(383) – IT LOOKS AS IF IT IS, BUT IT ISN’T

1. In the biblical narrative of creation we read the following about the last thing created: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27). The millennial theology claimed that the first created man was Adam, who shows up in Gen. 2:7. The great apostle Paul says the following about Adam: “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual” (1 Cor. 15:45-46). If the first Adam was not spiritual, he was not an image of God, for God is a spirit (John 4:24). In order for him to be an image of God, according to the words of Paul, he had to be a vivifying spirit, but Adam was a living soul, just as the irrational animals. The last Adam, that is to say, Jesus Christ, is a vivifying spirit, as the text above says. Therefore, only Jesus Christ is an image of God. Paul also says that the first Adam was an image of the earthly; and Jesus, the last Adam, is an image of the celestial (1 Cor. 15:49). If Adam was an image of god, he was an image of an earthly god; therefore god of this world. Paul says: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them” (2 Cor. 4:4). Paul declares also that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). And in the letter to the Hebrews we read: “His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance” (Heb. 1:3). The conclusion we draw from this is: IT LOOKS AS IF THE FIRST ADAM WAS, BUT IT WAS NOT: AND HIS DESCENDANTS WITH HIM (Rom 5:12).

2. In Gen. 2:8-9 we read that Jehovah god planted a garden in Eden, and in the center of the garden, the tree of life. And he commanded man, saying: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Very well. Adam would eat of the tree of life in obedience to the command of Jehovah, but if he did not obey, he would be deprived of it, and die. We conclude that the tree of life of Jehovah was only for the righteous and faithful to his word. No disobedient sinner can ever take from its fruit and eat (Gen. 3:22-23).

3. Jesus declared that he was the true tree of life, in John 15:1, but he also declared: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13). The apostle Peter says: “who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). And Paul said: “The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief ” (1 Tim. 1:15). Paul, sinner and unrighteous as he was, ate of the tree of life, that is Jesus. The tree of life that the Father planted is for the lost, for the sinners, for the prostitutes, for the homicides, for the liars, etc. Whoever eats of this tree, that is to say, whoever believes in Jesus, is forgiven by God, the Father, and does not die. The tree of life of Jehovah does not save anyone neither gives life to anyone, because it is written in the Bible that there is none righteous (Rom. 3:10). Therefore, that tree of life looks as if it was, but it was not.

4. The world is and was very important to Jehovah, for he declares: “Tremble before him, all the earth. The world also is established that it can’t be moved” (1 Chr. 16:30). “Say among the nations, ‘Jehovah reigns.’ The world is also established. It can’t be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity” (Ps. 96:10). The world is so sublime and important to Jehovah, that he declares: “The earth is Jehovah’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). The world is so important to man, that Jehovah made it beautiful, and Solomon says: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end” (Eccl. 3:11). The wisdom of Jehovah says: “I was the craftsman by his side. I was a delight day by day, always rejoicing before him, rejoicing in his whole world. My delight was with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:30-31). It looks as if the wisdom of Jehovah refers to the daughters of men, of Gen. 6:2, which says: “God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of all that they chose”. Would that be the hidden treasure of Jehovah? David says: “From men by your hand, Jehovah, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children” (Ps. 17:14). Summing it up, Jehovah says: “For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps. Isn’t this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?” (Deut. 32:32-34).

5. Jesus says, in order to destroy the pretentions of this world: “The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil” (John 7:7). And Paul says: “And those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away” (1 Cor. 7:31). Is this world a façade? Then, when Jehovah said that the world would be established in order for it not to be shaken, was he saying that the appearance of things is never going to be shaken? Is everything a façade, for Jehovah? It looks as if the world is, but it is not. For James, the appearance of this world of Jehovah does not deceive him: “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). According to Paul, this world has always been condemned: “But when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). According to John, in relation to the wisdom of Jehovah in Prov. 8:31, “Rejoicing in his whole world. My delight was with the sons of men”, he says: “Don’t love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him” (1 John 2:15). And James, in conclusion, says: “You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

6. The flesh is the mother of appearances. Vanity is in the flesh; greed for power and for riches is in the flesh. Sensual pleasures are in the flesh. The filthy desires of the flesh are in the flesh (2 Pet. 2:10). The passions of sins provoked by the law of Jehovah are in the flesh (Rom. 7:5): prostitution, impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, emulation, wrath, fights, dissensions, heresies, envies, homicides, drunkenness, gluttony, and other ones similar to these, about which I declare to you that those who commit such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gen. 3:19). Before it was made flesh, Adam was dust. After it was made flesh, he continues to be dust, despite the aspect of flesh; then it returns to dust. Adam was only a resemblance. In this manner all carnal men also are but a resemblance, and will soon cease from being.

In order to cease to be a façade, man has to be born again through faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus declared: “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into the Kingdom of God! That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6).

Interestingly those who are born of flesh look as if they are, but they are not, because they are only dust. But those who are born of the Spirit, whom no one sees, for the spirit is invisible, look like they are not; but these are eternal with Jesus Christ.

 

By Olavo Silveira Pereira

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