Redemption – Light from the Word

The Tree that Changed the Destiny of Mankind

The serpent in that perfect garden of Eden served as an instrument for Satan to fulfill his plan against God’s creation in his fallen state. Obviously, he hated men, whom God created as His image and wanted them condemned to hell. Eve became his target and was deceived by the serpent which was crafty and she was prone to listen to the devil. A battle for men was happening at that time, and Eve made it easy, for not perceiving the reality. Was she aware of whom Satan was and his enmity against God since they did not have the understanding of good and evil, with the exception of not “to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden.” Obviously, Satan hid himself behind the voice of the serpent to deceive Eve and bring them to condemnation of the curse. The battle raged on and he won. The beautiful garden, pure and perfect, where there was the presence of God was painted black; its shinning disappeared in the waves of sin; men’ destiny shifted to Satan’s control. So, it was that the earth bent to him lost its beauty, peace, and love. Now, violence, hatred, homicide and everything evil took the form of the curse.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity was not to be eaten from (Gen. 2:17a). That command sealed God’s agreement with men. Obviously, Adam was the recipient of that command, for Eve to fall for the serpent’s idea without defending God’s command. When the prohibited fruit was yanked from the tree it felt the pain, as If it knew what was happening to the human race from eating that prohibited fruit whose message carried consequence to all who ate it for generations to come. When Eve listened to the serpent’s voice, disregarding God’s voice, she lost her relationship with Him, for she had believed the serpent’s words, doubting God’s word and breaking the agreement with Him to obey. As a result, she brought down the entire world with her, including her husband.

The tree was disregarded and dishonored by Eve. So, God sent Adam out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So, “He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim with the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:22-24). In this, we see nature changing, as well as the ground being cursed. Life was left marked by sin and a curse. Men multiplied, so did their iniquity, while nature of all kinds suffered the consequences of their evil acts. “How long must the land mourn and the grass and herbs of the whole country wither? Through the wickedness of those who dwell in it, the beasts and the birds are consumed and are swept away… “says Jeremiah “because the ground is cracked and the tillers are dismayed, since there has been no rain on the land, the plowmen are put to shame, and they cover their heads. Yes, even the hind gives birth to her calf in the field and forsakes it, because there is no grass or herbage and the wild donkeys stand on the bare heights; their pant for air like jackals or crocodiles; their eyesight fails because there is no grass. O Lord though our iniquities testify against us, deal and work with us for Your own sake! For our backslidings are many; we have sinned against You” (Jer. 12:4; 14: 4-7). In Romans 8:19-23 Paul says: “For the creation waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known, for the creation was subjected to frailty, not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it with the hope that nature itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children . We know that the whole creation has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now, and no only creation, but we ourselves too…” (Rom. 8:19-23a).

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The Redemption of the Soul

The soul comprises of the intellect, will and emotion. Without it we would have no personality. Created from dust, we are nothing more than just that, a condition in which we will return after we die. What will happen to the soul of man after his death? Which is eternal, the spirit or the soul? Which one is life? Are they both eternal? One has to know that the spirit is not one with the soul as it has been taught. Man is spirit, soul and body. Each one has a specific function in the plan God had when He created man. The soul is sinful; the spirit is our conscience, which guide us to do what is right and convicts us when the soul does not listen to it. We communicate with God through the spirit; when the soul listens to the spirit, it does not sin. But when it doesn’t, the body or the flesh falls into soulish act, which means fleshly or carnal. When YAHSHUA died the redemptive death, it was to redeem the soul. A Christian, who follows the Lord’s teachings, he is guided by the Holy Spirit, Who lives in his spirit. That’s where we receive life eternal, for the spirit never dies. The two destinations presented to him, heaven and hell are two places where the spirit will end up at the end of his life, depending on what decision he has made while alive – to accept the gift of salvation or to reject it. The mind, the control center of the body, has much to do with our actions. The mind that is not renewed by the Holy Spirit, will lead the body to sin through the thoughts – she thought that it was good, then she desired to eat it. The flesh, in harmony with the soul, served as an instrument by which the sinful action took place. Eve, after being tempted, desired the prohibited fruit. Her emotion followed the path of her thought and will- it felt good to her even before trying it, just by looking at it- the lust of the eyes- flesh.

Her spirit accused her of wrong doing, when she told Satan that they were not allowed to eat that fruit. The soul, however, overcame the spirit and Eve sinned. The Bible says, “The soul that sins will die.” Man died the moment he ate the fruit. His death was physical and also spiritual. His spirit which is his life was then condemned to hell. When man dies, his soul ceases to act. The soul is motivated to act through the body’s functions of the heart, which works to circulate the blood through the body. The blood is the physical life of man. The functions of the body will work, even when the soul becomes inert, that is without power to move. So, it is that man is spirit, personality, and flesh. One cannot work independently, for man to act as God created him. The Bible says that as man thinks, so he is. Man thinks with the mind. The mind constitutes a battlefield for Satan to control man. When Adam and Eve sinned, their desires and emotions became dictated by their fallen mind, which influenced their behaviors.

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It Was at the Cross Where Judgment and Mercy Met

In the Garden of Eden, the first judgment was pronounced to our parents for their disobedience to God. Sin, spreading to Adam’s and Eve’s children, their first son committed the sin of disobedience, as in his offering of fruits and vegetables to the Lord, instead of offering Him a lamb, as was commanded. And as a result, he committed murder by killing his brother. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.” Life is in the blood. The lamb was pointing to the Son of God, Who was to come in the far future as the Lamb of God to be sacrificed to redeem the world with His blood. There is life only in the blood. And the blood of YAHSHUA never dies, never lost its power to save and give life to all who seek Him. Cain misrepresented God’s future plan; he in his pride, offered of what he represented, not what God commanded him. It is when one tries to be saved through his own effort, disregarding the Word of God. The Bible says that we are saved by grace; it is not based on our work, it is a gift from God, and this gift was His Son, Who sacrificed His life, so we can live eternally with Him. God pronounced judgment to Cain and for the rest of his life he was a wonderer. (Gen. 4:11-12). God said to Cain, and now you are cursed by reason of the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. A wonderer, Cain became separated from the rest of his world as a result of his disobedience and homicide.

Throughout the Old Testament, we read about God’s judgments on His people because of their practices of infidelity against God’s covenant “You shall have no other gods besides Me.” The Lord God takes very seriously the sin of infidelity. In Ezekiel 14:13-14,20 it reads: Son of man, when a land sins against Me by committing a trespassing and I stretch out my hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they would save but their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord God… Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live says the Lord, they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would but deliver their own lives by their righteousness. To transgress is to act contrary to God’s law. It is infidelity to the covenant God made with them, through the law, which requires both parties for its validity.

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The Seven Phrases YAHSHUA Uttered at the Cross Before His Death

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Today, you will be with Me in Paradise.

Woman, see your son; see your mother!

I thirst.

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Into Your hand, I commit My Spirit.

It is finished!

These words from YAHSHUA’S mouth just before He died are of great significance. He was uttering the message of salvation to the world through Him. The first phrase constitutes Him as a High Priest interceding for us, sinners: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. The second, the promise of heaven for those who will accept Him: Today, you will be with Me in Paradise. The third, He releases Mary from her earthly mother relationship: Woman, see your son; see your mother. The fourth, I thirst. The thirst of hell; He suffered in our instead; the fifth, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? This is the eternal separation from God we sinners were condemned to suffer; sixth, Into Your hand, I commit My Spirit, He gave up His precious life, to give us eternal life; seventh, It is finished! He paid for our redemption in full, according to the letter of the Law.

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Out of the Womb of the Morning

Out of the womb of the morning is where the day starts; it is the beginning of things. Everything has a beginning from somewhere, or from someone. The womb of a woman holds her child for over nine months – a secure place where life starts and develops, provided the baby is not aborted. Life springs forth from the womb; the morning springs forth the day in its arrays of light sparkling on the dew, as the earth makes its turn, making it possible for a new day to be visible. In the spiritual sense, the death and resurrection of our Messiah YAHSHUA sprang forth the birth of His church. We are born again from His Spirit, for what is born of flesh is flesh; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:5-6). A new beginning, He gave to men through His death. He had to die to bring forth life everlasting to all who will. As the seed must die before it becomes a tree, He died that we might have life. His life was shared with us through His Holy Spirit. Out of the womb of His sufferings, His church was born and became His bride. We must be born again, YAHSHUA said to Nicodemus. For it is from Him that salvation springs forth. The Prophet Isaiah prophesized about His death many years before it happened. He said, He (YAHSHUA) shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge of Himself shall My righteous one, My Servant, justify many and many and make many righteous, for He shall bear their iniquities and their guilt (Isaiah 53:11).

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5b). The anguish that embraces the soul is felt in the night. However, in hope we wait for our morning to arrive, when its womb will spring forth joy. Morning does not have to be a specific time, but it is that time when relief comes rescuing us from our troubles. In trials, we must always remember that there from out of a womb of a morning, joy will spring forth sooner or later. YAHSHUA was in the heart of the earth three days and three nights; His morning came with His resurrection and unspeakable joy to all His disciples, and to all of us who would accept His gift of life. YAHSHUA said, blessed are you who weep and sob now, for you shall laugh (Luke 6:21b). The Patriarch Job did not see his morning for a long time. The womb of the morning stayed closed for him until God opened it in His time. And then, the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12), for the Lord will not cast off forever; but though He causes grief, yet will He be moved to compassion according to the multitude of His loving-kindness and tender mercy (Lam. 3:31-32). The dew of a morning is life sustaining for the green of the earth; it is life expressed in the beginning of a new day, springing forth from the womb of a morning. The dew, in the spiritual sense, is resurrection of the Lord’s saints at the rapture. Isaiah said, Your dead shall live; the bodies of our dead shall rise, You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For the Lord’s dew is a dew of light; and the earth shall cast forth the dead [to life again; for on the land of the shades of the dead You will let Your dew fall] (Isaiah 26:19). The Lord’s supernatural dew will spring forth from the womb of that glorious day in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed (I Cor. 15:52). For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first (I Thess. 4:16). Therefore, comfort and encourage one another with these words (I Thess. 4:18).

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You Have Seen Many Things

The spiritual blindness of the soul has embraced the world, creating turmoil and chaos; when right is wrong and wrong is right, we know that confusion has taken its toll on people, for the lies of today’s life style has touched them all. The obviously, seemingly so, is not so for many, for choosing not to see that which stands right before their eyes, refusing to accept the truth. As in the days of Israel, when the nation behaved contrary to God’s commandments, they saw, but they did not perceive the true meaning of what they had seen. In YAHSHUA’S day on the earth, He dealt with his disciples for acting blind to what they had seen and heard. The disciples, representing the nation of Israel, continued blind, missing on many things that was expressed by our Lord YAHSHUA. They had seen many things, but perceived none. In several occasions, He called their attention to their spiritual blindness. When they saw YAHSHUA walking on water, they failed to recognize Him and were taken by fear. They failed to consider or understand [the teaching and meaning of the miracle of] the loaves; in fact, their hearts had grown callous (Mark 6:50,56). On another occasion, YAHSHUA clearly told them about His coming death, calling their attention by saying, Listen! We are going to Jerusalem, and all things that are written about the Son of Man through and by the prophets will be fulfilled. For He will be handed over to the Gentiles and will be made sport of and scoffed and jeered at and insulted and spit upon; they will flog Him and kill Him; and on the third day He will rise again. But they understood nothing of these things; His words were a mystery and hidden from them, and they did not comprehend what He was telling them (Luke 18:31-34). Peter, in his spiritual blindness, took YAHSHUA aside to speak to Him privately and began to reprove and charge Him sharply, saying, God forbid, Lord! This must never happen to You! (Matt. 16:22). YAHSHUA knowing that Peter’s words had come from Satan himself, rebuked him by saying, Get behind Me, Satan! You are in my way; for you are minding what partakes not of the nature and quality of God, but of men (vs.24).

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DNA – The Evidence of God’s Signature in Every Cell

God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in our image, after our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So, God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them; then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs or a part of his side and closed up the flesh; and the rib or part of his side which the Lord God had taken from the man He built up and made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Then Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of a man (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7,21-23). When God created men, He perfected them with intelligence and wisdom. No one can comprehend the complicated manifold of His work. The human body, the heavens, all nature and every created living thing, have God’s signature on them. His, and His alone matches the manifold of wisdom manifested in all He created. “OH, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen (Rom.1:33a,36).

When created man and woman, God performed an act of perfect and wonderful creation. He focused on every detail of the body, visible and invisible. When He said, Let Us make mankind in our image, after our likeness… His words carried a very important meaning, not applied to the rest of His creation. Man was made to carry God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). In that, man was set apart from the animal world. King David in his psalm 139 says, … You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb; I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well; my frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depts of the earth; Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them; how precious and weighty also are Your thought to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! “Intricately and curiously wrought,” he could be referring to the DNA, the hereditary part of humans. It is there that information is stored as a code. It transmits genetic information. It determines each cell’s structure and function; located in the center of the cell, it is responsible for the control of the cells’ activities. We are truly “God’s intelligent design!” Amazingly, scientists have found proof of God in the DNA code. As Paul said, man is without excuses concerning the existence of God (Rom. 1). DNA expresses information from intelligence, and one like no one else’s “It is an instructional script.” The DNA’s code is very complex, compost of 3 billion letters, which are four chemicals called, adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. It is mind boggling; It is hard for men to grasp the complexity of God’s creation, for they are limited in their understanding concerning the deep wisdom and knowledge of God, since they are created and are not the Creator. DNA’S code is the evidence of God’s signature in every cell proving that He is the Creator of all living things. Paul asks the question: Who has known the mind of God and who has understood His thoughts, or who has been His counselor? (Rom. 11:34) All God’s creations – animal and plants alike have DNA, which is a long molecule containing their entire genetic code. Although the animals have will, emotion and intelligence, showing how smart they are in many things, they do not reflect the image of God. God does not require accountability from them, as Paul said, Creation was subjected to frailty, not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will off Him Who so subjected it- with the hope that nature itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children (Rom. 8: 20-21).

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The Importance of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

(Deuteronomy 11:29-30)

Directed by Moses before he died, Israel was to set the blessings on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal, after they had reached the Promised Land. On that day, Moses set before Israel a blessing and a curse- the blessing if they obey the commandments of the Lord, and the curse if they did not obey the commandments of the Lord their God. He said, And when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal (Deut. 11:29-30). The people were to hear the blessings from Mount Gerizim, when they obeyed the law and the curse from Mount Ebal when they disobeyed God’s law. The significance of these mountains, in particularly the Mount Ebal is relevant to us today in its symbolic prophetic meaning. The late Dr. Francis A Schaeffer, an American theologian, philosopher, an apologetic and pastor, a thinker of his time, suggested that these two mountains represented two life styles: obedience and disobedience. Consequentially, the mountains were to remind the people that keeping God’s law was as if they lived on mount Gerizim. From there, God’s blessing would fall on Israel. But an altar was to be built on Ebal mountain when they sinned against God. Shechem, a city of long history, is found between these two mountains. There, the Patriarch Abraham built the first altar to the living God; Joseph, his great-grandson, sought for his brother in Shechem; his bones were buried there many years later after Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Jacob dug a well near the city and many years later, YAHSHUA providentially met a Samaritan woman there with a message of salvation. The Samaritans, after hearing what the woman had to say about YAHSHUA, said, Now we no longer believe just because of what you said; for we have heard Him ourselves and we know that He truly the Savior of the world, the Messiah. Many more believed Him, because of His personal message (John 4:42,41). The city of Shechem, was a silent witness of past history and of the spiritual meaning they carried, according to the words Moses spoke to Israel before they entered the Land.

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