|
God's plan unfolds
THE PLAN OF GOD?
“All things were made by Him (the Word/God); and without Him was not anything made that was made.” God created the natural realm to be seen, felt, and experienced by our senses; yet, it testifies of Him, even as He testifies of Himself as the Creator. From where, then, was this natural realm launched if not from and by His very Being and from eternity, itself? And where is this natural realm in relation to eternity? It cannot be outside of eternity, for then eternity would cease to be eternal! So it must be within eternity. Almost unbelievable! A temporal realm, that exists within an eternal realm. When was the natural realm created, do you think? Was it before or after the creation of angels? If it was after the angels’ creation, then how long did God wait before casting out those disobedient ones? He would have no place to cast them! And if it was before they were created, it must have been because God KNEW a third of the angels would disobey! So God would cast the disobedient ones to a place that would almost immediately become “…without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen were NOT MADE of things which do appear.” |
Re: God's plan unfolds
Do you understand the Hebrew verb hayah to mean "had become" in Genesis 1:2, from "And the earth was/had become without form, and void..."?
|
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
|
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
Quote:
I was attempting to see if what's your take is. |
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
MAN...who was created a spirit being, formed from the dust, and received the breath of life (soul). Thus: "...the earth (man) was in confusion, without God, and in the grasp of sin..." (darkness), until God pronounced his salvation (Gen. 1:3). |
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
http://mikeblume.com/renovat2.htm Spiritual Lessons we can Learn from Genesis' Creation PROPER MANNER TO STUDY SYMBOLISM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT We need to use our authority of searching the scriptures in order to discover what reason God put the creation account in the Bible for us. God did not give these truths just to tell us where we came from.
ONE LESSON TO LEARN God created earth, and destruction occurred afterwards with Lucifer's fall God set out to re-establish the earth and form it The first thing we read about is the water covering the earth and God's Spirit moving over it. This shows us the need of WATER and SPIRIT in our lives to BEGIN Our new renovated lives. John 3:5 ...Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, RENEW means RENOVATE God is renewing us Roma 12:1-2 ...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, " TRANSFORMED " metamorphoo {met-am-or-fo'-o} v AV - transfigure 2, transform 1, change 1; 4 1) to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure " RENEWING " anakainosis {an-ak-ah'-ee-no-sis} n f AV - renewing 1) a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better Roma 8:29 ...did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, ... Gene 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness Jesus:... Colo 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: The only conclusion we can draw from this is that man LOST THE IMAGE of God As the world lost its FORM it had in Genesis 1:1. And God must con-"form" us back into His image. Renovation. The final work of God was making man in His image. When God has MATURED us to completion (Bible meaning of perfection), then we will be a sixth day work, and finished. And SABBATH occurs We enter a rest with God. THERE ARE 6 PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST (Hebrews 6:1-3) Hebr 6:1-2 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 1) Repentance from dead works - CORRESPONDS TO DAY ONE 2) Faith toward God - CORRESPONDS TO DAY TWO 3) Doctrine of Baptisms - CORRESPONDS TO DAY THREE 4) Doctrine of Laying on of Hands - CORRESPONDS TO DAY FOUR 5) Doctrine of Resurrection from the dead - CORRESPONDS TO DAY FIVE 6) Doctrine of Eternal Judgment - CORRESPONDS TO DAY SIX And the seventh day represent perfection, which is actually completion or maturity. We learn to rest when we are mature believers in Christ. Hebr 4:10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God [did] from his |
Re: God's plan unfolds
DAY ONE
The the work begins. Word goes into action. It is not the work of man, but God's work, just as it was God's work that made the world with form. We cannot be saved by human works. God's Word first speaks forth light and divides light from darkness. The first truth Peter told the sinners what to do when they asked him of their responsibility after having known of Jesus' death for them on the cross was to repent. Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.Repentance is allowing God to give you light and to then let Him divide the light from darkness within your life. Separation from darkness is the initial work in our lives. We repent by asking God to forgive us of our sins due to newfound godly sorrow in light of the fact that we are without Him. God's Word has pricked our hearts and we realize we now need salvation from this world and from our sins. His Spirit has moved upon us! We have been pricked in heart! (Acts 2:37). And then His Word was given to us, saying "Repent." Repentance is giving God opportunity to separate light from darkness in our lives. He spoke truth to us when we learned of Christ's death for us, for Christ, after all, is the light of the world. He is the light we must think about when we read that the world first received light. Oh, it was actual light that came in Genesis 1, but Jesus took our minds back to that account when He told us that He was the light. All spiritual light regards Jesus. 2 Cor. 4:6 tells us that God gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus' face shone as the sun on the mount of transfiguration while God's Word spoke, saying, "This is my beloved Son; HEAR YE HIM." God symbolically showed us here that we must hear Christ as He showed Christ's face to shine with light. Peter was used of God to shine light upon the people a He preached in Acts 2. Repentance moves God to forgive us of our sins and to then separate these sins from our lives after giving us the light of Jesus. He divides the darkness from the light. Sins are removed. ENTER, EXODUS At this point, we musty consider another outstanding parallel of salvation. Perhaps the most clear picture of the Church of Christ is the Exodus story. And since it, too, foreshadows the Church, it therefore is linked to the Genesis account of creation which also foreshadows salvation. The Lamb was slain in Egypt that the enslaved Israelites might be saved from the death God would inflict on that kingdom that He might force Pharaoh to free Israel from slavery. Similarly, Peter preached about Jesus' death. The Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. Could the reference to the foundation of the world refer to the foreshadowing of the truth of the Genesis Light that allows us to see darkness removed from light in our lives? From today's standpoint, the lamb has been slain. And people are now learning about this work of God today. They come to realize they must do something about it. Acts 2:37 shows sinners asking Peter what they must do. In Acts 10, we see a similar element as we read of Cornelius' salvation. An angel told him to call for Peter who would in turn tell him what he must do. (Acts 10:6). How do we respond to hearing about Jesus' death for humanity? Again, Acts 2:38 answers this question by telling that we must first REPENT. After Israel left Egypt, they confronted the Red Sea. This body of water seemingly stood as a discouraging barrier to their escape. Pharaoh became angry at his own command to release Israel and pursued them again. He sent out his armies after them. This is not unlike a believer's experience who first believes and determines to leave sin and a lifestyle without God. We make the decision to leave. However, our sins, which tormented us so, as the soldiers of Egypt, are not removed by our mere decision to be free of them. They follow us. They are a part of us. Only God can remove them from us. God must work in our lives. The pillar of fire and cloud, which led Israel from Egypt, was actually God's presence in manifested form. It was with Israel and it led Israel. And the act of our repentance causes us to ask God for forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from them. We can only do so much, but when it comes to the actual removal of our sins, only God can work. All we can do is choose to be saved, and to call upon God to deliver us. In Exodus 14:10 we find where Israel cried out to God when Pharaoh pursued. This parallels repentance. Moses instructed them to not fear after having seen them cry to God. Fear is a sign of unbelief in God's ability to deliver after we have asked Him for help. (When you are confident He will help, you will not fear after you request Him to indeed help you. You know He will do it!) We must not doubt that God will deliver. He told them to stand still, for the Lord would fight for them. Their strength would not fight the enemy. God must do the work. God requires faith in His word in order to help us. So, Israel relaxed and calmed their fears, believing. Then the pillar moved and separated the Egyptians from the Israelites. On the divided side where Egypt stood, representing our sins, there was darkness. But on the side of Israel there was light. Exod 14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.God separated the LIGHT from DARKNESS. - just as in DAY ONE of Genesis!! This is REPENTANCE. Repentance moves God to divide our sins from our lives. He forgives us. He takes away our sins. He forgives us! We could not remove those sins. Only God can deliver us from them. Without repentance, a person is yet in their sins. No amount of fleshly ascetic treatment upon self will remove sins. We must repent. DAY 2 - BAPTISM But what is then done with those sins that are separated? Is that all the work that is necessary? Is our salvation complete? No. Peter CONTINUED telling the people what they must do to be saved. Some argue that there is nothing we can do to be saved because we are not saved by works. If their general statement is true, then Jesus preached salvation by works since He commanded His disciples to baptize people in Matthew 28:19. If this is true, then Peter preached salvation by works when he told the Jews to Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins in Acts 2:38. And Peter COMMANDED Cornelius to be baptized in water in Jesus' name in Acts 10:48. And he wrote in his epistle that baptism saves us in 1 Peter 3:21. Actually, baptism is not a work in the category of the subject of this verse, "not of works, lest any man should boast." Those words were spoken in reference to good deeds people believe will move God to PAY them the wages of salvation. Salvation, however, is not something we can earn as if we must WORK for it. It is a free gift to those who believe. BAPTISM is not a work of righteousness intended to move God to pay us with salvation. Rather, baptism is a recognition that we CANNOT save ourselves. It is a burial of "the old man" and all the old man's hopes of saving ourselves through works. Romans 6:3-6 teaches us that water baptism is a burial of the old man with Christ. Repentance slays our old lives when we turn around from such a lifestyle without God. (Repent literally means an about-face). We ask God to forgive us of our lives of our lives lived without Him. And we let Him understand we are never going to live like that anymore. From then on, we will seek His will. So, it slays our old lifestyles. And what do we do with a dead life? Why, we bury it, naturally. That is the reason Peter told us to be baptized after we have repented. To experience remission of sins we must both repent and then be baptized in Jesus' name according to ACTS 2:38. continued... |
Re: God's plan unfolds
...continued.
Why both? Picture the soldiers separated from Israel by God. Light is divided from darkness. What must be done with those soldiers? They must be removed from existence. They are already removed from us, but now they must be eradicated. Therefore, God told Moses to extend his staff over the Red Sea and to lead the people through it, as God opened it up. Similarly, a preacher baptizes a believer in water in the name of Jesus Christ. One passes through the watery grave of baptism. As God had it so that Moses extended His rod while God's wind blew the waters open to divide them, a preacher is instructed to baptize people while God's Spirit moves to prepare an eradication of sins. And then, God's Spirit lets Egypt pass into the water behind Israel. And when Israel is safely overshore, God drowned the armies of Egypt in the waters and killed them! Had God not initially separated the Armies from Israel first, the Egyptians would have passed through danger with the Israelites and would have continued tormenting Israel after the Red Sea would return to its place closed. Similarly, without repentance, water baptism alone will not remit sins. Unless we repent before we are baptized, our sins will remain as part of us after we are baptized. It must be a COMBINATION OF REPENTANCE AND WATER BAPTISM IN JESUS' NAME in order for that baptism to be of any effect. Repentance separates sins from our lives and then water baptism moves God to eliminate them. God had baptism in mind when He inspired Micah to write 7:19 of the prophet's book. "He will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Iniquities, here, are spoken of as though they were conscious enemies or soldiers, as were the armies of Egypt. They were "subdued." After they were subdued, God cast them into the SEA, as the armies of Egypt were cast and drowned in the Red "Sea". A "Red" Sea foreshadows the blood of Jesus. The Bible teaches that the blood of Jesus remits our sins. Matt 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. .And there is no remission of sins in any other way besides blood shed. (He. 9:22). Therefore, if repentance and water baptism remits our sins, then the blood of Jesus must be tied into these steps of salvation. That is the reason that the foreshadowing elements of Acts 2:38, as seen in the division of Egypt from Israel and the subsequent destruction of those soldiers, occurred around the body of water called the Red Sea. The thought of blood and water come together in Acts 2:38 and Exodus 14:23-28. Aptly enough, the Second Day of Genesis speaks of the "waters" being "divided" (Gen. 1:6). The very same terms, "waters" and "divided" are used in both instances of Genesis' creation and Exodus' account of the Red Sea. "And the waters were divided". Coincidence? NEVER! God foreshadowed the beginning steps of salvation by writing about the beginning steps of making this world, because salvation is indeed a wonderful, brand new world! After dividing the light from darkness (compare Gen 1:4 with Exodus 14:20), God divided the waters! We must be baptized after we have repented. It's God's plan! Gene 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.Not many have associated baptism with remission of sins, although Acts 2:38 clearly does. Acts 22:16 likewise tells us that baptism "washes away" our sins, as though the Red Sea washed away the soldiers of Egypt. The dividing factor of baptism, as indicated in the foreshadowing division of waters in Day Two is also seen in Colossians 2:11-12. Speaking of baptism, Paul compares it to circumcision. Circumcision "put off" the shroud of flesh in Hebrew males. Likewise does repentance and baptism remove the death shroud of the old man and our sins. We take off the "old robe" and put on the "new man" - Christ Jesus. And the aspect of burial with Christ is again mentioned in Col. 2:12 as it is mentioned in Romans 6:3-6 and is foreshadowed by the burial of the soldiers in the Red Sea. Also, there is the burial of Noah's former world in which he lived, where Peter refers to baptism saving us as water saved Noah. 2 Peter 3:5-6 makes note of the earth STANDING OUT OF THE WATER AND IN THE WATER. by that water, the WORLD THAT THEN WAS, BEING OVERFLOWED WITH WATER, PERISHED. Our old worlds, lifestyles, are washed away and we enter a Genesis of a new world! DAY THREE -- SPIRIT BAPTISM After making mention of the need to repent and be baptized in Jesus' name in order to experience remission of sins, Peter said one may receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:38). One may experience this before water baptism, as in Cornelius' experience, but when you think of the aspect of "guiding us into all truth" in conjunction of the thought why God gives us the Holy Ghost baptism (John 16:13), you can see that the pillar of fire, God's Spirit, led Israel before and after they passed through the Red Sea (Ex. 13:21). One's sins may be divided from one's life, but not yet obliterated in baptism, enabling in baptism, enabling one to receive the Holy Ghost. One may have only repented. Yet, one must later be baptized should one receive God's Spirit first, as Peter commanded Cornelius family after they received the Spirit. Either way, one must repent first order to receive the Holy Ghost. So, the Spirit comes to lead into all truth as it had let Israel to Canaan. After separating the spoken light from darkness, and then dividing the waters, God spoke and divided the waters from the land. On the third day, land arose from under the waters! What a glorious foreshadow of our resurrection with Christ, who arose from the grave the third day! If repentance slays our old man, and baptism buries the old man, then the third element found in Acts 2:38 (Holy Ghost baptism) is a resurrection! Jesus died, taking our sins with Him into the death, and was buried in a grave and rose again. He left our sins in the grave. We die with Christ by repenting and being buried with Christ by baptism. And we resurrect with Christ when we receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost.. Paul said that the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead would quicken our mortal bodies if it dwell in us. The SPIRIT was associated with RESURRECTION. And, as Adam received the breath of life from God and became alive, the wind of God's Spirit filled the 120 in the Upper Room (Acts 2) with the Holy Ghost. The Church was born! At long last, a BRIDE was made with the same breath of life that the groom received that He might live. Eve was not inbreathed with that breath as Adam was. (Perhaps that is the reason Eve so easily fell into sin.) The world was finally ready for life after land rose from under the waters. And on the third day of Genesis, the first life came forth. Genesis 1:10-11 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. .Life with God comes only with the third element of salvation, completing the process, baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit witnesses with us that we are the Sons of God! We receive the Spirit of adoption when we receive the Holy Ghost. We then cry, "Abba, Father." You need to experience the baptism of the Holy Ghost in order for there to be Life within you, making you a Son of God. You must have within you that same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Unless that Spirit is in us to lead us we are not the Sons of God. (Romans 8:9-11,14,16). You may have only experienced one or two of these elements of salvation. You are on your way! Don't stop there! Go all the way until Life can have its way in you! Will you obey Acts 2:38? |
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
H1961 היה hâyâh haw-yaw' A primitive root (compare H1933); to exist, that is, be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary): - beacon, X altogether, be (-come, accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), continue, do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit (one-) self, require, X use. The first meaning is that it existed. After creation it existed without form and was void or empty. If you are not careful then you get into some interesting but not correct doctrines. |
Re: God's plan unfolds
Quote:
Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. Creation of heavens is mentioned in Isaiah. And the term IN VAIN is the same Hebrew phrase as WITHOUT FORM. TO-HOO in Hebrew. תּהוּ tôhû It is the same word used in Genesis 1:2 for WITHOUT FORM. So Isaiah said the Lord did not create the world WITHOUT FORM. That's literally what Isaiah said. So, how did it get that way if God did not create it that way? It was created in Gen 1:1. 1:2 says it was without form. |
| All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:58 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.5
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.