Laying the Foundation

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

There are many things that we strive to examine, in order that the foundation for which the entire Gospel of Christ is built upon. In this chapter, we’ll backtrack to the beginning of time and the creation of man, revealing and discussing the occurrences that took place, what was spawned, and where we go from there. We generally use the King James Version of the Bible for our references that we will be making, perhaps any verse by verse translation will be of help to any reader, (American Standard Version, or Young's Literal Translation are good). We have found that all paraphrase versions of the Bible only lead believers to confusion instead of truth.

In the beginning was God. He was, is, and always will be. He is independent of us, although we are not independent of Him. He had need of nothing, and yet created all He did for His pleasure and because He could.

A popular question that is often asked not only by Christians, but also by those that are not yet in relationship with the Lord, is “why did God create us.” My husband’s answer to this question has always made me smile, “Because God wanted a family.

” If there is a God, why is there so much evil? If there is not a God, why is there so much good?” –St. Augustine

These are healthy questions that deserve to be answered. We address such questions because there are not only many unbelievers that pose such things, but also doubting Christians.

God did not create this present world to be filled with the evil, deceit, pain, sufferings, plagues, railings, etc as we witness daily. What He originally created was Paradise, what we would consider to be Heaven in our own thought processes, (no bills, no pain, no tears, no death, no poverty or sickness, no hate crimes or murders), but a life where everything was beautiful, more colorful than our eyes can behold, utter perfection and hearts filled with total contentment, comfort and peace, joy unspeakable and full of glory, bigger and better, higher and more elaborate than the human mind could ever begin to fathom.

When He created this earth, it was spun into orbit along with everything else, for the shear purpose of providing an atmosphere that we could live, breathe and have our being in, complete with not only everything we could need, think, or ask for, but also giving us total Oneness with Him as our Creator. If we stop and ponder that for a moment, none of it was created for His needs, remember that He is independent from all things and yet Creator of all. He made it all for us, not Him. He not only created us to exist IN HIM, but also to be in relationship with Him as well.

It is mind boggling to think of such things, for we have never been able to experience such peace, brightness, glory and utter completeness. We can attribute all of the pain, suffering and aforementioned cons to our first parents for messing it all up for us. God created them perfectly as well, sinless and in His Image.

Let us travel over to the Garden of Eden where man was created and see if we can paint the picture for the reader, that they too might be able to comprehend the scripture:

God has just taken the first 6 Days of Creation and made all that man’s environment and living quarters for eternity. Genesis 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 soul.”

Man is made and given breath, he is now alive and aware of his surroundings. As he looks around, God has made Heaven and Earth, clouds, the Sun and Moon, the earth and seas have been named and separated, man has groundwater and the atmosphere above him, along with mist that comes up from the ground every day. He has every seed that is brought forth and is able to see grass, trees of every kind as he looks around, full of every fruit, nut, all of the “meats of trees and plants” imaginable. Every animal is there for his naming pleasure and companionship. Not only does God give him all of it to rule over, God also decides to give him a companion that is like man, in man’s image.

God tells Adam that he can eat of any tree that is in the garden, except this one that is called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then God puts Adam in a deep sleep and takes out one of his ribs from his side, that He might build him a woman. Then when God is done, He closes up Adam’s side and presents to him the woman, one that is in Adam’s likeness.

Adam looks at her and says, “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.”

Then the Bible states, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:23-25).

If we look at the image in which Adam was created, it was God’s. God has attributes about Himself, He has personality, feelings and emotions, God is a Person. He displays anger, wrath, love, He can be grieved at times, and He even pities us as His children. The reason we bring this up, is a lot of people like to think of God as this untouchable “being,” way up in the sky that lacks emotion, but nothing could be further from the truth. He is a Person and created us to be in His Image, (other than sinful attributes, of which He has none), we are like Him in many respects.

Eve, Adam’s wife however, was made in the likeness of Adam. She too, was made in the image of God, but she came from Adam, (not from Heaven, not from the dirt like Adam had), but from the his side or rib. There is something more intimate about the creation of Eve, in comparison to that of Adam. When we study the language of the old testament, which is Hebrew, it even bears out that Adam was formed or fashioned, where Eve was built up, more on that in a moment.

Adam looks at his wife and notices that she is like him, acknowledges that she came out of him, that’s how he recognizes her, as his. Then the Word of God very interestingly states that Adam will leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, then they two will become one. Also interesting that God says that they were both naked and were unashamed. These statements are pregnant with meaning, of which we will try to elaborate on as we continue.

With Adam being made in God’s Image, and Eve being made in Adam’s image, we see that these three are one. If God is in and with Adam, and Eve is of and with Adam, then both Adam and Eve are One, and together all three have become One in this manner. By this we are able to see that in the beginning there is total oneness with God.