| Chapter 3 The Two States of Man In Chapters 1 and 2 we have looked at man in God's image as God intended, and man in God's image after man has tampered with it. We have found that God created man with a body, soul and spirit, and this three part being was built to do God's will, giving God all honor and glory. Before we go any further, we need to look more closely at the word honor. In Webster's "New Collegiate Dictionary", we find that honor means to bow or curtsy, and further definition shows through synonyms,"Honor, homage, reverence, deference, obeisance mean respect and honor shown to another. Honor implies both the recognition of one's title to respect and esteem or any manifestation of such recognition; homage specifically implies accompanying praise and tributes; reverence, profound respect mingled with love or devotion; deference, such respect for the person or the position, such reverence for his personality, or the like, that one courteously yields one's judgment or preference to his; obeisance, a show of honor or reverence by some act or gesture that indicates humility, submission, or the like." We need to be careful in our selection of words. We need to understand what we are saying, as well as what we are reading. How many times have we said, or sang, "To God be the honor and glory" and then gone on to do our own will, rather than submit to God as we had just said? We, also, have found that Satan deceitfully led man to accept the same lie that caused Satan to be expelled from heaven. "I will be like the most High.". When man accepted the lie he quenched the spirit, and at the same time moved solidly over into Satan's will. You might say, no, man did his own will. In a sense that is true, however, the account starts in Genesis Chapter 3 with Satan casting doubt in man's mind about God's word. Man acted on Satan's original thought, not his. Which leads to another point, man is either in one camp or the other. There is no middle ground, no area of compromise between the two! You and I are either in God's will or out of it. 15 ________________________________________________________________________________ It can not be half and half. Look at the first two words of Satan's lie above. It can only be " I will" or " God will". That's why Jesus showed us in the model prayer that he gave us in Matthew 6: 10, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.". You might notice that Jesus said to pray to God the Father, but in the prayer he says "Thy kingdom come.". Who is Lord? Who is King? Jesus, of course. Is this a problem? No, not when we look at the image of God, and recognize how perfectly in balance each of the three parts are. They are in one accord as to the will of God. Over and over again God has shown us in his word that he wants us to do his will. Anyway, we found that when man quenched the spirit he became a two part being, who was expelled from the garden of Eden, and the presence of God. The two part being had only body and soul, as man had voluntarily acted to impose the sentence of death on the spirit. Man acted thus, for his own personal gain; a quest for knowledge, which implied personal power. This one thing, by the way, is what was at the root of the Babylonian empire and religion. Satan's lie, again! Man acted, only, after considering the consequences of his action. I believe that this could be defined as premeditated murder of the spirit! Did Adam and Eve and you and I get away with murder of the image of God the Holy Spirit, with the only penalty being to be cast out of the garden of Eden? No, there was a curse associated with the expulsion, as we see in Genesis 3:14-19, "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above every beast of the field; and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, 16 _______________________________________________________________________________ |
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