I just see it different, the way He has handled people in different dispensations. We know God doesn't change, but the way he has handled people through the ages has changed. What he said to Adam and Eve he was not saying to Abraham.
I see Adam and Eve under a covenant or dispensation of consciousness, and Abraham under the dispensation of faith, they all had a different message. Moses was the dispensation of law he had a specific message, a gospel if you will.
I see the born-again having a specific message and that message comes directly from Jesus Christ himself through the apostle Paul.
When you read Paul, you are reading the mind of Christ.
There has never been a people like us, never has the human being contained Christ.
You have to have a message to go along with that or we will have no idea what God is doing in this world today.
That is where the Apostle comes in, he says "this grace has been given to me to give to you."
He has the message to the born-again we missed it scholars miss it, theologians miss it, it's there in Paul's epistles, they need to be searched.
What do we do with the other 4/5, we search them to, it is the word of God. It is just not all to us, it is for us, for life application, for blessing so on but 1/5 is to us the born-again. The Pauline epistles speak directly to a people, a born-again people, a new creation race of people, Bonafied offspring of God the Father, birthed by Christ in them.
You state "what God said to Adam and Eve he did not say to Abraham" Yet you do not substantiate that claim.
and while the progressive unfolding of Gods programe meant that there was a different message to each age .
That does not mean that God has changed at all or or in his dealings with men .
For he is the same yesterday to day and forever .
and given the same situation and principle then and what he said and did then he will given the same situation and principle now he will do the same.
if then you knopw what he did in the past given the same situation he will do the same today .
When a person is BORNagain he does but enter that eternal will of God preordained from befofe the foundations of the world .
The salvation of God was not some knee jerk reaction to the devils work in the garden of Eden. Nor ddi it catch Him by surprise.
In fact the verse of scripture that says "the first Adam was the foreshadow of Him who was to come" Shows or at the very ;least implies that things are a lot 'bigger' than we suppose .
People often say that God gave Adam and Eve a choice to to do either good or evil.
But there is no evidence for that at all.
For what the scriptures ACTUALLY say is "Of ALL the trees ye may freely eat ......................."
This included then the tree of life . But it also shows God gave them the choice to do any good (or eat of any good tree) they could find or had a mind to do.
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they shalt NOT eat for the day ye eat thewreof ye shall surely die"
if God said of one you can freely eat and of the other you cannot eat or shalt not eat . The idea that God gave the the choice to do good or evil is wrong .
For what is written?
"Man shall not LIVE by bread alone but by every Word that proceedeth from the mouth of God"
Which is the same as saying ;Man shall not live by every tree that was good to eat but by that Word of God that came forth from his mouth as to what was good (to eat) and what was evil(to eat) and by that word they lived .
It was the rejection of that word of life that brought them death. For not only did they do that which was good or evil in thier own eyes . But they also believed the serpent who was the devils mouthpriece than God .
For Eve "SAW that the tree was GOOD to eat........."
Two things they did not have to eat of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. For God had given them HIS knowledge of what was good and what was evil.
second when you reject the truth ,you will believe a lie and once you believe a lie you become blind to the truth .
Thus though she SAW she was in fact blind for she no longer wlaked by faith but by sight (her own)
"Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him rightoeus " For Abraham walked by faith and not by sight .
The children of israel failed to enter the promise "because of thier unbelief" says paul.
Yet it was not simply that they did not believe God s Word . "Go in and poseess the land for I have given it to you" But that also believed the false witnesses who saw things only by what thier own eyes and reasoning told them.
The two faithfull spies saw exactly the same things but saw them in the true light of what God had done already in the last 40 DAYS (!) ho it was who was with them and what he had promised for the future .
In that regard i see no difference then to Adam.
For Adam forgot what God had done ;created him . What he had said as to what was good and what was evil. and what he ahd promised for the future "go forth and miltiply and replenish the earth...."
What God may say to you or another or myself in regards to OUR lives may well be different . But they are always according to the same principles and accordign to his unchanging nature .
God is good wether in mercy or judgment . In correction and reprove or in blessing . For they are both a blessing and proof of his love . For he whom God loveth he chastises., For he treats as sons .
Indeed it can be said that when Jesus said to the disciples go ye into the world and preach the gospel . That too is not much if any different in some wways than waht God said first to Adam then to Noah then to Abraham and then to the church .
But strange is it not . That each in thier turn and in different ways did not! At first .
Which would also say that man does not change either unless God does the work.
God speaks to us he speaks to all .
Hebrews 1:1 "God, in sundry times and in divers ways spake by the prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son"
The difference and the only difference is that we were shown mercy and given the grace to hear .That does not mean that we are in of and by oursleves any different from the rest of mankind. For we were at soem time as all men are "sons of disobedience" (Eph) Thus a field of clay and in turn a lump of clay taken from the feild is no different from another lump of clay in the feild . What makes the difference is the potter . and it is the only difference .
For there is no good in my flesh at all.
if there be any good it is from or of Christ .
Conciousness or faith? You will need to explain that for biblicaly it makes no sense nor indeed gramatically ?
For that would imply to me that your saying Abraham was not concious? Or he lived as it were in a dream of unreality?
Clearly not so .
When he gave Lot first choice as to which way to go he said If you go that way I will go this and if you go this way I will go that way.
It did not matter which way Abraham went wether a wilderness or a paradise . For he walked by faith and with God .
Lot on the other hand walked by sight and chose accordingly.
The first Adam failed in a paradise because he believed not God,or rejected the Word of God as to what was good and what was evil and via Eve listened to the serpent . . The last Adam overcame temptation in a wilderness and kept the Word of God and in the end rebuked the devil and in the very end cast the prince of this world down.
It is interesting to note also that the devil can quote scripture also .
"Yea hath God said.........................." In the beginning .
"Is it not written.........................?" To the Lord.
The devil has not changed either for that matter . But his end is certain.
The giving of the law is or cannot be said to be a different gospel.
For the gospel SAVES and the law condemns or convicts of sin(romans)
Paul says and it is true there is only ONE Gospel there is not another gospel and even he preached another gospel let him be accursed. if an angel preached another gospel though there is not another gosple let him be accursed as well.
So you cannot say the giving of the law is another gospel .
When you read the Old testement or for that matter ALL of scripture you are reading the mind of God. Fot ALL scripture was inpsired by the same Spirit of God "who knoweth the mind of God"
is it not written that those of the Old testement searched diligently when theese times might be ?
In Hebrews Paul gives a list of the heroes of faith. He starts with ABel.
The gospel was first preached or given by God Himself in the garden of Eden and Abel was the first recorded man who walked by faith who brought not the works of his hands as justification . But looked forward to the promised lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world .
Cain rejected the Word of God the way of God and the will of God and brought bu the works of his own hand and by the sweat of his brow.
Yet God showed him mercy and a measure of time to "do well" but rather than repent he rose up and slew Abel his brother .
It was then so it is now .For God has given all men a measure of time to repent and "do well"
But it is not Abel that rises up and slays Cain but it is always that rises up and slays Abel. and usualy when they are in "diologue"
or havign peace talks or for that matter interfaith conferences.
in Christ
gerald
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