealed that he had chosen to remain within the coils of the Serpent. He was still the image and likeness of that fallen angel. And the Serpent’s murderous intent against God’s Word and whoever obeys Him, kept boiling within Cain, until it finally spewed out uncontrollably from within him. Thus the Serpent used him to express and vent his murderous rage against God’s Word. He compelled Cain to murder his own Word-obeying flesh and blood sibling!
Genesis 4:4b-8
“And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his (pure, Sin-less substitute) offering; but for Cain and for his (self-actualizing, Sin-corrupted) offering He had no regard. So (the Serpent that was expressing himself through) Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must (allow My living Word to abide and work within you so that you can) master it.’ Cain told Abel his brother, “Let’s go out to the field.” And it came about when they were in the field, that (the Serpent that was driving and tormenting) Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in Heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and in Your Name cast out demons, and in Your Name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness (Torah-lessness).’ (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Isaiah 66:2b
“But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” )
So beloved, perhaps now you can see more clearly what generates and underlies all the human strife, contention, rage, and enmity that continually divides and brutally defeats and destroys the human race. At the root level, this is not about man against man. It is about the conflict between God’s Word and the Serpent and his Sinful ways. Both express and reveal themselves through the flesh and lives of men. The demonic traits of violent contempt, competitive rage and jealousy against God’s Word and against Abel (the Word’s beloved image and likeness) gave notice that the Serpent’s presence was active and dominant in Cain. And that is the same venomous rage and hatred that are buried deep within the damaged DNA of all fallen human nature. That is what drives us and makes us tend to be so selfish, self-adoring, impatient, judgmental, critical, prejudiced, lustful, greedy, predatory, angry and ready to kill each other…even people that we claim to love and cherish! That demonic selfishness and individualism tears apart the Covenant cords that bond people and obligate them to love and care for each other. Demon-inspired arrogance, insecurity, selfishness, fear, jealousy, rage and lust for acquisition, pleasure and supremacy drive countless humans to inflict great damage and harm upon themselves and one another. And that drags many into the ultimate act of destruction – the murder of self or of others. This is why God warns us concerning the enormous difference between the original human nature we are all born with and the new nature that God sent His Word to give to those who repent and allow him to regenerate their spirits:
Galatians 5:16-18
“But I say, walk by the Spirit (the Resurrection Life of your Messiah), and you will not carry out the desire of the (corrupt Serpent-dominated) flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the (condemnation that comes when you violate God’s) Law.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
God looked into Cain’s heart and rejected what He saw. And notice Cain’s reaction. He became enraged at God’s judgment and rejection. Why? What was it about Cain’s heart that drove him to resist and reject God’s rejection of him? It was because the Serpent was revealing himself through Cain. The unrepentant Cain was still the Serpent’s image and likeness. And God knew it. So He rejected the Serpent’s life and motivations that Cain himself had not rejected and still chose to harbor deep within his heart.
Genesis 4:6-7
“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’” (Emphasis added.)
Abel and David were born with the same fallen nature that Cain and King Saul had! They were all conceived and born entangled within the Serpent’s coils. And in that state, they all dared to approach God and give Him ‘offerings’ of peace and reconciliation. But what made Abel and David different? Later in his life, David was also guilty of a heinous murder! He committed adultery with the wife of one of his most loyal Blood Covenant brothers, Uriah! And to cover up that crime, he plotted to have Uriah killed in battle! So he too proved to be a murderer. But God did not reject David after He confronted him and exposed his sin. He accepted David and his subsequent offerings…but WHY? What was the difference between what was in Cain’s heart and what was in David’s heart? And what was the difference between David’s heart and that of Saul, who preceded him as king of Israel?
1 Samuel 13:13-14
“Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you!” (Emphasis added.)
The Way Out – True Repentance leading to the Obedience of Faith
David, like Cain and Saul, blatantly violated God’s commandments. His human Sin-corruption and imperfection were equal to theirs. He too was never able to meet God’s Perfect Standards. But the difference was that he gave himself over to God’s Word, choosing Him over the word of the Serpent. That made all the difference. The hearts of Cain and Saul remained filled with the Serpent’s Darkness; but David had filled his heart with the Light of God’s Word. So the difference was, True Repentance! When we repent, we reject the Serpent that eternally rejects God and His living Word! Thus we reject Sin and our original entanglement in it. We choose to reconcile with God and we obey His Word when He summons us to follow Him out of the fallen state into which we were born.
But if we do not reject the Serpent that rejects and wars against God, if we do not cry out to God for Deliverance from the Serpent and seek Reconciliation with Him, if we do not hunger and thirst in our hearts for true Redemption, Salvation, Forgiveness, Purification and full Restoration to image and likeness union with God that only His living Word can be to us, we will continue to side with the Serpent against God, and choose to remain on the Darkness side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence.
We must realize that God will deliver us from our enemies. But He will not deliver us from our friends! When God confronted the Sin that abided in Cain’s unrepentant, Serpent-captivated heart, Cain became enraged and resentful against God, just like the Serpent. Instead of repentance, he opted for trying to bargain with God. That proved he was still siding with the Serpent. And Saul, when the prophet Samuel confronted him and exposed his sin, he also failed to repent. But when God confronted David through His prophet Nathan, David’s response was entirely different:
2 Samuel 12:9-10
“Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’ Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.’” (Emphasis added.)
And in one of his most beautiful psalms, David expressed to God what was truly in his heart:
Psalm 51:5-14
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in Sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire Truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know Wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones, which You have broken rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation (Yeshua) and sustain me with a willing spirit.
“Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You. Deliver me from blood guiltiness (Covenant violation), O God, the God of my salvation; then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your Righteousness.” (Emphasis added.)
God’s commandments, as we said before, are given to us for our salvation and protection. But in order to receive the benefit of what they offer, so that we can persevere and overcome in our Exodus from Sin, Death and Darkness, our hearts must be truly repentant. Only then will we persevere in obedience to God and be equipped to reject the Serpent’s temptations along the narrow Exodus path over which we must travel:
Deuteronomy 28:1-7
“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the (unrepentant) nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God: blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways.” (Amplification added.)
Obedience to God’s Word proves that we are united to Him; and to be one with God’s Word is to be one with God’s Original Blessing that is fully contained in His Word. The Word is the Covenant Legacy that God, in His changeless, eternal Perfection gives to those who choose to serve as His image and likeness in this fallen world. God is Perfect, as we have seen. Perfection NEVER changes. So God ALWAYS loves us, and He ALWAYS rejects Sin. But, thanks to Sin and what it has done to us, we are born into the Serpent’s separation from God. Therefore, we are the ones who must change. We must allow God to transform and completely realign our innermost being. Then we can make our Exodus from Satan’s Darkness, over to God’s Light. Adam and Eve allowed God’s living Word to be their Covering and Coverer. And so He was able to restore them to God and to His Eternal Covenant. And Abel and David did the same. But Cain and Saul, like so many others, refused God’s saving grace and chose to cling to their radically independent existence. So God rejected the Serpent that was living in them and dominating their hearts. Men that insist on serving and obeying the Serpent, will harvest what the Serpent is condemned to reap, as well.
So we can see the purpose that underlies God’s commandments. They reveal God’s Perfect Infinitely Righteous and Holy Nature. At the same time, they expose our personal bankruptcy and neediness before God. The more we know about the Perfection of God’s Nature, the more we know about the true humanity that God had designed and created to be His image and likeness. But when we see what God’s Perfect Standards actually require of us, and compare that to what we really are in our true Sin-corrupted state, thanks to the regression that our original nature underwent, we realize our desperate need for God to save and regenerate us. When we finally realize our true, innate state of Sin, the impact of that awareness drives us to despair. It forces us to prostrate ourselves before God to ask for mercy. The commandments force us to see and admit our personal bankruptcy and total inability to obey and comply. They condemn and mock our inability to comply and force us to repent and receive God’s grace. The fraudulent, empty religious efforts of people like Cain, by which they try to conceal their bankruptcy, actually manifest the living death, guilt and condemnation that abide within them.
Matthew 15:12-20a
“Then the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?’ But He answered and said, ‘Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.’
“Peter said to Him, ‘Explain the parable to us.’ Jesus said, ‘Are you still lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man…” (Emphasis added.)
One day some very religious Israelites confronted Rabbi Yeshua, who had recently set a man free of demonic spirits. He had also been blind and mute. But Yeshua healed his body and delivered his soul of the oppression of the demonic spirits that he had been harboring within. Then these religious critics judged what they thought they had seen. Instead of glorifying God and acknowledging Yeshua to be the ‘Seed of the woman’ and the Messiah of Israel that Moses had foretold, they accused Him of doing what He did by the power of the Serpent! In other words, because Adam ceded his authority to the Serpent, the Serpent has authority over all fallen human flesh. Thus he is free to torment every human he dominates. He is also able to stop tormenting them when it suits his purposes. So these men accused Yeshua of being a false Torah teacher and an illegitimate messiah that was hiding his fraudulent claims by working in league with that satanic authority.
But Yeshua (God’s living Word made flesh) had promised in Genesis that He, the Seed of the woman (Israel), would neutralize and cancel out and destroy the works of the Serpent and crush his head. And He had just applied the fruits and blessings of God’s Eternal Covenant to this now liberated, restored and healed Israelite man. So, in response to their charges, Yeshua turned the spotlight around and directed it into the hearts of His accusers. He revealed that they had the heart of Cain and of Saul. Thus He exposed them and showed that they were doing the very thing they had accused Him of doing!
Matthew 12:33-37
“Either make the tree good (filled with God’s living Word and led by His Holy Spirit, like Abel) and its fruit good, or make the tree bad (filled with living death and driven by the Serpent) and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers (you offspring of the Serpent), how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned!” (Amplification added.)
Light vs. Darkness
What took place in Matthew chapter 12, between these religious critics, and Rabbi Yeshua, was a continuation of the Light vs. Darkness conflict that was revealed in Genesis 1, and Genesis 4 and 11 and Exodus 12 and Joshua 5-6, etc., etc. God is continually separating His Light from the Serpent’s Darkness. Always lurking within that demonic Darkness…is the Serpent and his malevolent, murderous rage against God and His Word’s beautiful Creation. The Serpent’s rage and hatred against the Word, who is his True Head, Lord and Victorious Master, always oozes into and permeates the self-adoring, individualistic, competitive perceptions, thoughts, desires, actions, reactions and interactions of the decapitated humans that remain enslaved within his coils. This is what causes the dog-eat-dog strife that is so common in this fallen world. And it is the exact opposite of the Self-less Blood Covenant Love and Loyalty that flow out of God and permeate His Eternal Kingdom. So this is the conflict that appears continually between the two human races that abide on opposite sides of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence:
Jeremiah 17:5-10
“Thus says the Lord, ’Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.’” (Emphasis added.)
Acts 7:51-60
“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.’
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep.”
So the commandments expose the inability and weakness of the fallen human race, while at the same time, revealing the Glory, Righteousness and Power of Almighty God. The revelation we’re considering, when we place it alongside the brutal, selfish things that we humans harbor in our hearts against each other, proves that the Word of God is absent from our hearts. But when the Word’s Holy Spirit truly dwells and works within someone, He causes God’s Word to become real, alive, and actively fruitful in that person. And he or she begins to change drastically. Then completely different sentiments, urges and desires manifest themselves from within that person’s heart:
Galatians 5:22-24
“But the fruit of the Spirit (when He is free to operate from within truly repentant hearts) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Amplification added.)
When our fallen flesh is crucified with our Messiah, and truly dies, it remains out of the way. God told Cain that he always had the power and ability to choose against Sin. He told him to overcome Sin. So, even in our fallen state, we are not completely helpless. Like Stephen, we always retain our freedom and ability to choose. God made us to be His image and likeness. Even now, it is in our nature to feel homesick for God and our true Heavenly Home. Something in us wants to be restored to God’s image and likeness. We want to escape Death and move into Life and be true, complete human beings. So when God sends His Word to us, if our heart is open to Truth, we are able to hear and understand and respond to the only one who can save us. Thus we can choose to allow God’s Word to overcome the Sin that is in us from conception. This is what God told Cain. So, after we repent and turn in faith to God’s Perfect living Word, He will give us His Holy Spirit and begin to live His Perfect Life in us, through us, and as us.
Then Yeshua’s Life in us will take over and free us from our addiction to selfish competitive striving to gratify our fallen, Sin-loving flesh at the expense of others. We will defer to our Lord and Master who is abiding within us and choose to allow His Life to work in us and fulfill God’s commandments. And we will draw from and feed upon His Eternal Love, Compassion and merciful gracious Kindness and be filled with what He is here to be and to give to everyone who enters and abides within our sphere of influence. And we will demonstrate the enormous difference between the fruit that our Master produces within us, as opposed to what comes out of that other decapitated race. The fruit of the flesh clearly reveals that God’s living Word is not present and active within them. But the fruit of the Holy Spirit proves that He is present and active within us.
Luke 11:23
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.”
Matthew 10:32-33
“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven!”
Jeremiah 6:20b-22
“Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people. And they will stumble against them, fathers and sons together; neighbor and friend will perish.”
1 Peter 2:1-8
“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to Salvation (Yeshua), if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a Living Stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a Spiritual House for a Holy (New Covenant Israelite) Priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (Messiah Yeshua). For this is contained in Scripture: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a Choice Stone, a precious Corner Stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.’
“This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, ‘The Stone which the builders rejected, this became the very Corner Stone,’ and, ‘A Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offense’; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed.” (emphasis added. Read all of chapters 1 and 2 in this heart-piercing Israelite apostolic letter)
James 4:4
“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship (Torah-lessness and Sin-corruption and immoral compatibility) with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Matthew 7:20
“So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
The above texts are giving vitally important revelation. Every human has Sin-corrupted fallen flesh. And that flesh gives rise to radically independent selfishness abiding within us. This is what Shaul (Paul) the apostle spoke of in Romans 7:
Romans 7:4-20
“Therefore did that which is Good (the Torah commandments) become a cause of Death for me? May it never be! Rather it was Sin, in order that it might be shown to be Sin by effecting my death through that which is good (the Law), so that through the commandment Sin would become utterly sinful.
“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to Sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but Sin, which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the Good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but Sin (the rebellion and disobedience of the Serpent) which is (the force that dwells) in me (is doing it).”
Beloved, decapitated humans trapped in the state of Sin have no choice but to operate out of their original Sin-loving corrupt nature. The Serpent that dominates their heart of hearts drives them continually! But disciples who are born twice can choose between those two lives. They still have the residue of the Serpent’s self-life (Sin) dwelling within their flesh; but now, thanks to the Gift of the Holy Spirit, they also have the Life of their indwelling Master being transmitted into their regenerated spirits. And so they must always choose between their original ‘self-life’ and their new, Spirit-imparted ‘Messiah Life’. They can choose to regress and fall back to their original self-adoring, radically independent ‘self-life.’ And, in that case, they grieve the Holy Spirit of God and nail the Gift of their Messiah’s Life back to the Cross. But they can also choose to defer to their Master and consider that original life to be dead and executed with Yeshua of Nazareth…so that the Resurrection Life of the Lord of Glory can live and reveal its nature from within them instead.
Choose Life!
Regardless of which life we choose, we can only live out from one or the other. We can’t have both. We must choose which life we will forsake and keep crucified and out of the way, and which life we will allow to prevail within us. This is why we must be trained to clearly discern between these two life options and be drilled and trained to make the right Word-obeying choices. That will equip us to choose wisely between what pertains to God and comes from Him, and what pertains to His demonic enemies.
Well-trained disciples realize that the captivated humans that the Serpent continues to deceive and manipulate for his purposes are not our real enemies. We are not to hold the victims in contempt, or wish them harm. They are mesmerized by the Serpent’s deceptions! Our Master, who lives in us, is here to awaken them from their trance and rescue and deliver them! So we must be trained to embody our Master’s redemptive love, faithfulness, mercy, forbearance and compassion on their behalf. Regardless of how unlovable, unlikable and undeserving people around us may be, we must not regard them as our primary threat. The demonic spiritual powers of Darkness are our primary enemies, not their deluded victims. God sent His Word, whose image and likeness we are to be, to reconcile with all humans. And since He has done everything necessary to save us all, disciples are commissioned to reflect, embody and release His saving, redeeming, reconciling Love to all people. And, like Stephen, who as he was dying, embodied the same mind and heart that Yeshua exhibited when He was dying on the Cross, we disciples of the Last Days must also be trained and disciplined to maintain Yeshua’s focus and purpose. We too must stand our ground and not do anything to interfere with Almighty God as He continues to reach out to the people around us through His Word and Holy Spirit.
So it is our duty to undergo the training and discipline we need to remain focused and intent on releasing our Master’s Lovingkindness, Grace, Mercy, and Compassion, Patience and Redemptive Forbearance upon all men, regardless of the cost to us. We must learn to garden, bless and protect their best interests as much as possible. We must remain true children of Light, on behalf of the victimized sons of Darkness. So, regardless of what the people around us may do or how they may react to us and lash out and mistreat us, we must be trained and ready to maintain a military-level focus on our God-given purpose. We must train ourselves to resist the Serpent and never lose sight of what our assignment and commission is to be. We carry our Master’s Presence into every situation and event of our lives. We are here to embody Him to all other people, in all things and at all times, no matter what. And this is the ‘Narrow Path’ that we must faithfully walk all of our days.
Beloved, God made His beautiful Creation to be a reflection of His own Eternal Life and Love! All creatures were made to live and thrive and prosper! No human being was made to die! Death is an abomination to God…and it is an outrage to us who were made to reflect and embody and reveal His Eternal Fruit-Producing Life! We must never make peace with or settle for anything that leads to Death. Death comes as the result of Sin. Therefore Death and Darkness and anything connected with Sin, will never be allowed into the Perfect Presence of Almighty God. That is why we are commissioned to be children and representatives and examples of the Glory of our Master’s Resurrection. No matter what Death tries to do…we are here to introduce and release Yeshua’s Resurrection Life, in which we all share, into every situation we encounter!
We once embodied the living death Serpent and served as his image and likeness; but no more! We have forsaken that self-appeasing, Sin-loving life that the Word-rejecting people of this fallen world pursue. Now we are commanded to invade that self-adoring realm of Darkness with the Perfect Presence and Life-Light of our Master, whose perpetual mission is to impart His Father’s Mercy, Grace Reconciliation and Salvation. We bring His Presence into all situations and release Him into every one of our interactions. We must allow His Love to overcome the Evil of the self-adoring powers of Darkness in us and through us, on behalf of whoever is around us. We are to work as one with our Master as He overwhelms the evil Darkness with His Life-giving Light. We are to protect, maintain and foster our Master’s Life-restoring Mission in our hearts and minds at all times
That is the perspective that must guide our thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions and results. We are here to release Messiah Yeshua’s Perfect Self-less Love that brings those whom the Serpent has murdered, back into God’s Eternal Life. To be the image and likeness of God’s sacrificial Eternal Lamb, this is what we must become. Our Lord and Redeemer must have a human Body on Earth through which He is free to be what only He can be and do what only He can do – for the desolate, captivated, tortured people in our lives.
Decapitated people, who have no access to the Perfect Love and Righteousness of God that the Word is here to be to us, remain deceived. Thus they embody the self-adoring ways of the Serpent. Their thoughts, drives, passions and motives produce violent, destructive, rage-empowered reactions and actions. Selfishness and competitive contempt continually roil in human hearts and create critics, thieves, betrayers, abusers, addicts and murderers. In the Serpent’s heart (which decapitated people are geared to embody) the message always is:
‘I want the best, finest, most beautiful and perfect life and possessions and pleasurable experiences for me…even it if kills you!’ Absolute greed and lustful self-interest underlie and motivate everything they think, say and do. Even when decapitated Serpent-embodying people ‘love’ other people, their heart motive is primarily selfish:
‘I love you because of what you do for me and how you make me feel. If I can continue to get what I want out of you, and you continue to do what I want and need, I will continue to ‘love’ you. But when you no longer do what I want and need, I will get rid of you and replace you with something better.’
And that, Beloved, is the formula for endless fear, anxiety, strife, contention, anger, frustration, resentment, hatred, desolation and deadly, cold-blooded, self-serving malice. When people’s hearts are marinated with that demonic corruption, they generate stress, danger, neediness, insecurity, rage, terror and desolation. And that arouses corrupt lusts and causes people to boil over into acts filled with strife, competition, frustration, predatory acts, rage, and, eventually, murder.
But God’s heart causes a climate that is completely different. In His Nature, Love abides and is at work at all times. Perfect self-less Love flows out of His Infinite, Eternal Abundant Fullness, with which His Spirit fills the Word’s disciples. That equips them to embody God’s Word, releasing Him into their situations and interactions with others. The message that God’s Love gives to the human race, without exception, is this:
‘I want the best, finest, most beautiful and perfect life and experiences for you…even if it kills Me!’
Isaiah 53:1-6
“Who has believed our message? And to whom has the Arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” (Emphasis added.)
Our God always pursues the best and highest interests of His beloved image and likeness humans. He needs nothing from us. Thus He never takes from us nor does He torment or deprive or try to get even with us. He is Perfect and Complete in Himself and needs nothing from His creations. So He gives without ceasing. He pours Himself out on our behalf, even when we are His enemies! He never resents us or holds us in contempt because of our wretchedly twisted, Sin-corrupted condition. His Word is filled with compassion for us. God, through His Word made flesh, understands what we see, feel and are up against from His own personal experience. He too was tempted as we are and experienced what we experience…except for Sin.
Because of His Complete Eternal Righteous Fullness, God can always afford to act out of Selfless Love. Because He is Perfect, and because His Word’s disciples are trained to abide in their Master’s Perfect Presence and be as one with Him, they can draw continually from Him and absorb all that He is into themselves, so that they too can be abundantly blessed and supplied and they can bless and supply others as well. And if they grow in this faith and learn to fill their souls to overflowing with what God reveals that He is putting into their spirits…they can always afford to allow their Master to think His thoughts and perform His actions, reactions and interactions with others…from the never-ending Abundance of His self-less, freely-given, unstinting Covenant Faithfulness!
2 Chronicles 30:6b-9
“… ‘O sons of Israel, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that He may return to those of you who escaped and are left from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord God of their fathers, so that He made them a horror, as you see. Now do not stiffen your neck like your fathers, but yield to the Lord and enter His sanctuary, which He has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God that His burning anger may turn away from you. For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your sons will find compassion before those who led them captive and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate, and will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.” ( Emphasis added.)
John 15:12-14
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (Emphasis added.)
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob tells us repeatedly that everything about His Perfect Nature is about Life. And so He works to protect and restore all living things that His Word has created and sustains and protects. Death, and whatever causes it, has nothing to do with God’s Nature or anything that abides in His heart. So as His image and likeness, we are made to contain, embody, reflect and share with everyone and everything – His Perfect Eternal Life!
Genesis 1:27-31a
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good!” (Emphasis added.)
Beloved can you see the enormous difference between the Light that comes from God’s Word and the Darkness that comes out of the Serpent’s lust for Sin? Can you see how good, kind, compassionate and life-giving our God truly is? Can you see that His Perfect, changeless Love-Nature intends for nothing but good to befall us? It is the Serpent that hates, envies, undermines, wounds and kills. He hates the Word and seeks to destroy whatever God’s Word creates, especially God’s own image and likeness. He seeks to destroy the lives and destinies God has given to us…but God’s beloved Son, the living Word made flesh, came to be everything we need…so now we can all be restored to a full share in His Eternal Resurrection Life!
As disciples, let us then do everything in our power to bless, cover, protect and reveal the Life that is in our God’s heart and will toward the people we encounter whom He loves so much. Let them all know what outrageous travesties death and anything leading to it really are. And let them see in you the vast difference between the Life-Giver who lives in you…and the venomous Death-dealing Serpent that infests and abides in the fallen still-deceived people of this poor fallen, decapitated world.
John 10:9-11
“I am the Door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have Life, and have it abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”