The Garden of Eden

 

          The book of Genesis is the book of beginnings and every subject the Bible contains has its origin here. This book has been ignored by many Christians as having no relevance to us today but of course this is a fallacy. Ignorance of man’s origin robs us of an understanding of who we are and our place in the whole scheme of creation. Man is the high point of all that God created because he was to be the dwelling place of God on the earth. For this reason he was given dominion over all the works of God’s hands and sharing the same life as the creator. Because God is spirit, creation was not a difficult task, for he simply had to speak a word and that word accomplished exactly what it was intended to do. So creation began with a thought in the mind of God which became expressed as a WORD, and exactly what God purposed within himself appeared. 

 

“LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE AND AFTER OUR (GOD KIND) OR LIKENESS, AND LET THEM HAVE DOMINION OVER THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND OVER THE CATTLE, AND OVER ALL THE EARTH.”

 

There was the man, created according to the thought that was in the mind of God. Paul declares concerning this M-A-N in Col 1:15 “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.”   

         

When MAN was created God prepared an environment for him, called the Garden of Eden. The word “Eden” speaks of an area of delight and was situated towards the SUN RISE, from which the Light would come, as the trees need the sun light for growth and development. This Garden is not LITERAL but is spiritual and is found in every man, and is a place which separates him from the world environment, and allows him access to God’s world in which everything he needs is supplied. This Garden is also a protection from disease and sickness and everything that would cause pain and death. This Garden possessed divine properties, providing all the food that the man would need to live forever, as well as providing an environment where God and Man could walk together in fellowship and love. It was isolated from the rest of the earth, and no one could intrude unless Adam allowed them to enter. All the trees were planted by God so that they provided the food and vitality to allow those who lived therein to LIVE FOREVER. The symbol of the food in the Garden is expressed by the tree in the center of the garden, called THE TREE OF LIFE. This tree represents Christ, and God told Adam that he could eat the fruit of all the trees in the garden, as they were good for food to sustain life. However there is another tree that God warned Adam about, and that was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which strangely enough was also in the middle of the Garden! Of this tree God told Adam, “do not eat of the fruit of that tree for the day you eat, YOU WILL DIE.”

 

          The fruit of all the trees in the Garden of Eden represent our thoughts, and God said we can eat from all the trees, because those trees represent the planting of the Lord. In creation God put a seed in the fruit of every tree so that it would reproduce after its kind. So the fruit of all the trees planted by the Lord would reproduce thoughts that were in the heart and mind of God.  But if a man eats the fruit of a tree not planted by the Lord it would develop thoughts that are foreign to God and this would cause problems.  It is true for all of us that our mind is like a radio that can be tuned into certain frequencies according to what we want to hear. But so many do not have their hearts centered on Christ, but on the things of this world, so they adjust their mind accordingly. The world is full of entertainment and knowledge, most of which will not sustain spiritual life. So we can choose what thoughts we allow to enter our mind to produce the outcome we desire. Those that come from above will tend to lift us up and bring stability into our lives and bring forth a manifestation of Christ. But those thoughts that do not have a heavenly origin will have a tendency to pull us down to the lower dimensions of life, away from God, who has placed his wisdom in those trees that he has planted in our Garden, for our blessing. However, there was another tree in that Garden in the same place as the Tree of Life, that God said not to eat the fruit of it, for it will bring D-E-A-T-H. Could it be that THE MAN in the Garden was overtaken by lust and strong desire that seemingly could not be fulfilled by any of the other trees? Using the man’s creator mind that he received from God, man was able to produce his own tree, and this tree could cater for all the desires of the human heart, both good and evil. However in doing so he had established for himself a God of his imagination being both good and evil. Man now had a choice.  He had created his own tree and that tree produced (evil) thoughts that would lead to actions contrary to God’s will and purpose. But MAN in his own wisdom decided his thoughts and actions were good.

It is most interesting to notice that death was introduced into the human race by a THOUGHT PROCESS, and not by a disease, sickness or poison that would affect the physical body. “As a man thinks in his heart that is what he is.” Take hold of this truth because here is an important Key.

IT IS WHAT YOU “THINK” THAT WILL KILL YOU AND NOT SIMPLY WHAT YOU EAT.

         

The Apostle James helps us understand this principle when he says, James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither does he tempt any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of HIS OWN LUST OR DESIRES, and enticed. Then when our lust or desire has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. The Prophet Isaiah adds his thoughts on this matter in Isa 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” To learn how to harness your mind and your thoughts to promote spiritual growth is the secret of LIFE. It is not our genes but our thoughts or beliefs that actually control our lives, OH YE OF LITTLE FAITH.

 

Your beliefs become your thoughts, and your thoughts become your words, and your words become your action, and your actions become your habits and your habits become your values and your values direct your life.

 

          Life depends upon two things and they are Growth and Development, so if we do not feed upon the LIVING WORD which is Christ the Tree of Life, then it will be impossible to maintain that life which is eternal. If we eat the fruit of the trees which represents our thoughts that were never planted within us by God, we introduce that which is foreign into our spiritual body and that is what robs us of life. The Garden of Eden holds the key to the formation of man and is therefore most important for us to understand. Unfortunately many Christians believe that it was a literal garden. If that were so then it would not hold any significance for us today. That Garden has been prepared by God in every man just as it was in Gen 2:8, and it is in that garden that the man encounters the issues that will decide the life he chooses to live, and the environment in which he will live that life. Babylon has taken the initiative away from man, and has made God to be his judge according to law, deciding for him his destiny. This completely destroys the character and nature of God who is the Father of all mankind. In family life, if a father assumes the role of a judge over his family this excludes love, which must be the very center of family life. A father is there to train and encourage and be an example for his children. It is a Father’s responsibility to guide them in the formative years of their life, and not to judge them. If we desire to have a relationship with God we must see him as our FATHER and not as a judge, for this introduces LAW into our relationship and destroys the concept of LOVE.

 

          The Garden of Eden symbolizes the unseen realm of spirit out of which comes the visible universe. It is impossible to explain this process in human language for there is nothing in the visible world that can be compared with it. We are reminded that Jesus said, the “Mysteries of the Kingdom” are revealed to those who are spiritually awake, but to others it can only be shared in parables. Our body with all its spiritual and physical faculties, is a GARDEN OF EDEN. This means that if we develop spiritual insight and function in thought, word and deed according to the divine will of God, then we will find that authority and dominion will begin to function in both our mind and body. Remember that Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” In Gen 2:4 we are introduced to the LORD GOD or Jehovah Elohim, who becomes involved in the “Generations of the Heavens and of the Earth.” So here we are told of a development in the spiritual realm and also in the physical or natural realm. These two were not set in opposition to each other but according to divine law, the Heavens were intended to rule over the earth. When this arrangement functions correctly, the spiritual ruling over the physical, both realms function according to God’s will and purpose. Your physical body is simply a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality, and therefore will respond perfectly if it is brought under the authority of the SPIRIT.

 

          Man was directed to DRESS and to KEEP the Garden of Eden, and to do this he must develop his God consciousness that is the basis of the dominion given to the man in creation. As man establishes in his own consciousness the spiritual truth concerning what he is, he will then be able to bring into manifestation his spiritual body as it was formed in creation. A body was not specifically mentioned in the creation account because the M-A-N in his completeness was spirit, the product of the WORD GOD SPOKE. However to consider that man’s body was some kind of after-thought is totally wrong. As the MAN was created spirit so his body must also be spirit. Today with all the confusion caused by Babylon we fail to connect the spirit with the body, considering our identity to be Spirit, but the body remains physical. This is wrong thinking. The man to be complete in Creation must have a body, but that body must be in keeping with God’s will and purpose. If the MAN WAS CREATED SPIRIT, then that spirit must have a spirit body to function correctly. So many Christians have a hard time understanding that they are SPIRIT in their true identity, because they see only their physical body. Let us be clear on this one thing, and that is, both the HEAVENS and the EARTH were created originally as SPIRIT, totally complete. This is told us in Genesis 1, which finishes by saying that God looked upon all that he created, and behold it was very good. Then on the seventh day God rested, for his creation was at that point absolutely complete. Natural man can only conceive of the material heavens and earth but has no understanding that everything God created is SPIRIT. The kingdom of God is also finished and complete in the spirit realm, and can never change or be destroyed. In the same way, what you were in creation you still are today and that can never change. But, the material physical expression of man today is all that man can see of himself. So when the natural man speaks about the spirit it is mostly academic knowledge and not a REALITY within him. The physical aspect of that original creation was made by the Lord God who brought forth the generations of the heavens and the earth. In the natural, a generation is the offspring of a previous generation therefore the material heavens and earth must be simply another expression of the original spirit creation.

 

          The Apostle Paul tells us that everything we see with our eyes is passing away or has no true reality. The reason for this is that our natural eyes cannot see TRUE REALITY. Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye therefore if your eye be SINGLE, your whole body shall be full of light. Notice he speaks of the Single Eye, so he is not speaking about our natural eyes, but instead is speaking about the EYE OF THE SPIRIT. This sight has the ability to see into the reality of our body and understand that it is actually spirit, and therefore comprised of Light. Our body is made of atoms so small that they can only be seen under a powerful microscope. The atom is simply a bunch of protons and neutrons revolving around a nucleus. Scientists until recently thought the space inside the atom was empty, but now they have discovered that it is filled with energy. We understand how powerful those atoms are, having seen pictures of the explosion of an atomic bomb. Our sun is expending the energy of many “Atomic Bombs” every second to light up the world and keep us warm. So it is no stretch of the imagination to consider that our body is in fact a BODY OF LIGHT. Jesus Christ demonstrated this fact on the mountain of transfiguration. He showed us that the ATOMS our bodies are capable of releasing that same light when we spiritually “SEE” that our body is “Like unto his glorious Body.”  Doctors and health experts can only treat the body as a physical machine that operates on natural principles. This is the reason why many people suffer at the hands of doctors, who have missed the understanding of what Einstein discovered.  Energy (E) = matter (M) multiplied by the speed of Light squared. Einstein discovered that we do not live in a universe with individual physical objects separated by dead space. Instead the Universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.

 

           The only things that can be called ETERNAL are those things which God created in the beginning all of which are SPIRIT, the Heavens and the Earth and everything that is in them. Absolutely nothing that was spirit in creation can change or lose its place or position in the scheme of things from God’s point of view. But in the material physical world, change and decay persist. The reason is not that God’s original intention has changed but we have failed to see everything in the reality in which it was created, including man himself. For most Christians their reality is determined by their five natural senses, so the physical body we see in the mirror each day becomes the reality of what we are. In John 1 we read, “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD WAS GOD, and all things were M-A-D-E BY HIM.” The one that produced the physical material heavens and earth was CHRIST, so the physical was patterned on the Blue Print God had established in Gen 1. In Gen 2:7 we have a similar activity when the SPIRIT MAN of Gen 1:26 was “overlaid” with a material physical BODY from the dust of the earth. That was not ANOTHER BODY but simply a SPIRITUAL BODY made visible in a physical material world.        

 

          God is spirit and he created the heavens and the earth. As man looks at it today, that is all he can see - simply an earth that is physical and material. But when the blind receive their spiritual sight they will see GOD’S REAL WORLD, and the KING who is CHRIST ruling and reigning in righteousness. What God created originally, is TODAY exactly as it was in the beginning. Nothing in the spirit world can change nor can anything die, so what was created remains absolutely perfect regardless of what man may do to destroy this earth. IT IS NOW, EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. Now, let us go one step further and ask the question, “How do YOU see your BODY?” Do you see it as being old and becoming limited by muscles shrinking, joints wearing and the mind not able to think as it used to. Perhaps we need to ask the Lord to OPEN OUR SPIRITUAL EYES to be able to see into the reality of what we are in our body. Christians today are living within the limitation of their 5 natural senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Not one of those senses can see or know REALITY or TRUTH. We are bound by what we see in the mirror every day. The issue today among Christians is they do not know they are blind, having been convinced that they can see spiritually, even though they now live in unreality. In James 1:18, we are told that God begat us OF HIS OWN WILL with the Word of Truth, that we should be a KIND OF FIRSTFRUITS of the God kind of people. The first-fruits are the mature heads of grain that have matured early before the main crop is harvested, and God said they become representative of the whole mature crop. Our calling is to be the First-Fruits of a future generation who would be birthed by the Spirit. God's intention for us his people is to be a true manifestation of Christ, WHO IS SPIRIT. We therefore are expected to represent to mankind  the reality that we are in God, for this represents the expectation of God.

 

We were created spirit, we still are spirit, and this is our reality today on the earth. Similarly many Christians see Jesus merely as a flesh and blood man who is able to do miracles without understanding that they are looking at him through a veil of flesh. Among the disciples only Peter knew the reality of who Jesus was, and that was because he had received revelation from God.  He could never have known the TRUTH without that divine insight. He stood before Jesus the man, and looking into his eyes declared, “You are the CHRIST THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.” Matt. 16:16. His natural eyes could never have made that discovery, and we also need the same revelation to see that JESUS CHRIST IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE TODAY. How sad it is to hear Christians today worshiping JESUS the MAN. They believe that Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead, so they are GOD AS A MAN. For this reason they believed they could never do what he did, because they are different from him. The Apostle John stated plainly, Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment:  

 

BECAUSE AS HE IS SO ARE WE IN THIS WORLD.”

 

The word “Judgment” used here is the Greek word “Krisis” meaning a separation, and a testing regarding Justice from God’s point of view. Jesus asked his disciples, “WHO DO Y-O-U SAY THAT I AM?” This is our day of separation. We must seek revelation from above and speak boldly concerning the Truth as it is revealed in Christ. JESUS WAS A MAN with flesh and blood so his body was mortal to our natural sight, but to the eye of the spirit, his body was a manifestation of that SPIRITUAL BODY OF THE CHRIST created in the beginning. Christians glibly speak about the Church in the world today as being the Body of Christ with all the members of the Church being the parts of that body. But we forget that there is only O-N-E HEAD of that O-N-E BODY and that HEAD is CHRIST who is SPIRIT, therefore a spirit HEAD would not be suitable if it was attached to a mortal body. Paul declares, “Do you not know that YOUR BODY is the TEMPLE OF GOD” and he is in his holy Temple.” The only way that Christ has of expressing himself on the earth is THROUGH A BODY. This is the challenge to every person who names the name of CHRIST do you see your BODY through the SINGLE EYE of the spirit, filled with LIGHT as Jesus said? This      is the Christ body available to the Christ dwelling in you through which to express himself. A body limited by sickness and disease could not be a suitable testimony through which Christ could manifest himself. The manifestation of the Sons of God cannot take place until we begin to see our body as the spiritual reality of his glorified body.      

 

If we cannot see Jesus Christ as being a true manifestation of that first man created in Gen 1:26, then we will not understand who we are. All of mankind was created IN THAT ONE MAN and that man was CHRIST JESUS as Paul tells us in Eph 2:10. Jesus Christ in the reality of his being is the true manifestation of MAN TODAY. Until we acknowledge this truth we are merely the blind leading the blind. In John 14:10 Jesus explains exactly how he could do what he did, opening the way for us to follow him. He said, we must believe “We are in the Father and the Father is in us.” That is a powerful word that we need to experience in reality. This is repeated in verse 20 when he says, “At that day, the day of Pentecost you will know that “I” am in my Father and YOU are in me, and “I” am in you.”  So our connection with God is twofold, for we are IN CHRIST who is IN THE FATHER. However, if Christ is O-N-E with the Father and we are IN HIM and he is IN US then we also must be O-N-E with God. This confirms the truth that CHRIST IS SPIRIT being one with God and SO ARE WE.  THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH for the benefit of carnal man, yet in his physical form he lost nothing of his true reality because as John testifies, “We beheld his Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten of the father full of GRACE and TRUTH.” So flesh and blood cannot hide the glory of God nor can it restrict its manifestation. We also have been “MADE FLESH” on this earth for the benefit of carnal man but when REALITY breaks through our natural mind, Our true identity and its glory will also become evident to the whole world. To deny we are spirit locks up and hides that glory, and we present ourselves merely as mortal human being to the world. 

 

          John 1:1. “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD WAS GOD, the same was in the beginning with God. He was the CHRIST the Son of the Living God, who was the product of a word that God spoke in Gen 1:26, Let us make MAN. Christ was NEVER BORN on this earth for HE IS SPIRIT. He said in Hebrews 10:5 ”Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body hast thou prepared me.” The virgin Mary was the vessel through which the BODY was prepared. The Christ was NEVER BORN but was created in Gen 1:26. The Prophet Isaiah said, “Unto us a CHILD IS BORN but unto us a SON IS GIVEN. The prophet made it very clear that the CHILD BORN was JESUS, but Christ the SON, who is spirit was GIVEN to inhabit that body. If we can understand it, every person born on this earth had a similar birthing for YOU ARE THE SPIRITUAL VIRGIN designed to conceive by a MYSTICAL CONCEPTION by the Holy Spirit to bring to BIRTH the BODY OF THE CHRIST.

YOUR BODY IS GOD’S WORKMANSHIP a spiritual masterpiece through which the CHRIST WHO IS GIVEN and NOT BORN can declare the Glory of God TO THE WORLD.

It was said concerning him, “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he says, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body hast thou prepared me, and YOU ARE THAT BODY.”

 

                                                THE BODY OF THE CHRIST

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            Jesus Christ spoke about his body not as “Flesh and Blood” but as FOOD that can be eaten, that will produce a form of life that is ETERNAL. To the natural mind this could only mean that he was speaking about cannibalism that involved actually eating his flesh. ”The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? John 6:51 Jesus said,“ I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  We are dealing here with spiritual issues that can only be understood by the Spirit using parables with which are familiar. We need to know that Christ is the LIVING BREAD and not the Bible. He uses this analogy to reveal himself as the Living Bread. Literal Bread is considered to be the “Staff of Life” from the human perspective, but here we are introduced to a SPIRITUAL FOOD that Jesus Christ declares to be WHAT HE IS, THE BREAD OF LIFE. Again he states that if any MAN eats this BREAD he will LIVE FOREVER, because HE IS THE LIVING BREAD FROM HEAVEN. He used the pronoun “I” when speaking of the LIVING BREAD saying, this is my ”FLESH,” The reality of who he is includes his body, for they are one and the same, and that is SPIRIT! Jesus Christ seen from the human perspective was a MAN because that is our natural assessment of what people saw. BUT when God spoke the creative WORD into existence, it was not a material BODY containing a spirit that stood there before God, but that man was PURE SPIRIT including his body, and that is what God called M-A-N. That MAN Adam who was put in the Garden of Eden, who walked and talked with God in perfect harmony, had a spirit body, which in reality was a BODY OF LIGHT. Jesus Christ manifested such a body on the mount of transfiguration, proving that what he declared about himself is true. In John 10:30 he declared, “I and my Father ARE O-N-E” therefore the MAN and God must be spirit

 

          This Living Bread is MY FLESH which I GIVE for the LIFE OF THE WORLD. The word “World” comes from a root meaning,“ To receive what was previously one's own, to get back, receive back or recover. This “Gift” was made available through the three day process of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The reason for the death of Christ has been so distorted by Babylon that the real purpose of his death at Calvary has been LOST. Religion has made Calvary a sacrifice in agreement with the Jewish Sacrifices. These sacrifices answered the demands of the law that said, “Under the Law, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” It is taught that God could not forgive man’s sin without the shedding of blood, but that is a lie for he says, “Your sins and iniquities I remember no more.” Sin therefore is no longer an issue. The death of Christ was to bring to an end the LIFE FORM of our mortality. In the Mount of Olives Jesus left his disciples sleeping while he conversed with his Father, who wanted his Son to take his own humanity into death, on the promise that if he would do this, then he would taste death for every man releasing them from their humanity and mortality, raising them up as a NEW CREATION people. Jesus Christ drank the cup offered by the Father, symbolizing his agreement with the Father’s desire. From that moment he was made to be exactly what WE ARE according to the scriptures. “For God made him Jesus Christ to be the MAN OF SIN (Adam) who knew NO SIN, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2Cor 5:21. He literally became what we ARE and was arrested by the Roman soldiers and marched down the road as a common criminal. The son of God able to call down 12 legions of Angles to destroy the Roman Empire if he so desired, but he was a man on a mission determined to go to the cross. No man killed him nor did the cross put him to death with its pain and suffering, but he laid down his life willingly. He had power to lay down his life and he had power to take it again which he did. The TRUTH is that we have the power to do the same. It is said of Jesus Christ, “Who, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Father.” Jesus Christ did not die INSTEAD OF US, BUT HE DIED AS US. The scripture says, “It is appointed unto man ONCE TO DIE,” and that was your death at CALVARY, so you do not need to die again……..not unless you want to. What was the purpose of YOUR DEATH at Calvary, was it simply to kill you because of your sin, or was it not rather to bring to an end our “LIFE OF MORTALITY,” so we could experience  our true LIFE we received in Creation which is ETERNAL Because we can only live ONE LIFE at a time and we are presently experiencing MORTAL LIFE which began with our birthing into this world and will end in D-E-A-T-H. Christians declare they HAVE eternal life but they are headed for the grave, so that has not impressed the world at all. Our mortality is connected to our physical material Body for it is FLESH AND BLOOD. So while we believe we are mortal and live in a physical body we will remain subject to sickness pain and suffering and death. It was that mortality that he laid down, his flesh and blood, for the man that walked out of the tomb was not flesh and blood neither was he a SPIRIT and a SOUL and a BODY, but he was simply S-P-I-R-I-T plus NOTHING. That is what Calvary means for us today when we have our spirit eye opened to see reality. Jesus told us that if we hear his word and believe on him that sent him, we HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE……..and is passed FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE. Paul declares, This MORTAL MUST PUT ON IMMORTALITY. He also said, “If we have borne the image of the EARTHLY so shall we also BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.”            

 

Jesus continued his discourse concerning the Bread of Life in John 6:53, saying, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”. So to have Eternal Life we must eat his FLESH, being the substance of what he is (spirit), and drink his blood, that represents the “LIVING WATER OF LIFE.” Jesus declared at the feast of Tabernacles, “If any man thirst or needs water to live, let him come to me and drink, and out of his innermost being (SPIRIT) will flow rivers of LIVING WATER.”  The Church in Corinth was told, “For as often as you eat this bread, which is his flesh and drink this cup, which is his LIFE you declare your involvement in the totality of the Lord's death till he comes and makes an appearance AS YOU in this world.” 1 Corinthians 11:26. Jesus continued on the same theme saying, “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I dwell in you, so we are no more TWO but have become “THE O-N-E.”  The mind that functioned in Christ is the same mind that dwells in us today. He explains this in another way when he says, “As the LIVING FATHER has sent me, and I live by or through the Father, SO HE THAT EATS OF ME SHALL ALSO LIVE THROUGH ME.” What an amazing statement this is, and how profound are the implications, that Father has planned that we should function as a true manifestation and not a representation of Christ on this earth! What did Jesus mean when he said “He that eats my flesh shall LIVE FOREVER?” To eat his flesh is to eat the substance of what he is. We know that what we eat becomes the food that promotes growth and development in our natural body. But there is no natural food in this world that can cause us to live forever. If we eat healthy food it will help our body to function well but that is all. When Jesus said we must eat his flesh, he was saying we must eat the SUBSTANCE OF WHAT HE IS, WHICH IS SPIRIT. In the natural world the chicken I ate yesterday has now been absorbed to become part of my physical body. As I eat his FLESH which is the substance of what he is (spirit) then that will develop my spiritual body causing it to develop and grow. This means that spiritually we are in fact what we eat, as natural food will develop the natural body but to eat the spiritual food that is his body, will develop the spirit of our true being.

 

 Now Jesus used another principle to teach us truth. He said CONSIDER THE LILIES, HOW THEY GROW!! When we plant a lily seed in the soil, after a few days a green shoot appears above the ground. This is very different from eating some chicken. But this is a LILY that has no education and no human understanding of growth and development. This lily can do something that I could not even think of doing. It can put roots down into the soil and draw up minerals and whatever else is needed by the plant, transforming it into LIVING TISSUE. This is beyond my understanding, yet this little plant contains wisdom and a knowledge that is beyond any mortal wisdom. How is it that God can give such knowledge and wisdom to a little lily plant? If I eat chicken that is as much as I can do to promote growth and development in my natural body. The process beyond eating I do not understand. But the lily can do it without stress or strain. One day I decided to seek wisdom from the lily, so I asked it, “Please tell me how you can take minerals etc from the soil and transform it into LIVING TISSUE.” I just imagined the Lily looking at me as if I was insane, but eventually I heard a voice say to me “GOD IS IN ME, AND HE IS MY LIFE.” That may not seem profound to you but to me, as I understood, it made me hang my head in shame. I had been a preacher for many years, studied the scriptures, learned theology, but I had never learned what I had asked the lily to tell me. The Bread from heaven is not literal food as was the five sandwiches and two fish that Jesus said was sufficient for five thousand people, satisfying their physical need. Those five thousand people who ate that bread did not live forever, and that was because the ONE WHO IS THE LIFE was not recognized within them. Jesus Christ said the bread that I give is my flesh, and I give it for the LIFE OF THE WORLD. Nothing physical or material can give us eternal LIFE the only thing that can produce that L-I-F-E is SPIRIT. Jesus Christ said, “MY WORDS ARE SPIRIT AND LIFE.”  if we allow his word which is the LIVING WORD to function in us, we will have that eternal life. Christians have responded to the words of men, thinking that they now have life but they still die. Jesus said, “He that hears my word and believes on him that sent me HAS EVERLASTING LIFE and shall not come into condemnation but IS PASSED FROM DEATH INTO LIFE. We can use pills and vitamins to sustain our mortal life but it is only the spirit that can give us ETERNAL LIFE. YOU beloved, are SPIRIT and when that becomes your reality, that LIFE that is already within you will begin to function and LIFE will flow as a river from your innermost BEING which is SPIRIT.      

 

          Our consciousness for most of God’s people remains focused on that which is natural and physical, limiting both our vision and understanding to the mortality of our being, and this is the reason why we have so many problems with our body. We suffer as a result from disease, sickness, pain which are part of our human consciousness, and for the same reason the majority of Christians consider their body to be of no real value being made from the dust, and death is welcomed and considered vital to rid them of their “Dust Body.” I believe this is also the reason why so many abuse their bodies with alcohol, cigarettes and drugs seeing their body as merely physical. Your BODY is the CHILD BORN as well as the TEMPLE OF GOD, and therefore your body in reality must be spirit also. To expect spirit to function through a purely physical body is to revert to thinking with our carnal mind.. It is our consciousness that determines what our body is therefore if our consciousness is founded in the physical realm then for us our body will remain as flesh and blood. Genesis 2:7 gives us an insight into how we received life. Man did not receive life through a blood transfusion but by the Lord God BREATHING into his nostrils the BREATH OF LIVES (pl), to function as spirit. God only breathed his life into the MAN and not into any other creature, not a cat or a dog or anything else. Man is the only creature that was designed to receive and function through this LIFE (ETERNAL life). Because we were given dominion over all the earth this material world is following the development of man, so as long as we remain in our humanity the earth itself will remain material with all its problems.  Before Jesus Christ returned to the Father he called the disciples together and he BREATHED ON THEM and said, “RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT.” Lord BREATHE ON YOUR PEOPLE TODAY that all may receive that LIFE which is eternal, that sustains this body which you have prepared for us, which is spirit growing and developing to be your HOLY TEMPLE, and the body through which the Christ can manifests himself.

 

          What was the DEATH that caused Adam to surrender the Garden prepared by God for him, and instead live on the outside in a hostile world? Life is not something that we can be stored and know that it will remain. LIFE must be connected to its source, but if the connection is broken then life ceases to flow. A baby in the womb is connected to its mother by an umbilical cord, but if that cord is broken before it is ready to be birthed the baby will die. There is an invisible cord connecting every man with God, and while that connection is functioning the stream of life will continue to flow and that person will live. That “Cord” is the SPIRIT OF GOD, and at the point of death that spirit leaves the physical body, and immediately the body is dead. Man has no life apart from God, and when that life ceases, the spirit returns to the Father from whence it came. The Holy Spirit is not just a part, or a third of God as the Church teaches, but GOD IS SPIRIT, so the TRUTH is GOD DWELLS IN EVERY MAN and is actually the LIFE of the person. When Jesus Christ died on the cross what happened? He said, “Father into thy hands I commend my SPIRIT, and immediately he was D-E-A-D.” But I can stand next to a body that is dead and the life of God continues to flow into me so GOD IS NOT DEAD, but the connection between God and that person has been broken.

 

In the Garden of Eden Adam walked and talked with God every day but the day he took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil something changed in Adam. That day he never walked with God in fact he actually hid from him behind the trees, which represented his thoughts. Those thoughts told him that he was NAKED and so was embarrassed and not wanting God to see him. Secondly his thoughts told that now because of what he had done, God was angry with him and so he now FEARED GOD. Adam was now in a condition God calls D-E-A-T-H. The flow of LIFE from God that is developed out of RELATIONSHIP had been severed. The God Adam knew before, had now been lost to him being replaced by a counterfeit “GOD” formed in his own natural or carnal mind, and made in the likeness of MAN. Once you deny the TRUTH about God you have also denied the truth about yourself for we are created in his image and likeness. That was enough to make him hide from God believing he was NAKED. Those thoughts are today within the natural mind of mankind with exactly the same result. In Matt 25:24-25, we have the “THOUGHTS” of the man who failed the test of the talents who said to the Lord, “I knew you are a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not planted. I was afraid of you and I hid your talent in the earth, and here is your talent.” Jesus replied calling him a wicked and slothful servant. His thoughts concerning God were not founded on the TRUTH, like many Christians today who believe that their God has built a “HELL” to destroy his children who he created if they refuse to repent. This means they have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and their thoughts have been polluted by the serpent. Adam no longer walked in the Garden prepared for him but now faced the hostile environment of another world, in which the majority of people are living in today. The world we see with our natural eyes is not God’s world but is the product of another life in which good and evil compete with each other. John tells us, “This is LIFE ETERNAL to KNOW THEE the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. But the truth still stands as Paul declares in Acts 17 26. God has made of O-N-E (God) all the nations on the earth to dwell. That word “ONE” is not a numeral but represents the ONE GOD out of whom all of humanity has come. So Jesus also declares, “Do not call any man on the earth your Father, for O-N-E is your Father which is in heaven.” 

 

Spirituality

 

          Man must have avenues through which he can express himself, and they are called the “Help Meet” that was especially designed for him. In creation man became an expression of what God is so he represents wisdom. But we are told that it is not good for wisdom to act alone, but it must be joined to Love to provide the balance, so the soul and the body become the help-meet for him who is spirit and needs a form of expression. Paul says, “As in Adam all die (or lose spiritual consciousness) so also in Christ shall all be made alive (or be awakened from the coma into the awareness of Spirit Life).” Religion has suggested that it is at death that we are awakened to spiritual life and consciousness in the presence of God. But for this awakening to be of value today, it must take place while we are alive and remain on the earth. So Paul challenges us by saying, “ Awake thou that sleeps, and arise from the dead (the Adamic consciousness or the dream world) and Christ who is TRUTH shall give you life.” The Psalmist obviously understood this concept because he says, “I shall be satisfied, WHEN I AWAKE as I behold YOUR LIKENESS.” Psalm 17:15. Man attains true consciousness when he becomes aware of the divine thought that was in the heart of God when he was brought forth in creation, and that is to know himself as he is known of God.

 

          In Heb11:3 we read, “By faith we understand that the aions were made by the WORD OF GOD so what is seen by natural sight was not made out of that which can be seen. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD WAS GOD, and everything was made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” It is not the Bible that is the Creative Word, but Christ who dwelt in Jesus. He said, John 5:39, “Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me, but you will not come to me.”  The scriptures do not testify to a book called the Bible, but of a person called Jesus Christ. The “WORD” is the creative force that in creation was man’s SPIRITUAL MIND or the MIND OF CHRIST. However, man left his spiritual consciousness and replaced it with the knowledge of good and evil. If he had retained his true spiritual consciousness in which there was no evil then only good would have been manifested. Once we move out from that one spiritual mind whose perfection is Man in God’s likeness and image, we do not have his Word abiding in us. That creative mind of Christ dwelling in us, if it is allowed to function we will become an extension of the Christ living today on this earth.

 

          The Garden of Eden is an allegory that encompasses the man, the woman, and the serpent representing the development of individual consciousness. Creation is the evolving of what was in the heart and mind of God into an expression of himself that he calls M-A-N. The focus of creation is the process of MAKING MAN. In the Garden we find the development of individuality and all the issues expressed in this allegory are present right now in everyone. We see God creating Man by speaking a word and that word was the MAN God had purposed in his mind. This man was perfect, being the brightness of his glory and the exact image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. This is the man that was put into a Garden that was especially prepared for him. This is not a literal garden as religion suggests, but is the picture of a perfect man developing his individual identity using the creative power of his spiritual mind. Every man can see himself in all that takes place in this Garden of Eden. This is the stage upon which we prove out true identity. This process goes on from infancy and continues for many throughout life, in a mysterious experience called self-identification. The Bible says, “Let us make MAN,” and basically this is the process in which we are all engaged, and as we follow the divine plan, man will prove himself to be PERFECT.

 

          God intended that our life should develop using Divine intelligence or the MIND OF CHRIST so that our thoughts will bring forth in us the perfection of Christ. If we enter instead into a duality such as the knowledge of good and evil, we introduce conflict, and shut off access to the Mind of Christ. It is the “Serpent” who God said is more subtle than all the beasts of the field that puts such ideas into our head. This serpent represents life from the natural physical point of view or sense consciousness, and comes to us through the natural or Carnal mind. The woman Eve represents the soul, who is attracted by sense consciousness. She saw what was “pleasant to the eyes,” and good for food and capable of making one wise. This is an activity of the flesh and when we follow such sensations we are being deceived by the serpent and we ignore the voice of the spirit within. We need to understand, that pain, disease and all sickness will follow the decision to pursue such thoughts that do not originate in God. We need to be preoccupied with L-I-F-E. This is fundamental to God’s intention for his creation. If we follow the divine plan then we will bring forth the perfection of the truly spiritual man and an endless life. But when we are sidetracked by the serpent with things that appeal to the soul, that is not a part of the divine mind, we lose sight of God’s perfect blue-print for the design of man, inserting instead human desires and concepts. We must keep in mind God’s warning to us concerning, “All the beasts of the field,” that represent the life forces of the natural world. To allow pleasure or the satisfaction of the natural man and sensation to overpower man’s dominion given to him in creation, will diminish life and lead to death. The serpent in your garden has only one objective and that is to destroy your dominion over your body. If it can achieve this, then the body that God created to be a manifestation of himself expressing true LIFE ETERNAL, will become an expression of “the beasts of the field,” out of control. This is the challenge that everyone faces in our own personal Garden of Eden that God has placed within every man.

 

The result of what happens in your Garden is not determined by some angry God judging us by some Legal system, but IS DECIDED BY EACH OF US ACCORDING TO THE PERSONAL CHOICES WE MAKE IN LIFE.

 

          God did not persuade Eve to talk to the serpent. She knew what God said about that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but she personally chose to believe another voice deliberately. And so the die was cast. I want you to understand something here, because we have been taught by the religious world that man has no choice in terms of being able to choose to follow the voice of the spirit within seeking LIFE, or to follow the serpent mind that has been deceived that leads to death. We believe that God has declared us to be sinners because of Adam and what he did, so we therefore stand guilty and condemned before God. What this concept does is to make GOD the guilty one for putting us under this condemnation that leads to death, unless we repent of what someone else did! The subtlety of the serpent (carnal mind ) is that he convinces us that what God created in Gen 1:26 does not apply to us today.

 

          Every man is going through his Garden of Eden experience personally, and no one is doing it for us. We determine for ourselves our beliefs, whether we believe in GOD as the God of TRUTH, or whether we respond to another voice, producing another God of good and evil that has no true reality. Moses spoke clearly to Israel, not blaming God for their plight, but saying, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you (your decision,) I have set before you LIFE and DEATH, blessing and cursing, therefore choose LIFE that both you and your seed may LIVE. The choice of Life or Death was totally in the hands of the people of Israel. Their judgment depended on nothing else other than the choice that Israel made that day. When God spoke and created the MAN he was pure spirit including his body. That is what God called M-A-N, not a spirit living in a physical body. This is so important because today the body is considered to be the person, with little or no reference to our true identity which is spirit. That spirit that God called MAN was the only SON that God ever created and we know that son is CHRIST, the son that was also BEGOTTEN of God (born of a woman) through a virgin called Mary. She was not married to a man, but she conceived by the Holy Spirit and so this child born in Bethlehem had no earthly Father. Who was that man that was called JESUS? He is the first man to call God F-A-T-H-E-R, so he had to be the son of God and was that first man created in Gen 1:26. My question is where did all the other sons of God come from, for God only created ONE SON? Paul was the man who heard directly from God at that time, and he said in Eph 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  All of mankind was in that ONE CORPORATE MAN CHRIST JESUS, thus making him to be our true identity. It was God who determined that we should fulfill his will and purpose in our life so that must be the natural and easy path to choose. In John 1:1 we read, “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God, the same was in the beginning with God.”  In verse 14 we read, And the WORD BECAME FLESH and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth. So this reveals how that original man was created in the beginning. He is now displayed for all humanity to see. But unlike the rest of mankind he remembered and knew his true identity, calling God his FATHER even at the tender age of 12. Limitations that hamper most of mankind, seemed to have had no effect upon him. He was the WORD that God spoke, so he is that LIVING WORD, and still is the same yesterday and today and forever. God did not give us a substitute for the LIVING WORD in the BIBLE, because the Bible has no power to change a man. But the LIVING WORD has never lost its original creative power. The Psalmist David understood this making this statement in Psalm 8.   “What is M-A-N that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him just a little lower than ELOHIM, and crowned him with glory and honor, and made him to have dominion over all the works of your hands, and you have put all (negative) things under his feet.” In the light of what the scriptures reveal about man, most of us do not manifest very much of the reality of our creation, so our impact on humanity is minimal. Most Christians will tell you they are, “Just a sinner saved by his grace.” But this does not align with what the scriptures tell us or what Father is saying to us through that still small voice within.       

  

            The power of creation was put into man in the beginning, for Jesus Christ said. “I am the resurrection and the life, He that believeth in me, though he were dead YET SHALL HE LIVE.” So for him, resurrection was not some event that he looked forward to in the sweet bye and bye, but it was the creative power of eternal life that dwelt within him, lifting him beyond the power of death. When Christians speak about resurrection while they are yet living, means that they believe the words of the serpent rather than the word spoken by God to the MAN in the Garden of Eden. God said, “The day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will die.” But the serpent said, “You will not die, but (God knows) that by eating the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be AS GODS with the same knowledge that he has.” That is what most Christians believe today. The fact is that good and evil from the human perspective do not exist in God. They are comparative words that have nothing to do with God at all. There is nothing to whom we can compare God, neither can we compare anything to the Man he created out of himself, the Christ. Even John the Baptist failed to see this point for while in custody he sent his disciples out to ask Jesus Christ, if he was the O-N-E divinely sent from God or should they look for another. Matt 11:3. Jesus then replied, “Go and show John AGAIN those things that you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the Gospel is being preached to the poor.”  What do you think, John, is not this a sign that the Kingdom is being established?  

 

What evidence is there in the world today that Christ is walking the streets of our cities today IN OUR SHOES? No wonder Christians are looking for “ANOTHER” to come. In honesty we would have to admit that there is very little evidence of a resurrected Christ alive and well functioning  today out of the millions who profess to be Christians. Religion is too busy adding members to their flock or building bigger Church buildings. The life of our Master Jesus Christ was a demonstration to all mankind showing us who WE are, and how life was to be lived. Then he tells us, “The things that I DO, you can do also and greater things than these shall you do because I go to my Father.”  When God’s people are challenged about that statement, everybody agrees that we should be able to do what Jesus did because he said that we are the manifestation of who he is. The disciples never saw in Jesus Christ the reality of who he was. In John 14, Philip said to Jesus, “Show us the FATHER and we will be satisfied.“ But notice how Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time Philip, and you have not yet seen the Father? If you have really SEEN ME, you would have seen my FATHER…… Do you not remember when I said, “I and my Father are O-N-E?” John 10:30. What a mighty revelation Jesus Christ made in that statement, but how many of us believe that to be true. If it is true of Jesus Christ then IT MUST BE TRUE ALSO OF US. But such a reality has not yet dawned upon many of God’s people. The truth is that God is walking in your shoes today on the earth, but the majority, are still living as mere mortal human beings. When we say that Christ is our true identity, it becomes simply a statement or a piece of information stacked away in our carnal mind, having no effect upon us, and it has nothing to do with our LIFE or present reality.

 

The serpent is just as active today in our Garden of Eden and his strategy has not changed much at all. Until the Christ mind functions in us there is no way we can have dominion over our body or control the circumstances of our life. Beloved I do not want you to read this booklet with your natural mind, but instead allow the spirit within you to interpret what FATHER is saying to you. Today! When we read the scriptures most times we only read the ink on the paper rarely hearing the inner voice from heaven. Only the spirit can cause the reality of who we are IN CHRIST to manifest itself and only the spirit can release us from the bondage of our mortality by crushing the head of the serpent, the deceiver that has imprisoned the world with religious lies that we have believed. So many even say the right words but deny the power of those very words. Our experience, living in our personal Garden of Eden has been no different to that of the first Adam, who once walked and talked with God in perfect love and harmony every day. We have forgotten who we are. If we follow the etymology of the word TRUTH in the Greek, we find that its basic meaning is “A NOT FORGETTING.” Beloved every one of us did once walk with God in perfect harmony throughout the ages but life on planet earth wiped out such memory. The serpent convinced us that we were born in sin and shaped in iniquity. Our origin in God has never been a reality for us, and religion has ignored the book of Genesis thinking it is irrelevant to our life today. We have assumed that sickness is just a necessary part of life, and getting old and losing our body's faculties is just a part of life. Most Christians believe that we all have to die from some disease, accident or old-age, and so any thought of ETERNAL LIFE is just a nice thing to speak about, but has no relevance for life today.

 

          Consider what Paul spoke about in 1 Cor.15. “We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment.” He also says. “This mortal must put on immortality and this corruptible must put on incorruption, and as we have borne the image of the earthly so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly. It is very convenient to allocate such scriptures to be part of whatever happens after death, but we need to consider them as part of our life now. Most Christians consider DEATH to be their friend alleviating their suffering and releasing them from the problems of this world so they can walk the streets of gold in heaven. Jesus said, “He that hears my word and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed “N-O-W” from DEATH UNTO LIFE. We have ignored so much of what Jesus spoke about, concerning our origin out of God and being created in his likeness and image, with dominion over all the works of his hands including our body and our circumstances. So many are happy to “LIVE A LIE” than to be the expression of the Christ, High and Lifted up with his train filling his holy temple which is our body.

 

          Relationship is necessary to fulfill God’s will and purpose in our lives, and to also enjoy the eternal life which is God’s life given to us in creation. How then does it function? The basic relationship anyone can have with God is that “GOD IS YOUR FATHER,” but most Christians only ever speak about “G-O-D.” This word is neither a name nor does it tell us anything about who God is or what he is, but father is a term that involves  relationship. If I call someone father, then I DECLARE THAT I AM HIS SON. Jesus Christ did not say, “God and I are ONE,” which would not have meant much to us, unless we understood exactly what that God really was. But when he said “I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE,” we knew who he was and what he was. He said to his mother at the age of 12, “Don’t you know that I must be about my FATHER”S business?” He knew his identity because he had a relationship with his Father. Few Christians use the term Father, because they do not have a relationship with him. The Apostle Paul said, “That I might know him and the power of his resurrection…”  The word he used to “Know,” is the Greek word “GINOSKO” which has nothing to do with academic knowledge, but is the most intimate knowledge known to man. Amongst other things, Strong’s Concordance states that this word represents the kind of knowledge that a MAN HAS OF HIS WIFE.. This represents a knowledge that is so intimate that it cannot be expressed in words. It is a sacred knowledge so deep that it is never spoken about but ties a man and his wife together in a sacred bond. This word is used in Gen 4:1, where it said and ADAM KNEW HIS WIFE. This is the most intimate knowledge available to man on this earth, and symbolizes the relationship we must have with our heavenly Father.  However, if a man today seeks that knowledge of a woman illegally, it is considered a crime and is known as “CARNAL” KNOWLEDGE

          However, Paul was saying that it was with that degree of intimacy, that he wanted to know God. To many it sounds very strange to be speaking about such an intimacy with God. But remember we are not speaking about a natural intimacy but a spiritual intimacy by the spirit, that establishes such a bond that we become ONE WITH our HEAVENLY FATHER. 1Cor 6:16 “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for the two, he says, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”  In the natural intimacy we can only become ONE FLESH because we cannot combine two bodies. However, if we are joined to the Lord WE ARE ONE SPIRIT, because Christ is spirit and we are the same spirit so our unity is that we become O-N-E SPIRIT.      But we face another issue now because we have the male and the female in this world according to Gen 2:in which we liveFrom that time mankind has believed that the Female part (the SOUL), has been separated from the spirit. The soul has never been separated from the spirit for that is impossible. Gen 2 is an allegory and cannot be literal as religion has declared it. There is no such thing as a male spirit or a FEMALE spirit for spirit has no gender. Also there is no such thing as half a spirit for it cannot be divided. These are the things that religion has used to confuse God’s people. From that time in Gen 2 Adam was unconscious and so all that follows is part of the DREAM WORLD. We do not read that Adam woke up, in fact for so many they remain asleep spiritually. The Allegory serves to illustrate how the soul functions in all of mankind. The word declares that, “ALL of Mankind became a LIVING SOUL.” What does this term mean for us today? Living souls have no capacity to know God because they believe that their soul and spirit have been separated. They cannot know God, because he is the spirit and they are the soul and in their delusion they see these as being separate. However, this is not so, for Christ the SPIRIT dwells in every man. Not half a spirit which cannot exist, but SPIRIT which is both male and female functioning together as one. And that spirit is GOD! Jesus Christ declared, “I and my Father are O-N-E,” not two separate beings. John 10:30. Therefore if Christ dwells in you then GOD DWELLS IN YOU, for they are ONE.

 

          Reconnecting with our heavenly Father is a resurrection from the dead. We read this in the parable of the prodigal son. When he returned, his Father said to his older brother, Luke 15:32 “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead and is alive again; was lost, and is found.”  Jesus used the word REPENT or “met-an-o-eh'-o”

in the Greek a number of times, but religion has confused people as to its true meaning. It is a combination of two Greek words, the first being “META” meaning, with, after, or behind and the word  “no-eh'-o” meaning  to perceive with the mind, to understand, to have understanding. The religious world teaches that it means to be sorry for our sins and this is what God requires for salvation. In the story of the Prodigal son SIN IS NOT MENTIONED, but what brought the wayward son home was not that he was sorry for what he did but he had complete changed of mind. When he left home he saw the Far Country as attractive and exciting, but his Father’s house where he was a Prince with absolutely everything he needed supplied as dull and uninteresting.  He had broken his relationship with his Father and had entered into a state God calls D-E-A-T-H. The Father did not consider his son was a sinner and demand that he grovel at his feet to be allowed to return. The Father’s comment was that his SON WAS D-E-A-D. This means that there was no contact between the SON and his FATHER, and from the Father’s viewpoint it was as if he was DEAD. What made this boy pack up and return home to his Father’s house? The return of the son was not because of some terrible judgment that he considered was upon him, nor was it some “HELL” that he was trying to escape from, but his MIND was touched by a reality that was not there when he left home. It was like someone had removed his MIND and replaced it with a completely new one. His mind now declared, leaving home was crazy, I had everything I needed at home and no lack at all, but here I am in this Far Country with nothing, and feeding the Pigs that I positively hate and eating their food. My mind is made up, I AM GOING BACK TO MY FATHER AND HOME. Yes, he had his little speech all ready but his Father was not listening for all FATHER WANTED, was his SON back home, to reinstated him to his former glory, in the Father’s house. The difference was that the RELATIONSHIP had been restored! This parable teaches us that to REPENT has nothing to do with crying over our sins or the threat of “Hell,” but is a RENEWING OF OUR MIND by the HOLY SPIRIT that sets our feet on a new course back to our Heavenly Father.

       

In the Garden of Eden the serpent deceived EVE causing her to believe that eating the fruit of the forbidden tree would OPEN HER EYES AND MAKE HER WISE. God never mentioned the word SIN to ADAM when he hid behind the trees saying he was NAKED. Adam at that point was the same as the prodigal son in the far country…..D-E-A-D, and all that it needs is for that carnal mind to be changed and renewed and the MAN will find himself back in their Garden of Eden with the Father waiting to pick up where Adam left off, being driven by a deceived MIND that saw God as someone to FEAR, who was waiting to destroy him in a burning “Hell” for his disobedience. BUT the TRUTH IS that like the FATHER of the prodigal son who was waiting with open arms to receive his SON, so his GRACE is sufficient for “ALL” today.

 

AS IN ADAM “ALL” DIE, EVEN SO IN CHRIST SHALL “ALL” BE MADE ALIVE

THE FIRST MAN ADAM WAS MADE A LIVING SOUL, BUT THE LAST ADAM (CHRIST) WAS MADE A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT

1Cor 15:22 & 45

 

          The purpose of this study is to emphasize the fact that the transformation of a man is accomplished not by Bible Study or religious observance, but by the RENEWING OF THE MIND. Man lost his place in the Garden of Eden because the serpent deceived EVE causing her mind to accept the lies she was told, and they became her REALITY. Having now lost the Mind of Christ given to Adam in creation, his relationship with God was broken as his thoughts destroyed the image that he had as a reflection of God. His carnal mind now declared him to be naked and stripped of his glory. This carnal mind put MAN out of the Garden and keeps him out of the Garden that was specially prepared for him. However, Babylon has caused man to remain estranged from his Father who created him in the beginning, by teaching him that God is angry with him and the question of sin must now be answered. However, SIN was not mentioned in Gen 3 when God spoke to Adam hiding behind the trees. All that is required to enter the Garden of Eden is to regain that original mind that is the MIND OF CHRIST.

 

Written by  Des Walter Sept 2009