Lesson 7 God’s First Two Prophets update 9-9-13

                            

                             God’s First Two Prophets

                                           Genesis 4:1-2a

In the Genesis record Moses made known the purpose of God [Elohim] to make man in His image (Gen.1:26). Then Moses gave us the record of how He would fulfill His purpose. Jehovah Elohim began with one man to whom He would make Himself known personally.

God makes Himself known in His words and in His works and in His ways. God is unchanging. He Himself is outside time. So before He did become flesh through birth in a body of human flesh, Jesus could appear in the pre-incarnate body as Jehovah, the I am, the Eternal.

As Jehovah, God could form a body of the earth for His first man and breath into the nostrils of the formed body and bring forth a soul of life. Jehovah Elohim  planted a garden and there He put His man (Gen.2:7-8). The Garden was a sanctuary where He and His man could walk and talk of God’s Covenant plan and of His works and His ways. His man Adam would come to know Him personally and Adam would trust his Creator God.

The gospel of the glory of God is the gospel [good news] of God’s Covenant Son. This gospel Jehovah wrote in the heavens two days before He formed the body for His first man (see Gen.1:14-19; Ps.19:1-6; 97:6). Adam had the verbal teaching of the word of God from Jehovah Himself and he had the visual declaration, that he might meditate day and night and come to right understanding of God’s Eternal Covenant.

Moses did not give a chronological time so we do not know how long Jehovah had Adam in the garden separated unto Himself. There were only the two living souls in like bodies of human flesh. We do not know how long Jehovah had been teaching Adam of his part in the Covenant to be the head of mankind in bodies of flesh and blood of humankind.

There came a day when Jehovah put Adam’s body into a deep sleep and He took a bone from Adam’s side and built another body of the living bone with the flesh of Adam and brought to Adam a female of mankind, a womb-man, that he might fulfill God’s purpose that he multiply and fill the earth with sons of man in bodies of flesh and blood after his kind, human flesh and bone (Gen.2:21-24; 1:28).

As was Adam, the woman was brought into being in a full grown body. She also must be taught the Covenant plan. It is only through man born in bodies of the earth that God can have His purposed man in His image (Gen.1:26). Each one of mankind, born of the seed of man, must have the truth of the Covenant Son of the gospel shared with them in spirit and in truth. In the Covenant Son is the only hope of eternal life through a new birth (see Tit.1:2; Jn.3:3-7).

When Adam and his wife Eve had children, it would be theirs to share the truth and the reality of the One coming with eternal life and light of understanding the knowledge of the glory of God as seen in the face of the Covenant Son (see 2 Cor.4:3-7).

The truth of the Covenant Son, the Word who is God become flesh, must be kept (Jn.1:1-14). It must be guarded from error and perversion. This would be Adam and Eve’s to do first. Adam and Eve would be the first ones to hear and know the truth, that each one could be entrusted to watch over the truth of the faith in the righteousness of God. That made it imperative that each one of them have the truth straight and true. This was Jehovah’s purpose in teaching them personally (see Is.48:3-17).

Each one, Adam and Eve, must first obey the truth themselves to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word become flesh, who lives and abides forever (see 1 Pet.1:17-25). Each one born of God a true son of God to represent their Lord and Savior would teach their children to worship in spirit, in the very spirit of their being for understanding of the deep things of God, and in the truth of the Covenant Son, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life Eternal (Jn.4:23-24; 14:6). They had the gospel declared in the heavens, night after night showing forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as seen in the Covenant Son running the race of His circuit (Ps.19:1-6).

Adam and Eve were personally acquainted with their Creator. They heard of His works from His own lips. They believed the word of Jehovah. They had no reason to doubt. They did not reason for themselves apart from what they had been told. They understood that the things which are seen are not made of things which do appear (see Heb.11:1-3). They understood that the visible did not just happen, that all was not just self-made. God told them how He initiated the creation and how He ordered it and formed and fashioned the created things of heaven and earth, and the waters and the darkness.

Adam and Eve simply believed Jehovah Elohim. They had no reason not to. They knew the One who made all things to be all-wise and all-powerful. They knew Him as holy and just and good and loving and merciful. They were His learners.

Jehovah Elohim had planted two special trees in the middle of the garden and named them (Gen.2:9). Each tree, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, had a lesson to be learned by Adam and Eve. Each lesson was very important and must be impressed upon the very heart of each one.

The two trees taught that there are two ways of knowing. There is knowledge of wisdom and there is understanding of wisdom (see Prov.3:13-19; 4:1-13). Anyone with a mind can take in knowledge, but for understanding, one must have eternal life.

With the receiving of eternal life in the Covenant Son of God, one becomes the righteousness of God in His Anointed Son, Jesus, and is also then anointed with the Holy Spirit, who knows the deep things of the understanding of the wisdom of God (see 1 Cor.2:9-14; 1 Jn.2:27). He comes to dwell in the tent of the body of flesh with the newborn son, that He might share the understanding of the things which God alone knows (see Gal.3:26; 4:6).

Knowledge of wisdom is not enough. One must have understanding of the wisdom to know fully the way of wisdom. One can see the work of wisdom in knowledge, but one does not fully see the way of wisdom until he sees the why of wisdom. One cannot understand the why of wisdom unless the eyes of his understanding are enlightened to see as God sees. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. One must desire to be enlightened to the truth - all of it (see Jn.14:26; 16:13-15).

When Adam and Eve had the knowledge of the wisdom of God, which God taught them personally and was seen in the glory declared in the heavens in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant,” there was yet one part of the way of God’s wisdom which they did not fully understand concerning their physical being.

Each one had a body which had been fully formed by Jehovah Elohim. Each body was of the earth, earthy. The life of each body was in the blood and dependent upon breath to keep the elements together. The body of the earth is not immortal. It will stop breathing and corrupt and return to the dust of the ground from which it came (Gen.3:19).

Each one, Adam and his wife Eve, understood before they transgressed the command of God that those whom they reproduced after their kind would be born in a corruptible body. They understood the truth that must be shared with their progeny: You must be born again. You must receive the eternal life offered in the Covenant Son and be born from above or the lifeless body of the earth could not be raised a deathless glorified body like unto the body of the Covenant Son raised out from the dead, the begotten Son of God. One must be born a son of God, begotten out from the dead body of human flesh. If one did not receive eternal life in the Son, one would be left naked, unclothed, without a body and without a tent to live in. The mortal body having corrupted and returned to dust was a mere seed coat with no germ of life with power to raise up a deathless, glorified body, a body with which to be clothed forever.

Adam and Eve each understood the wisdom of this work of the Covenant Son, but there was one way of wisdom they had not taken in to fully understand. This was the lesson of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They must be given full knowledge, experiential knowledge. Their understanding of obedience to the truth would come in the proving of the lawlessness of the heart.

As we have seen in previous lessons, the personal experience of the offense of turning to their own way and of transgressing the will of their Creator opened the eyes of their understanding to the necessity of the redemption of a body of human flesh, even though the body had been formed by the Creator Himself. The being in the body would sin, would turn to his own way and have his will over the will of the One who had made him and called him to be a son of God.

The learning experience was a severe mercy of Jehovah Elohim. It was the loving-kindness of Jehovah Elohim to open the eyes of the understanding of the heart of man and what the heart of man will lead him to do (see Jer.17:9-10). In the lesson learned concerning the way of knowledge apart from the understanding of wisdom, Adam and Eve were also prepared to understand the wisdom of God in His Way of the Tree of Life. The lessons of the way of each of the two trees in the middle of the Garden must be shared with the children to be born for their understanding the ways of Jehovah Elohim.

The created things are recorded, not as an argument for the Creator, but as an illustration of the Way of God’s Covenant plan. Each figure is an unfolding and an expanding of the Covenant Son and His work as Creator-Redeemer (see Rom.3:22-26; 1 Tim.2:4-6). The garden was a literal garden. The trees were literal trees, real trees.

There is One Way to live forever. There is one Seed with the germ cell of eternal life and that is the Son of God begotten out from the dead in an immortal, imperishable body of flesh and bone. A way to live forever has been provided for mankind, a way to live abundantly, freed from the sin of self-will and with no fear of death.

Eternal life is given to us that we may know God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent (see Jn.17:3). To know God is to love Him and fully trust Him. To love Him and trust Him is to serve Him in righteousness and share His truth and wisdom and love.

With full understanding of the ways of Jehovah, Adam and Eve had been prepared to share the gospel of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God declared by the heavens in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant” and taught them by Jehovah Elohim Himself.

Jehovah then had His first two sons of God. Each one having obeyed the truth to be born from above, born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, who would be coming in the flesh as the signs in the heavens signified in figures of the true Covenant Son of Jehovah. Jehovah had His first two prophets to tell forth His words concerning His Eternal Covenant. The first two prophets would also foretell the coming events of works of the Covenant Son as the Covenant would be brought to pass through the ages to come (see Lk.1:70; Is.45:18-23; 46:9-11; Amos 3:7).

His servants having been prepared, it was time to send them forth from the garden to begin to multiply and fill the earth with sons of man that Jehovah might have the fruit of the incorruptible Seed - sons of God. Man was blessed and given dominion under the One whom they represented in His wisdom (Gen.1:28).

In time God deals with His creation both collectively and individually. By one representative man all were proved to be lawless at heart - all sinned. Death passed through all (Rom.5:12; 1 Cor.15:21a). The body of human flesh and blood was consigned to return to the dust of the ground from which it came (Gen.3:19). All are “in Adam.” The “all” in Adam die (1 Cor.15:22a). The earthy body of each one consigned to the dust of the ground.

Christ, the Anointed Covenant Son of God, is the only hope of eternal life. Individually, each one in Adam must choose to believe the righteousness of God through faith in the Anointed Son of God’s Eternal Covenant. “In Christ” shall all be made alive (1 Cor.15:22b).

Any one of the all in Adam may choose to believe into the Anointed Son and be made alive forevermore. Each one born in Adam of the seed of man is given the choice to be united with Christ and make his exodus out of a condemned human race and become a son of God in Christ Jesus (Jn.1:12-13; 3:16-21; Gal.3:26).

All in Christ, through faith in the righteousness of God, each one having received the Son to be his life, make up the all in Christ who will be made alive with the mortal body of human flesh raised up out of the dead seed coat immortal and imperishable, like unto Jesus’ body of glory (Phil.3:21; 1 Cor.15:42-57; see Lk.24:36-43; Jn.20:19-27).

All was planned and purposed before the foundation of the world (Tit.1:2; 2 Tim.1:9-10). All was finished before the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8). What God has spoken, He will make good (Num.23:19; Is.46:9-11). All is done in the Son of His Covenant. All is done according to the forethought and foreknowledge of the God of the Covenant, the Eternal God who is One in three persons (see Is.48:16-17; 1 Jn.5:7-13).

The Covenant Son is set forth as the Propitiation (Rom.3:21-26; Heb.2:9-17; 1 Jn.2:1-2; 4:9-10). In Him is the redemption of the earthy bodies consigned to return to the dust of the ground. The Covenant Son is set forth as the Propitiation as He is the one Son of man in whom the Father God is satisfied concerning sin having been put away once for all and satisfied that the consignment to death is overcome in the raising up of the body of each one having believed into the Anointed Son (see Jn.5:24-26; Rom.4:25-5:11; 6:10; Heb.1:1-3; 7:27; 9:22-28; 1 Pet.3:18).

The Covenant Son is the Propitiation, as He is the meeting place of man born in Adam in the image of the earthy with the God who created him and who became flesh to redeem His creation and set them free from sin, from the lawlessness of the human heart and to deliver man from death to live forever with Him (1 Tim.2:4-6).

All in Adam, born of the seed of man in a body of human flesh having become defiled with sin and death, must be put outside the presence of Jehovah Elohim. God is holy and all before His presence is holy ground and must not be defiled. All were proved and found guilty of turning to his own way. Therefore man must be sent from the garden. So Jehovah Elohim sent man  out of the garden to till the ground out of which he was taken (Gen.3:23-24a).

With our minds refreshed with the facts, we continue the narrative with Moses. “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have gotten a man from Jehovah,’ and again she bore [continued to bear] his brother Abel” (Gen.4:1-2a).

With the birth of Cain Eve made a statement, “I have gotten a man from Jehovah, or with the help of Jehovah.” This leads us to believe that formerly Eve had a barren womb. In Scripture we find many instances where Jehovah Elohim had closed a woman’s womb from conception until it was time for the birth of a person in whom Jehovah had a purpose for His Covenant work (see Gen.11:30; 16:1-2; 25:19-23; 29:31; 1 Sam.1:5-20; Lk.1:5-19, 36; Rom.4:13-24; Heb.11:11). It stands to reason this was so with Eve.

After the proving Jehovah had shared with Eve that there will be emotional pain and sorrow to the mother heart through children conceived and birthed of the flesh, self-willed with hearts of deceit (Gen.3:16). While in the garden Eve and her husband Adam were free to fellowship with Jehovah and learn from Him without the care of a household. Outside the garden things have changed.

Each son of the first conception is named. Nothing is said of who named the twin boys. As Eve recognized that Jehovah had given her Cain, before she bore Abel, Bible scholars take it that Eve believed that she had brought forth the coming Anointed Son of the Covenant. But according to the record of Moses, Adam and Eve had received the Gift of eternal life and would have new skin in the resurrection (see Gen.3:20-21). With the teaching of Jehovah of the glory of the Covenant Son declared in the heavens, it would be ages before the Covenant Son would become flesh and He would be born of a virgin (see Is.7:14). Eve could not have believed her firstborn to be the Son of the Covenant.

Another thinking is that Eve believed Cain to be chosen to carry the seed for the coming Covenant Son. This thinking also comes from believing Eve to have named the twin boys. But as one studies Scripture, a pattern is seen. Over and over Jehovah passes over the firstborn son and he is not privileged to carry the seed of the line through which the Anointed Son will be born according to the flesh.

Another pattern that we see in Scripture is that God Himself names the son who carries the seed (see Gen.17:15-21). Even the virgin Mary and her betrothed, Joseph, were told to call the Covenant Son, Jesus,“Jehovah saves,” and Immanuel, “God with us” (Lk.1:31; 2:21; Mt.1:18-25).

In the genealogy of Adam in Genesis chapter 5 we are told that God Himself called His first pair of human flesh “Adam,” and Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth” (vv2-3).

When Eve bore Seth, she “called his name Seth, ‘for,’ she said, “God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew’” (Gen.4:25). “Seth” has the meaning of “appointed.” To Seth a son was also born to carry the seed, and Seth called his name “Enosh”, “(mortal) man” (v26).

And so down through the genealogy of man in Genesis chapter 5 the son carrying the seed of the Covenant Son is named. None of the other children, sons or daughters, are named. Adam also called his son’s name Seth. Eve gave the explanation of why they called his name Seth. It was God’s doing, God’s name for him.

Did Jehovah Elohim also name Cain and Abel? “Cain” has the meaning, “maker.” Cain comes from a primitive root. The primitive meaning is “to set up” or “to erect.” Then it means “to create, to make one’s own.” Hence, “a thing gained or achieved.” Something gained, gotten, or achieved has to come from something made. The second son is called “Abel” and has the meaning of “transitory, vanity, passing.”

Since names in Scripture have meaning and relate to happenings in time, why would Jehovah Elohim call the firstborn of mankind “maker,” and his twin brother “transitory”?

Jehovah had a message for Eve and for her husband Adam. Eve had been forewarned of sorrow. In her first conception Eve must bear the greatest pain a mother could have, the murdering of one son by the other (see Gen.4:8). She must be somewhat prepared. Jehovah is merciful and prepares us for what is coming.

In the names given, Jehovah could foretell what He foreknew concerning the way each son would choose to go. The parents would teach each son the truth of the coming Covenant Son of God. They would impress upon each son the absolute imperative of the Way of the Tree of Life as the only hope of eternal life.

One must unite in the death of the coming Son to make an exodus out of the body made in the image of the earthy and be born from above in the image of God. It is God’s Covenant plan and the way God had provided for man to become a son of God and live with Him in His Kingdom forever.

If the son did not choose to go God’s Way, the earthy body would one day stop breathing and become lifeless  and corrupt and return to the dust of the ground and perish. The personal being of the son, the inner man who wore the body as clothing, would be left naked and unclothed forever. He would have no body to be raised up out from the dead that he might be again clothed with skin (see 2 Cor.5:1-4).

True knowledge of godly wisdom is in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Knowledge is taken into the mind and believed and received - or one does not believe it. If one does not buy the truth, he will count it for nothing. Not having believed the truth of God’s wisdom, one is left to the imagination of his own heart.

Man does not like to think of himself as a mere creation, made by a Creator who is God over him and who has the say, as He is the Owner of the earthly body and the Master of the personal being clothed in the body (see Is.45:11-12; Jer.18:1-8; Zech.12:1; Rom.9:20-23; Col.1:15-17).

Calling the firstborn Cain, “maker,” and of the making being for the gain he would achieve, was prophetic of the city Cain would build and keep building (Gen.4:16-17). It is most likely that Jehovah Himself named the sons. We see this to be true of other prominent sons in the record. From the city ending in the judgment of the flood of waters we are shown that this was Satan’s first city of his world of politics, economics and religion, a system to draw men into his purpose to take the kingdom of the earth and bring it under his power and rule and Cain his first man to be drawn in (see 1 Jn.3:12; 5:19). In his world Satan is prince. In the politics of his world man can have power and he can gain wealth through economics. The false religion, the perversion of “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of Covenant,” keeps man in the dark. In the imagination of the heart, one can deceive himself into thinking inside that he can be like God.

When Jesus came, He said, “If any will come after Me, let him deny [disown] himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according to his works” (Mt.16:24-27).

Taking up the cross and united with the Covenant Son of God is the Way of the Tree of Life (Jn.14:6). Following Jesus into death to make an exodus out from the dead earthy body is to follow Him to eternal life in being raised up out from the dead in a body in the image of God, the body of the holy calling to become a son of God and fulfill the purpose of one having been brought into being. All that can be gained in this world, no matter how great the power or the wealth, is transitory. It is all vanity, vanity, emptiness, and all is passing away (see Eccl.1:1-11; 2:1-11).

Abel recognized the truth of the Covenant Son and believed in the righteousness of God through faith in the coming Covenant Son. Abel also became a prophet of righteousness and told forth the truth of the Covenant Jehovah Elohim which must be obeyed. Abel was the first prophet born in human flesh in the image of the earthy body of his father Adam. Abel was also the first prophet put to death for telling forth the words of Jehovah Elohim (see Mt.23:35-36; Lk.11:50-51; 1 Jn.3:12).

In calling the twin sons by the names Cain and Abel, Jehovah gave the parents prophecies concerning the way each would take, and their lives revealing the only two ways to go in this life on earth: One’s own way, to know for oneself, or God’s Way of the Tree of Life, to be born a son of God and bear His image forever.

Cain, as prophesied, did choose to remain turned to his own way to gain what he could gain in the city of the world system of the evil one (see Gen.4:9-17; Jude 11). In the end he lost all that he had gained in the judgment of the flood of waters, though he had been forewarned of the coming condemnation of the world (see Gen.6:3-13; 7:11-24).

And as prophesied, Abel was willing to count the gain of this world loss for Christ that he might be found in Christ, the Anointed Covenant Son, not having his own righteousness, but the righteousness through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God through faith (see Phil.3:7-9; Heb.11:1-4).

Like the apostle Paul in his day, Abel desired to know the coming Anointed Son and to lay hold of that for which he had been laid hold of (see Phil.3:10-14). Though Abel died and went to the place prepared for spirits who depart their bodies, he will be raised in the First Resurrection to inherit the Kingdom with Christ (see Lk.16:19-25; Rev.20:5). Jesus said that the death of Abel will be avenged (see Mt.23:35).

This ends our lesson.