Lesson 19 The First Sons of God

                                  The First Sons of God

                                           Genesis 1:1-3:7

Since first writing notes on the Eternal Covenant, I have been given further understanding of the ways of God through learning to look at the text in the light of what God is doing. Having had more time to look into God’s Eternal Covenant as declared in “The Heavenly Revelation” of the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Son of the Covenant as seen in the stellar heavens (Ps.19:1-6; 97:6), I began to think on the first chapters of Genesis more in relation to God’s purposes in His Eternal Covenant. This then led to the writing of the following study, which I set before you for your consideration. Those of you who have the old notes will see changes in the thinking. Scripture references have been purposely kept to a minimum.

“The Book of the Law,” the Pentateuch, including the five first books of our Bible, was written by Moses, the prophet of the tribes of Israel. There was a specific purpose to the writing. Moses wrote “The Book of the Law” for the future kings of Israel after Jehovah God had brought Israel into the land of Canaan and established a kingdom (see Deut.17:14-16; 31:24-26; also Deut.31:9-13).

The beginning book of the Law, “Genesis,” has a way of emphasizing Jehovah Elohim making known His ways. Apart from any introduction or explanation, Genesis simply begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

In the heavens and the earth Elohim had all of the elements necessary to the environment designed for man in the planning of the creative process. Then follows the account in chapter 1 of how Elohim arranged and ordered the environment He had created for man up through the bringing forth the beasts of the earth on the sixth day.

Elohim made the animals of the earth after its kind, the cattle, four-footed animals after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind. Elohim gave seed to every animal of its kind to bring forth more animals of its kind. Each kind reproducing its own kind of flesh (see 1 Cor.15:37-39).

As on the sixth day in the creation of the animal life Elohim said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature [lit. the soul of life] according to its kind,” the original seed for each kind must have been created in the earth when it was created. Each animal a soul [nephesh] of life of the flesh body of the earth. Each one according to its kind made by Elohim. “And God saw that it was good” (Gen.1:25).

Man was also created on the sixth day, but the narrative of the creation does not continue with man being formed on the sixth day. Rather Moses goes back before the beginning to the planning stage of man and the purpose of Elohim to have man in His image, after His likeness (Gen.1:26).

In the end, only man of human flesh will bear the image of God. It will take a male and female body to multiply after their kind - that Elohim might fulfill His purpose to have man in His image. Moses continued with a brief account of the blessing He would give to His male and female, though as yet there is no account of the making of a body for either the male or the female (Gen.1:27-28).

Verse 31 of Genesis 1 brings the attention back to the sixth day. “And Elohim saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” This brings the ordering and arranging of the heavens and the earth to a finish.

“And on the seventh day Elohim ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Gen.2:2-3).

All is done by Elohim. Man enters into life in God’s doing. Everything is done for man. The reason for Elohim to bless the seventh day and sanctify it, set it aside as a day of rest, is given. God rested from all the work He had done. Resting in a work well done is to be man’s pleasure also. From the first man, man is to work six days and rest on the seventh day.

In verse 7 of chapter 2 Moses returns to the narrative concerning Elohim’s purpose to have man in His image. “And Jehovah Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul [lit. a soul of life].”

The first man is, as is all creation, also a work of Elohim, but the more personal name of the Covenant-keeping God is added. Man is very personal to Jehovah. Man is created for one purpose - to bear the image of God as a son of God.

Jehovah Elohim took dust of the ground with elements needed for a body of flesh. This body is of human flesh. Man is no mere animal, no soul of flesh alone. When the body had been formed, Jehovah Elohim breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a “soul of life.”

The same noun nephesh, “soul,” is used for animals and man. The difference being - that the animals came forth from the earth a soul of flesh after its kind (Gen.1:24). Man is more than soul and flesh. He is spirit. For man Jehovah formed the body and breathed in His spirit for life for the soul (Gen.2:7).

Man came to be a soul - a personal being with intellect, emotions, and volition. A person has a mind to think and emotions with desires and feelings. Man has a will to make choices and decisions. The thinking and desires and choices of the will are carried out in the action of the body.

The life of the body is in the blood. The blood is dependent upon breath. The air for breath is God-given. The life in the blood enables the body to be animated by the personal being who lives in the body.

The spirit life of the soul enables the personal being to activate his mind, emotions and will. Man can think and feel and choose. Man can choose what he will think on and what he will do, or say. What a man thinks in his heart, in his inner being, so is he. What a man thinks on will have an effect upon his desires and choices.

The life of the soul, the very being of the person, is the “breath” of Jehovah Elohim - His life. Proverbs 20:27 tells us that the “spirit” of man is the lamp of Jehovah. The Hebrew noun translated “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27 is the same noun translated “breath” in Genesis 2:7.

God is spirit - eternal spirit - eternal life. God never stops being. The life of the soul is the breath of God - spirit being. Once a person is brought into being, he is and he will never stop being. The life breath of the soul - the personal being who lives in the tent of flesh - is eternal life - the life God is.

Jehovah Elohim purposely did not put eternal life in the body of flesh. Eternal life is for the body bearing the image of God. Eternal life for the body is a choice for each personal being. Jehovah Elohim shared His personal life of spirit with the soul of each personal being born in a body of human flesh of the seed of man. Each one born in the flesh has the choice to receive eternal life for the body as a Gift from God.

Jehovah Elohim did so that each personal soul of life might have eyes of understanding to be enlightened to see the things of spirit. The Spirit of God can shine the deep things of God through the mind of the heart of man into his spirit for man to see and know God and to know the ways of God. Man has a God-given lamp and God has the light of the knowledge of the glory of God for the lamp. God desires to fellowship with man as spirit being to spirit being.

Jehovah Elohim had His first man, brought into being full grown and ready to learn the wisdom of God and to be given to see in his understanding in the spirit of his being. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God is shined into man’s thinking through his mind. Through a witness the Holy Spirit shares the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that man might hear of the righteousness of God through faith in God’s Anointed Son. We use the Greek “Christ” for “Anointed.”

Each person then has the choice to receive the light - by opening his eyes to see the glory of God - or of being satisfied with knowledge and closing his mind with the knowledge and shutting out understanding and not seeing the glory of God, but only hearing of God through the facts of knowledge. Or one may choose to not think on the knowledge shared.

Apart from the understanding of the glory of God each person, in the imagination of the heart, can look at the facts and see what he chooses to believe God is. Then one has a God of his own imagination as to who God is and what God does. In knowledge only, one has no understanding of God’s ways of Love and Life and Light. One does not know the living and true God, his Creator and his Redeemer and his Deliverer from the sin. Man only knows things about God and those things may have been perverted.

To learn, Adam must have a teacher. Jehovah Elohim Himself personally taught Adam what he must believe concerning his Creator and why Jehovah Elohim is also Adam’s Redeemer. We, the members of Christ’s Body, over which He is the Head, have the apostle Paul’s letter to the assembly in Rome to further enlighten the eyes of our understanding to see God’s doing.

Paul was also personally taught by his Lord Jesus Christ, that he might have the light of the knowledge of the glory of Jesus Christ shined into his heart to know God as He is. As with all those who God used to teach or record or share His message, Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Gal.1:15-18; 1 Pet.1:9-12; 2 Pet.1:20-21).

Paul was learned in the knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. Under the teaching of his Lord, Paul had the eyes of his understanding opened to see the glory of God in that which formerly in his days as a Pharisee had only been knowledge to him.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the letter to the Romans is placed after the book of Acts as the first epistle to the Church over which Christ is the Head. Romans is a kind of Genesis of the New Testament epistles.

Paul begins his letter with the gospel of God. In verse 16 of chapter 1 Paul speaks of the gospel of God as the gospel of Christ, God’s Anointed Son. In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The gospel of God is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who will believe the good news of Christ. In the letter Paul goes on with the good news that anyone who believes into the Anointed Son will be justified.

The one hearing of the righteousness of God and believing to have faith in God’s Son will become the righteousness of God through faith in God’s Anointed Son and will be acquitted of all charges of sin done in the flesh and of guilt. One need feel no guilt once the sin has been put away in the death of Christ. Having received eternal life in the Son, the one having believed has become a new creation. He has eternal life to have a new body raised up out from the dead body of human flesh (Rom.4:25-5:12; 8:9-11).

The righteousness of God is the key to becoming a born son of God. One must become the righteousness of God to change creations (2 Cor.5:17-21). The righteous, the justified, will also be glorified. Faith in the righteousness of God through faith in His Anointed Son is unto all and it is upon all who believe regardless of the age in which they were born (see Rom.3:21-22; 8:28-30).

In chapter 10 Paul wrote, “So, then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (v17). In Romans chapter 10 the subject of Paul’s teaching is the nation of Israel. Faith comes through hearing. Did they hear the word of God, that they might believe?

Paul answers that question. “Yes, truly their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the earth” (Rom.10:18).

Who are these silent preachers to whom Paul is referring? We find them in Paul’s quote from verse 4 of Psalm 19: “Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun.”

The silent preachers are the luminaries, the light-holders of the gospel of God’s Anointed Son. God Himself set them in the firmament of the heavens which He stretched around the earth. In this way, the light of the knowledge of the Anointed Son would make God known to whosoever heard their sound and their words expressed by one who had understanding of the message of the Eternal Covenant.

God put these luminaries in the heavens on the fourth day of creation. God said, “‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,’ and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (Gen.1:14-19).

There the silent preachers sounded forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, that He might be made known. There in their words, in the names of the constellations of the signs and the names of the constellations of their decans and in the names and colors of the stars of greater magnitude, went forth the knowledge of the glory of the One making Himself known to the ends of the inhabited earth, that anyone and everyone believing might, through faith, receive eternal life for the new body and live forever (Ps.19:1-6; 97:6).

Jehovah God had His man in His garden to till it and to keep it. The man was learning horticulture. He was not yet out in the field of Eden, but he would be. He would need to understand the laws of nature. Many lessons concerning the ways of God can be learned through natural laws.

Of every tree the man was free to eat, with one exception. Of one of the named trees man was commanded to not eat. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the reason was given in the purpose of the command. “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen.2:17).

The true issue for man is in the Eternal Covenant. The issue is man receiving the hope of eternal life offered in God’s Covenant. Apart from the eternal life offered in the Son of the Eternal Covenant, there is no hope of living forever. Apart from the Son of the Eternal Covenant, there is no body of eternal life. A body in which man can live forever is raised up out from the dead body of human flesh. If man has not received eternal life for that body - there will be no body raised up out from the dead.

The man is not commanded to eat of the Tree of Life, which is there in the middle of the Garden with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but he is free to eat of it. Man is given the freedom of choice: God’s will - God’s way, man’s will - man’s way. Eternal life is a choice.

We are not given any timing of the events recorded by Moses. We do not know how much the man had been shown of Jehovah Elohim, that he might know his Creator. There was not anyone else to share anything contrary to Jehovah’s thinking. There was no evil one with a world city to draw the man to be enticed through his own desires of the lusts of the flesh and of the mind. Jehovah had His man set apart to Himself - just the two of them.

When it was time for man to have a helper to help him to fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply the fruit of his seed and to share in man’s dominion over the earth and over the living flesh of fish and birds and the animals that move upon the earth, Jehovah began in a unique way. He named His man, Adam - “man.” He called His man after the red earth from which he had been taken. Then Jehovah Elohim brought to Adam the animals of the field and the birds of the air which He had formed in the seed created in the earth.

The birds had been called forth on the fifth day of ordering the created heavens and the earth. The earth had brought forth the souls of flesh of the animal creation, everything after its kind, on the sixth day. Adam and his helper would be given dominion over these living birds and animals of different kinds of flesh (see Gen.1:20-30).

As Adam gave names to all the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, all the different species of animals, he would have been made aware that in each species were a male and a female to reproduce after their kind. But Adam was the only one of his kind. Jehovah Elohim had not brought Adam’s body forth from a seed. He had formed it with His own hands. The body of the helper suited to Adam would also be Jehovah’s doing. Jehovah Elohim has a high purpose for man. Each one born of human flesh is purposed to become a son of God by his own choice to receive eternal life and be born again.

In his work in the garden, Adam would have seen in the law of nature that life comes from preexisting life and also like reproduces like. He had been tending the garden. A new plant of like kind can be brought forth from a seed of the plant or from a bulb, with life for a plant. Also a new body of like kind as the plant can be germinated from a living part of the plant.

Jehovah Elohim had formed Adam’s body with a respiratory and circulatory system of life in the blood. When Jehovah breathed into the nostrils of the body which He had formed, Adam came into being from the life of Jehovah. His soul of life of like kind as Jehovah Elohim’s spirit life. With His breath Jehovah Elohim also animated the life system of blood and Adam began breathing life into his body on his own.

The body for the helper came from pre-existing life of Adam’s body. For the helper, the female body with a womb, Jehovah took “seed” from living bone and flesh from Adam’s side and He built a woman, a womb-man of human flesh, like the bone and flesh of Adam (see Gen.2:21-24).

Jehovah Elohim “made,” or, the literal Hebrew, is “built” a helper for Adam. The Hebrew word is an architectural term. Jehovah Elohim must also have breathed into the nostrils of that body a soul of life, a personal being after His Kind, spirit being. Then He had a woman, a personal being of like kind of life as God in a body of human flesh in the likeness of Adam’s flesh, with the life in the blood.

Children will be born of Adam’s seed. He and his woman will be father and mother. Children will be born into a family and grow up to be married and have children of their own. When a man was given a wife, he was to leave his former household and hold fast to his wife and helpmeet to establish a new house hold. The man and his wife are to be one flesh - like flesh - flesh of humanity.

Between the record of Jehovah Elohim building a helper for Adam and the account of the man and woman having their eyes opened to being naked, we have this one brief simple statement: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

No explanation is given concerning naked. “Naked” in our time and culture is to “be unclothed and the body exposed.” This explanation does not serve here. There was only Adam and his wife. There is no shame to a husband and wife to be unclothed with one another, but that is not the meaning here. Nothing has been said of clothing of any type for Adam. Clothing for the body is not the issue. The body is clothing for the inner man.

Once again we have the apostle Paul to thank for an explanation for our Gentile Western mind. Paul refers to the earthy body formed with God’s hands and the bodies reproduced through man’s seed as a house or tent, a dwelling for the inner man, and as clothing for the inner man. It was to the Corinthian assembly that Paul wrote, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life” (2 Cor.5:1-4).

As we think of “naked” as the body being unclothed and exposed, we associate “shame” with being “naked.” In terms of the inner man of spirit being being clothed with a body, Genesis 2:25 is a simple statement. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Verse 25 of Genesis 2 is a transition verse to the next record of the narrative of the beginning of man being made in God’s image.

Moses continued the narrative in Genesis 3 with, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah Elohim had made (Gen.3:1). Moses used the common word for “snake,” nachash. Moses did not give any explanation of the serpent. The fact that the passage is introduced with the serpent is significant. The emphasis is upon the serpent.

No explanation of the serpent was necessary for the sons of Israel for whom “The Book of the Law” was written. The sons of Israel understood “the serpent” to be a symbol for “the sin” in man’s heart - the lawlessness of man choosing to have his will over the will of his Creator God.

The generation of the sons of Israel at the time of the writing of “The Book of the Law” had been being trained in the Eternal Covenant of Jehovah Elohim. For around 38 years they had been shown the light of the glory of God as seen in the Son of the Covenant. Israel had “The Heavenly Revelation” of the signs of the luminaries. They also had the teaching of the tabernacle, which was a picture of the first coming of the Son of the Covenant, and they had the Ceremonial Law.

In “The Heavenly Revelation” the most immense stellar constellation is the serpentine Hydra. This is so, as the sin of exercising one’s God-given choice between bowing to God’s will, that His purposes as the Creator-Redeemer be served, or of exalting the thinking of one’s own imagination of the heart above God’s thinking. In this thinking, one is at enmity with God in one’s own mind. That is sin. The deceit of the heart is the enemy both of man and of God. “The sin” of having one’s own will over the will of his Creator-Redeemer must be put away once for all.

The sons of Israel would have recognized the subtlety of the deceit of the sin. They had had experience. No other beast of flesh of the field has this subtlety. Only two creations of Elohim had been given the freedom of choice as to how the will of one’s person either be yielded to God or be used to serve self. Jehovah Elohim had permitted this choice to His morning stars, the angelic host, the sons of Elohim, and to the creation of man to be born in bodies of human flesh, the seed of the first man formed by Jehovah Elohim Himself out of the dust of the ground.

The sons of Israel have a witness against them of their knowledge of the serpent Hydra as a symbol of the sin in the heart. It is recorded in Numbers 21. The sons of Israel were on their way to the Promised Land. The king of Edom refused to give Israel passage (Num.20:14-22).

Aaron, the high priest, was not permitted to enter the land because he and Moses had rebelled against the word of Jehovah at Maribah (Num.20:2-13). The death of Aaron marked the end of the wilderness wanderings. Israel came to the land of King Arad, the Canaanite, in the south, who fought against Israel, taking some of them captive. Israel vowed to Jehovah that if He would deliver that people into their hand, they would utterly destroy their cities. Jehovah hearkened to them and delivered up the Canaanites, and Israel kept their vow (Num.20:23-21:3).

The people of Israel, flushed with victory and imagining they would continue to take the land promised to Abraham, were eager for the next victory, but the Cloud led them around Edom. Disappointed in Jehovah’s way, and desiring for themselves, and discouraged because of the way, the sin of the enmity of the heart came out in bitter accusations against God and against Moses (Num.21:4-7; see Ex.40:34-38; Num.9:15-23).

Jehovah sent fiery serpents among the people and the serpents bit the people and many of the people died. The people got the message. They saw the figure symbolized in Hydra. They were burning in their heart because they could not have things their way. They had been bitten by “the sin,” and death comes through “the sin.” The people repented having spoken against Jehovah and against Moses. They asked Moses, their mediator, to pray unto Jehovah to take away the serpents from them.

The people said, “We have sinned.” The people readily recognized the serpents as a symbol for their sin of exalting their thinking of what would be best for them over the will of Him who knows best. There was good reason He was leading them this way.

“And Jehovah said to Moses, ‘You make a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.’ And Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that, if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of bronze, he lived” (Num.21:8-9).

Jehovah reminded His people of the other truth which they had been taught through “The Heavenly Revelation” and Ceremonial Law. That in the lifting up of the Covenant Son on the cross, He had put away the sin of serving self in one’s thinking and the desires which cause one to choose one’s own will over the will of the One who loves His Creation and who made a way of escape of man out of the creation of mere human flesh.

Each one in Israel must look unto the coming Son of the Covenant and His lifting up on the cross to put away “the sin” of self-serving and to be healed. Having been united to the Son in His death, one has died to the sin and is therefore freed from the deceit of the heart, which results in choosing to have one’s own will over the will of one’s Creator and Redeemer. Having been freed from the deceit of the imagination of one’s heart, one is free to ask to have the eyes of his understanding opened to hear the voice of the Spirit of God, who enlightens the eyes of the understanding, that one might see the will of God, to choose to do the will of his Lord. The servant does not have a say. He hears the Master’s voice and carries out the will of his Master.

The people of Israel understood these truths through having been taught “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant” and in the teaching of the Ceremonial Law. The people of Israel had been given the truth to be obeyed that they might be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, who lives and abides forever (see 1 Pet.1:17-25; Jn.3:3-15).

Understanding these truths, the people, on hearing or reading of the serpent and the woman in the Garden, would readily have recognized the subtlety of the deceit of sin in the woman’s heart and the conversation taking place in the imagination of the woman’s heart.

Would the woman have understood “the serpent” as a symbol for “the sin”? She did after the eyes of her understanding were opened. But she did not understand as she deceived herself in the imagination of her heart (see Jer.17:9-10).

The serpent, the deceit of her own will, said to the woman, “Yea, has God said, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” The woman said to the deceit of her will, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, Elohim has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Gen.3:1b-2).

Jehovah Elohim had commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen.2:16-17).

The woman using the plural pronoun “we” understood the command included her with her husband. In the imagination of her heart, the woman had changed the command slightly. The question is one of eating of the one tree of which Jehovah Elohim had said, “You shall not eat.” Adam and his wife are free to eat of the other trees of the garden as often as they chose and as much as they chose, no restrictions having been put upon them.

Two trees are named and have been planted in the very center of the garden (Gen.2:9). From any quarter of the garden, in looking to the center, one’s attention would be drawn to these two named trees. These two named trees are purposely prominent. Each one is symbolic of the name given to it by Jehovah Elohim. One is symbolic of “life.” What are Adam and his wife being taught concerning life?

Eternal life is in the Son of the Covenant and it is a Gift God shares in His Anointed Son. A Gift to be received by whosoever will believe into the Son and receive the Gift of eternal life. Jehovah did not command man to eat of the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden. Man was free to eat - but eternal life was not in the fruit of the tree. Man should not think that to be so. Eternal life is in the Anointed Covenant Son.

If the Tree of Life were merely symbolic and there was no eternal life in the fruit, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was also symbolic, would it not stand to reason that there was no knowledge of good and evil in the fruit?

As we have seen, the two trees were symbolic of “two ways.” One, God’s Way to share His eternal life with man that man have a body to live forever. The way of eternal life is through birth from above. It is God’s doing, to be born from above a son of God and enter into His Kingdom to live forever with his Creator-Redeemer and Deliverer from the sin of having one’s own will over God’s will.

The other tree was symbolic of man’s way to have his mind for himself, to gain knowledge and “know” for his own good pleasure. There is no life in knowledge. No matter how much knowledge man gains, man’s way will leave man without eternal life for his body. Absence of life is death.

How could the woman have been so drawn away from what Jehovah Elohim had shared of His truth of the Son of the Covenant? How could she be deceived and enticed to think on eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Jehovah Elohim had not said the fruit of the tree would give man knowledge of good and evil and make one wise. Jehovah had said, “In the day you eat thereof, you will surely die.”

If one is reasoning on one’s own apart from truth being shared in a gospel of a coming Anointed Son of God, it could seem reasonable that a tree named the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would have fruit that contained something to make you wise like God.

Jehovah Elohim had said nothing concerning the fruit. The fruit, of course, is the produce of the tree which you would take in. Listening to the woman’s conversation within herself, we see how she had been drawn away from the truth being shared with her by Jehovah Elohim.

She had been thinking on the tree and on the fruit of the tree and of reaching out to take it from the tree and eat it, and thinking to know that which it contained, a desire had been conceived in her heart (see Jas.1:13-15).  That day, in just thinking of the trees of the garden given to them that they may eat and then of the one of which she had a desire to eat, stirred her desire and she lied to herself. She removed the consequence. In the deceit of her self-will she told herself, “You shall not surely die” (Gen.3:4).

In her desire to have her way, she became irrational and imagines that she knows something about God. In her imagination the deceit of her self-will has led her to think that God knows that in the day she eats, “she will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen.3:5).

The woman leads herself into committing the very act of her desire. “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat” (Gen.3:6).

Having conceived the lie in the imagination of her own heart, the lie gave birth to the act of taking and eating the fruit of the tree. When the sin, the act of self-will was finished, it brought forth death (see Rom.5:12; 1 Tim.2:14).

“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loin cloths” (Gen.3:7).

The eyes of them both were opened and, with the eyes opened, each one saw something to know. What were the eyes that were opened? The eyes of the understanding. With the eyes of the understanding opened and fully awakened to the spiritual realities of the One who was sharing Himself with them, they could see to know.

In the understanding each one could see the truth of what had been shared. What did each one see? They were naked. Each one had been naked since brought into being in a body of human flesh (Gen.2:25). For the first time each one, Adam and his wife, could see to understand “naked.” Each one knew, experientially knew personally, being naked.

What had Jehovah said? “In the day you eat, you will surely die.” What is death? Absence of life.

Each one, Adam and his wife, fully understood what they had not done. Eternal life in the Son of the Covenant as seed for a body of eternal life to be raised up out from the dead had been shown to them. A choice to become a born son of God had been given them, as shared in “The Heavenly Revelation” of the gospel of God. The righteousness of God is through faith in His Anointed Son.

The Son with eternal life and deliverance from the sin and the redemption of the dead body of human flesh freely given mankind to be freely received. And they had not received the Anointed Son of the Covenant to be their life. They had no eternal life. Apart from eternal life, they were dead. Should they stop breathing, they would be left naked - without a body. The earthy body would return to the dust of the ground and leave them forever unclothed with a body of eternal life.

In allowing His first pair to choose to have their own will over His will for them, Jehovah Elohim had exposed the heart of a creation of mankind to them. In experiencing the reality of God’s truth, man comes to have understanding. It is one of the ways of God to allow man to learn for himself through experience.

Jehovah God would not have expected Adam and his wife to know of eternal life unless He had made eternal life known to them. How could they have the eyes of their understanding opened to see something that had not already been shared with them and which they had taken into the mind? They could not.

Would Jehovah Elohim have neglected to share His purpose with those for whom all else had been created? The first pair were primary to His purpose to have sons of God in His image. It was imperative that each one, Adam and his wife, be shown the heart of man, and imperative that they see Jehovah had sin covered.

With the instruction of the reproof having been carried out, the commandment of Jehovah Elohim had done its work. Proverbs 6:23 shows us the wisdom of the commandment. “For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are a way of life” (see also Prov.20:27).

The commandment stated in words is a lamp. A lamp is a light-holder. The commandment holds the light of the One giving the commandment. The reproofs of the instruction show the way of life, eternal life - God’s Way of life.

The command - Here is the lamp: “Of every tree you may freely eat.” This would include the Tree of Life. “But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat of it.”

The law - the light - the will of God as expressed in the commandment: “My will is that you not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” - the reproof of the instruction in the way of life, eternal life.

“Do not have your will over My will. The end of that way is death” (see Prov.11:12; 16:25). The light is carried in the lamp. The commandment is shined into the mind for the light to reach the spirit of man - the lamp of Jehovah - that man might have light to open the eyes of his understanding to God’s will - to be instructed in God’s ways of life.

The commandment of God had been taken into the mind of each one, Adam and his wife. They had the instruction of the reproof, but not having opened the eyes of their understanding, there was no personal light on God’s Way of life, eternal life. The instruction of the reproof was not yet personal to either one. All was seen as future and as concerning the progeny who would be birthed in human flesh.

In stepping over the line and eating of the tree of which they had been commanded to not eat - in each one - having had his will over the will of Jehovah Elohim - the light went on in the lamp of the spirit, and each one was awakened to see the light of God’s will in the commandment. In His light, each one could see the light of the instruction in the way of life.

The seed of the word, the truth to be obeyed, is planted in the heart of the one in a body of the earth, earthy. If the seed is received in a good heart, it will germinate to bring forth a body - a flesh and bone body of eternal life - a deathless body like Jesus’ body of glory (see Mt.13:3-23).

The seed of the truth concerning the Anointed Covenant Son in whom is eternal life had been planted by Jehovah Elohim Himself in the heart of each one, Adam and his wife. To germinate, a seed must be saturated with water. When it can hold no more water, a tiny root bursts through to seek to be grounded and begins to reach for the light. The seed may lay dormant for years.

The germ seed of eternal life had been laying dormant in the heart of each one, Adam and his wife. It is not necessary to know for how long or we would have been told. Jehovah Elohim had watered the seed day by day and Adam and his wife remained as naked as they had been brought into being.

“The sin,” of which “the serpent Hydra” is a symbol, the choosing to have one’s will over the will of his Creator-Redeemer, was in the heart of each one, but it had not come forth into their world, as neither one had yet transgressed the “command” of Jehovah Elohim “to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Neither one had yet outwardly acted out having his will over the expressed will of Jehovah Elohim. But there had been no receiving of the eternal life by either one. Both were yet naked - absent of eternal life. Neither one had been born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, who lives and abides forever.

Neither Adam nor his wife had yet experienced the power of deceit through a desire for self. That day “the sin” of which the “serpent” is a symbol came out into the world. The woman is deceived by her own thinking. She believes herself to be willing to be obedient to what Jehovah has said. And then the woman and her husband are shown the power of “the sin of self-will.” It is then that the life of the seed planted in the heart bursts forth in the understanding and takes root in the very being of the soul of each one and a son of God is conceived and birthed.

The seed of eternal life had been planted in the heart of each one against the death of that day in the garden, when each one did eat and each one did die. It was also the day of the birth of each one. Each one having received the Propitiation set forth, the Son of the Covenant in whom is the redemption, was born from above and Jehovah Elohim had His first two sons of God (see Rom.3:22-26).

To show their new understanding, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths. Why would they immediately cover their reproductive organs?

They had understanding of being the progenitor of a creation of man in human flesh. The male of the creation has seed and the female has the womb where the seed will be planted to bring forth a body of human flesh to clothe a soul of spirit being. Every body born of human flesh will be born of man’s seed and Adam is the first seed to bring forth after his kind - a mortal body of flesh and bone of humanity. The mortal body of each one is a seed coat in which eternal life must be received for the body of eternal flesh and bone to be raised up out from the dead.

Adam and his wife have just been shown the deceit of the heart of man born of the seed of man. Each one has the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the understanding of their very being. In figure, they make known that they understand that Jehovah Elohim has sin covered for all mankind. It only remains that the truth of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, be planted in the heart of each one born into the world.

 “The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith” (Rom.1:17). Each one, Adam and his wife, have become the righteousness of God through faith in the coming Anointed Son of the Covenant. Adam and his wife understood they would be the teachers of “The Heavenly Revelation of God’s Eternal Covenant” seen in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God declared in the heavens. Their minds must have gone to the first sign of the Covenant Son which Jehovah Elohim had shared with them. For the purpose of simplicity in this study, let us look briefly at what would have been in the mind of Adam and his wife after the eyes of their understanding had been opened.

The first sign in the declaration of the glory of the Son of the Covenant in “The Heavenly Revelation” would be Libra, if the glory is set forth in the order of the path of the sun. The  “sun” represents the “Son of the Covenant, the Strong Man come out of heaven to run His course” (Ps.19:1-6; Mal.4:2).

The first sign, Libra, goes back into eternity past before the beginning of time and creation. When there was just the one God in three persons, God made a Covenant with Himself and He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen.1:26a).

As we have seen before in our studies, having an “image” of God would necessitate one person of God to take the likeness of man and become flesh. It would take two bodies for God to have an image: one body of human flesh and one body of flesh and bone of eternal life.

The name of the sign Libra has the meaning of “purchase” or “redemption” or “the station of propitiation.” The three decans give further light. The first decan is that of the cross. In the earliest times the “cross” was a symbol of “life,” which must have come from the teaching of the truth of this sign.

When Jesus came down to earth, sent from heaven, He Himself said, “No man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes into Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (see Jn.3:3-21; 5:24-29; 12:23-33).

The second decan, Victima (“the victim”), gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of the victim, a creature slain. God, who became sin for man, as the Son of the Covenant, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God (Heb.9:14). “By which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb.10:10).

“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Ac.2:23-24).

The third decan to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Covenant Son is Corona, (“the crown”). “Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of [in very essence] God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form [the very essence] of a servant [slave], and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father” (Phil.2:5b-11).

What a comfort the light of that knowledge of the light of the glory now seen to Adam and his wife in the understanding must have been that day of death and of eternal life. Nothing had been lost in the trespass. All was covered in the Son of the Covenant. Adam and his wife had gained eternal life for the body. Jehovah Elohim had gained two birthed sons of God.

This concludes our lesson.