What is the image, and what is it to be like God? It is to reflect a natural copy of Him and to have His character, the very nature and essence of God Himself. What is God? God is a Spirit. John 4:24 (AMP) God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality).
God’s perfect manner of knowledge and understanding includes wisdom inherent in the principles by which everything is governed. His revealed character expresses love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And though He is much more than this, this is some of what He chose to reveal of Himself to us through His word.
What He makes known of Himself relates to a love for Him and a desire to be with Him as His spiritual offspring. His essence, He has revealed, is that of a Spirit, holding a majestic position of omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, magnificent, and marvelous-mighty God. He is not under laws other than His own or any ruling authority simply because He is God, the sovereign, and has the right to be the way He is in all things. Isa 43:7 (NKJV) Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”
His way of revealing Himself is not only who He is concerning all His creation, but also His very character, His nature, and the essence of who He is to His sons and daughters by the Holy Spirit. Rom 8:16-17 (AMP) The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God. 17 And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory.
As a believer, one should remember that they are a spirit, have a soul, and live in a body created by God. 1 Thess 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before the fall, Adam was nurtured for spiritual maturity by the Spirit of God to reveal His image. But since God is a Spirit and every manner of things created by Him is for either spiritual or natural purposes, all things regarding the beginning involve Adam and Eve. Look again at Rom. 8:16-17. We are supernaturally repositioned into God’s spiritual family as His sons and daughters. It is a family characterized by God’s righteous manner of living, and a family Adam and Eve had been cast out by a treasonous act.
See it this way: if our status through Christ Jesus, our Lord, is as a living spirit being, a spiritual son or daughter of God, who, by His purpose, is to live eternally, then why would Adam and Eve’s lives in the beginning status have been any different? I know I am chipping away at religious mannerisms here, but it is necessary to reveal that our spiritual posture must be based on the perception of who we are.
Humanity’s existence on this earth was never meant to be related to this world’s ways, but related to the God who created us as His own to reveal His image and likeness. So, wrap your mind around this: spiritual truths enable believers to operate by faith and be conscious of spiritual laws that affect all things in creation. 2 Cor 5:17 (AMP) Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!
Today, most churches traditionally accept that a person’s spirit is made alive when they accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. One does not physically change in one’s appearance as male or female, nor does one’s soul change in its ability to interact with everything. But one thing did change: the spirit changed and acquired a hunger and thirst for the fellowship of the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit fulfills.
It is us, the spirit that was made alive at the new birth through salvation in Jesus Christ; your spirit was given life again, a life that comes from supernatural sourcing, the Holy Spirit, which spiritually revived or regenerated it. John 1:12-13 But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Before anyone is ever born again, they, by the procreative power of God, were born in the flesh, fully capable of a new birth occurring, and no male or female is excluded. And since God is who He is and is not subject to any spiritual laws or ruling authorities of darkness, neither is one born-again. Those who create sexual enigmas they called non-biased, placing them in a context that is outside God’s ordinances that govern the spiritual laws upon this earth. That makes evil more appealing to those who are in a state of carnal disorder as a result of truths the Church has hidden.
Through Christ, everyone can become God’s offspring, one who is made sovereign again and given the right to be the way He is in all things. If this is how it is to be on earth now, why should we declare that anything was to be different in the beginning when He created Adam and Eve? I could go on and on here, but the part of us created to bear God’s image, nature, and character is the spirit, revealed in the soul through the activity of the flesh that all came from God.
Gen 5:3 (NKJV)And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Seth’s brothers and sisters before him received the sinful nature into their bloodline through Adam’s lineage because of the treason that had occurred, which was attached to the origins of sin by blood. Thus, knowledge of good and evil is now revealed to a carnal nature that would promote a desire to satisfy one’s human nature of flesh and soul.
They were dead spirits and cut off from God; this was pro-creatively passed from Adam to all born after him, Cain, Abel, and Seth, and from them to their offspring and unto all humanity. Adam’s fall brought all things under the curse God initiated as a punishment; everyone is born spiritually dead, yet carnally alive, until the end, which is physical death. Rom 5:12 (NKJV) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned
Satan became the prince of this world, and humanity became subject to the evils he imposed upon it. He is still working today to influence God’s creation of males and females in a way to influence them to live according to a sinful nature. And he continues to evilly influence humanity to take the path of sin away from God and His life of righteousness. In a spiritual sense, the curse is empowered by humanity’s willingness to follow a path of deception into sin and darkness.
We can see this in these verses concerning Cain’s will to either follow the influence of sin and its working in his life or to rule over it and continue to follow the right path acceptable to God. Gen 4:6-7 (AMP) And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.
John 3:12 (AMP) [And] not be like Cain who [took his nature and got his motivation] from the evil one and slew his brother. And why did he slay him? Because his deeds (activities, works) were wicked and malicious and his brother’s were righteous (virtuous). So, how does this reflect on the part of males and females? I said before that the soul is the realm of our creation, where the enemy has the most significant influence to control every manner of our living presence on earth.
What did the enemy do when he came to Eve and deceived her? He appealed to her humanity and the nature of her soul and accepted what the devil said as truth. Eve determined in her soul through the eyes of her flesh that there was nothing physically wrong with the fruit, so in her mind, she saw it as a tree to make one wise as God.
Gen 3:4-6 (NKJV) Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Notice that Adam was present at this event, yet he did not stop Eve, reject her offer, or influence her to eat the fruit. So, we can assume he was willing to accept what he saw, too. I suggest that since Adam saw no immediate physical change in Eve, such as her hitting the ground dead at that moment, he was more emboldened to accept her offer of eating the fruit, though God had said not to eat it. The trespass was his defilement of God’s command.
This same evil mannerism is taking place amid this gender anomaly, where these young individuals who are struggling to understand the issues of sex and the process of puberty have been deceived by images created in their minds that being the other gender is more relevant. This has created a rejection of the normal pretenses involved concerning males and females being the only sexes.
Gen 3:17 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, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Eve sought to gain something she thought would make her like God; instead, both lost their spiritual connection.
They were now cut off from the source to fulfill God’s created purpose, unable to interact and communicate on a spiritual level, destined for carnality. And they would now live to rely upon their carnal nature, to know and understand only those things brought about by how they conceive the influence of a world cursed from then until Christ.
Pay close attention; no supernatural work by the enemy occurred in the garden. It was just his working through a serpent-like creature to appeal to Adam and Eve’s souls and bring about an event that would have ramifications throughout the spiritual realms. The enemy did not have the authority to work against Adam and Eve supernaturally; the Spirit of God still nurtured them.
For the enemy to have brought such a thing about would require him to have an authority and/or power where he would be greater than God, and we know that is not so. Everyone in Christ has been redeemed from the work of sin and darkness in their lives because Jesus, the Son of God, has come into this earth and given His life for theirs, removing the penalty of sin and death, separation from God, and delivering them from the curse and the darkness thereof.
I can tell you this subject is not well received in many areas of the body of Christ simply because it invokes a sense of lineage with God and cuts across teaching that all are always sinners and can never, by such a statute, be a son or daughter of Christ. However, for those prophetically called sons and daughters of His image and likeness, if you take up your spiritually subordinate post appointed in the hierarchy of His authority and power, and begin to live as the truth has revealed, and one who has dominion on this earth. The forces of evil would begin to diminish, and the very image of your heavenly Father will appear.
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