God's Covenant With Mankind

 In the last several posts, I have written about forgiveness, and covenants, suzerains and vassals. There was also the post about views on atonement. In this post I hope to put some of these things together to explain something that might help us understand more of how all of these things fit into the plan and purpose of God. A plan and purpose of LOVE.

In the early writings of this blog I talked about a point in time about 20 years into my Christian walk when I watched a video tape of Willie Hinn preaching a sermon called "Mistaken Identity" He preached in in 1987 and I did not watch it until about 1993, but when I did watch it, it transformed my understanding about the Sovereignty of God like nothing ever before. It was like a light went on inside, and everything changed! The grass was greener, the sky was bluer, and my cheeks were getting sore from the smile on my face! I don't want to discuss it in much further detail here, but only to say, one of the main points of the sermon was that God has always had a plan for creation, and even the so called fall in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve, was NOT a surprise to God, and in fact I believed then, and still now believe that it was in fact part of the plan and purpose from the God who is love. 

All I have ever heard preached until then was that God created Adam and Eve in the Garden, and He tested their love for Him by giving them instruction to be obedient, and if only they remained obedient, then all of mankind would live in Paradise forever. So then that always left a question in the minds of thinking men and women, (even unsaid so as to not appear to be questioning God perhaps), and that is simply; If God is all knowing, and he created mankind knowing in advance they were going to disobey, and the punishment would mean sending billions of people to an eternal fiery torment in hell, then what kind of tyrant would that make God? And if God did not know the outcome of what Adam would do, then what else does God not know? No wonder those that reject God (and even many Christians) are not sure if they can trust this God, since who knows if He is just going to get angry and punish mankind in His wrath? After all, aren't natural disasters part of God's judgement? (No, not in anyway!)

Oh how mislead and deceived we have been subjected to even by well meaning preachers, with such a distorted view of God. How delighted I was to learn that God is really Omnipotent and not impotent. That God is Sovereign and is Loving and Gracious and Merciful ALL the time! That God has a wonderful plan for creation, and EVERYTHING is included in that plan! Adam's "fall" was NOT a mistake, but indeed a part of the purpose of God from before the foundation of the world. In fact  Genesis 3:22 "Now man has become as one of us, knowing the difference between good and evil...." Wasn't that the point? Aren't we told in Gen. 1:26 "Let us make man in our image and likeness..." 

It was like reading the Bible with open eyes for the first time! What I had learned was that, God's intention was actually, NOT the first man Adam, but the second man Christ! Adam was just the prototype so to speak, and it was all to lead up to when Jesus died and rose again from the dead, He became the LAST ADAM, and the SECOND MAN! Jesus put to death the Adamic race on the cross and began a whole new creation. Thus fulfilling the covenant between God and Adam. (see Rom.5)

Having said that, I will explain what I mean by the term Adamic covenant and how that applies not only to him, but to all mankind as well. While we are not told specifically in Scripture that God was making a covenant with Adam, like is said in other cases such as with Abraham, I see all the makings of a covenant agreement with God and Adam who is the representative head of  all mankind. 

In Gen. 2:15-17 " And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of they garden thou may freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat, for in the day that thou eat thereof, thou shalt surely die." 

Those verses right there is the covenant agreement between the Suzerain God, and the Vassal Adam. The conditions were for Adam not to eat of the tree, or the consequence, (rather than punishment) is that Adam would surely die. 

So then the question has to be asked, Did God know that Adam was going to eat of the tree? Yes, is the answer, and in fact I noticed yesterday, God said, "In the day that you eat thereof" He did not say in case you eat, or if you eat, but rather as much as saying when you eat of that tree and disobey me you will die. God knew Adam was going to eat, and planned it and purposed it and brought it to its fact.

Now you might say to me, How horrid is that! God purposed Adam to fall and bring the world into sin, and punishment and eternal torment for billions of souls.... And I would tell you to just hold on a minute! Who ever said anything like that to you has told you a terrible and wicked lie, that slanders the Name and Nature of God! In fact, we are told in Rev. 13:8 that Jesus is the "Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world..." Before there ever was a problem, God took care of the problem. He did not start something, and not know if He could finish it, or if He would prevail with His plan and purpose! (see Luke14:28-32) How insane is it to think such a thing about God! We attach so many of man's faults to God and think that God thinks like man does, but rather God says to come up higher. His thoughts are not like ours, which does not mean to stay where you are in the lower thought realm, but rather come up higher and begin to think His thoughts!!

And so now, since we see that God knew what Adam was going to do, and that Adam was going to break the covenant. God then takes both sides of the covenant and obligates Himself to the consequence of death! This is why God took on human flesh in the form of Jesus to take Adam's place, as the consequence of the breaking of the covenant agreement. "As in Adam ALL die, so also in Christ shall ALL be made alive..." 1 Cor. 15:22  As one person said, what part of ALL don't you understand the A or the two L's?

And so there is much more to the working out of this process throughout the whole of the Old Testament, which is meant more for a book than a blog post. However suffice it to say, that when the scriptures tell us that "Sacrifice and offerings thou did not desire..." Psalm 40:6, and other similar verses, then it means,as I see it,  that it was not the reason or the ultimate goal God had in mind. Mankind was already sacrificing babies to other gods to appease these gods they worshiped because of their guilt for sin. God in fact was saying, that any sacrifices made to Him was never meant to appease Him, and was not the purpose He had in mind when He instituted the animal sacrifices. These sacrifices were a symbol as a reminder of there is going to be a death take place and the animals was NOT what God had pleasure in and would not relieve their guilt, because the animal sacrifices were only in place until God Himself in the person of His Son Jesus would finally fulfill Adam's portion of his side of the covenant! The book of Hebrews explains this very well.

I am not sure I made myself clear, so I will say it another way. The further man moved East of Eden, the further man separated themselves from the life of God in their own mind. (God was never separated from man! and in fact God got man to head back West with Abraham) The people of God began to follow other gods and make human sacrifices to appease these gods they followed. God instituted animal sacrifices and rituals and laws and procedures for man to follow, to replace their need for a sacrifice of appeasement, until the time would come when that system would end with the final sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

 God was not to be treated like other gods who would desire sacrifice, for the sake of the sacrifice to appease them! The animal sacrifices was NOT God's goal, and it was never meant to appease Him in any way. God was not having them sacrifice for His sake, but for their own sake since they needed to clear their conscience of sin.  In fact in Psalm 50:12 God says through the psalmist "If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof"! The sacrifices were never meant to be just a ritual to be followed, as if God needed the meat, the sacrifices in the temple were a symbol of the covenant God had with mankind, and a reminder that God would ultimately replace that sacrifice of death with the sacrifice of His own death on the cross! 

"Let us make man in our image and likeness,,," and indeed man showed up in the image and likeness of God, in the person of Jesus the Christ, who then ended any and all other sacrifices by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross in order to complete the conditions of  God's Covenant With Mankind