Receiving Spiritual Knowledge

Let’s understand. Two spirits are described here. God’s Spirit works “with” the human spirit to bring human beings to salvation as “joint-heirs with Christ.” It is this Spirit that Adam was offered and would have received had he eaten of the Tree of Life!

In I Corinthians 2:1-16, we also read in the same passage of the spirit of man and the Spirit of God. Paul went on to add, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED” (I Cor 2:14).

This is an enormously important scripture. Do not miss what it reveals! It is simply NOT POSSIBLE for human beings apart from God’s Spirit to understand spiritual knowledge—spiritua l understanding. Such things can only seem “foolish” to a mind that cannot “spiritually discern.” No matter how intelligent or talented a person may be, without the Spirit of God, he is shut off from all spiritual understanding. He simply cannot grasp the most basic spiritual principles.

Even attempting to tell people—and I have witnessed this many times—that they do not have this spiritual component is a completely useless exercise—unless God is opening their minds (John 6:44,65). The most carefully crafted arguments, including those about how they cannot understand spiritual principles, will seem to be nonsense to them because even THIS information is “spiritually discerned.” The more intelligent the person is, the more foolish it will probably seem to him to be told that his mind is incomplete—that he is “not all there.” Sadly, most who are learning the truth recognize this painful reality too late, seeing it only after they have tried to force their friends and relatives to accept exciting new truths that they themselves are coming to see. (Be sure you avoid this costly mistake.)

What Adam Gave Up

We have seen that if Adam had eaten of the Tree of Life, he would have received the Spirit of God. Marvellous, special knowledge would have been freely available to him. Perhaps most important, he would have learned the WAY OF LOVE—the way of “give” instead of the grasping “get” way of life, practiced by this world.

While people have devised a host of differing definitions of love—actually no more than human opinions—the Bible states that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10), and that “love...is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy [Spirit]” (Rom. 5:5). God has a great spiritual law that Adam and Eve would have come to understand had they chosen to accept the spiritual component God was making available to them. Instead, they chose the way of death.

Romans 8:6 declares, “For to be carnally [physically] minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is LIFE and PEACE.” If Adam had received the Spirit of God, he would have had life inherent within him. He would have been an “inheritor” with Christ as much as any true Christian today. He would have also learned the only way to peace, happiness, abundance, prosperity and every good thing in life—the things that all people desire. Adam was given more than a brain. He was given a MIND, containing the HUMAN SPIRIT. He held the power to choose—to DECIDE for himself his own fate. He was not forced to follow, or to be automatically led toward, any prescribed path. He had not been programmed or limited to instinctive thinking, as were dumb beasts. When Adam rejected the Tree of Life, he rejected the opportunity to receive the Spirit of God. This would have opened his mind to the Plan of God—to why he had been created. We saw that his decision caused him and his wife, Eve, to be cast from the Garden. Their joint decision carried grave implications for every human being who would come from them. Because of this decision, no others could have free access to the Tree of Life, or to the Spirit of God, if they were not individually and specially called of God.

Let’s state this one more time for emphasis so that none can possibly miss it. With this single decision, Adam and Eve severed themselves, and all mankind who would follow, away from free access to God. They rejected the opportunity to qualify for eternal life—to “live forever” (Gen. 3:22).

Now understand what this means! All human beings are NOT FINISHED—they are made INCOMPLETE! All knowledge that enters into natural human minds is limited to the physical and material. For Adam’s colossal sin of rejecting God, including His rule—His GOVERNMENT over them—and the Tree of Life, he was rejected by God and cast from the Garden—and mankind was cast out with him!

This is absolutely remarkable understanding—unknown to all but a scattered few on earth today. And it has not been fully understood until our time!

Why an Unknown Dimension?

The first human beings were required to accept and act upon God’s instruction. Yet, they were willingly influenced by Satan, who cleverly refuted that instruction, as he still does today. Since that time, humanity has continued to reject God’s revelation and to decide for itself what is good and what is evil. It is no wonder then that mankind has remained in confusion, never able to agree as to what constitutes good or what constitutes evil.

Disagreements, disputes and splintering of efforts are inevitable when man takes to himself that prerogative of God. Submission to God’s Way leads to unity and co-operation. Yet, man is missing the absolute authoritative knowledge from the all-wise Creator who is certainly capable of determining precisely what is good and precisely what is evil.

This unknown dimension absent in the vast knowledge of mankind is DIRECT REVELATION from God. The missing dimension in sexual knowledge is likewise what this God has revealed about the purposes of sex. But in rejecting divine revelation, still available today, mankind has rejected the spiritual understanding that is connected to sex between human beings.

This book points the way to that hidden dimension—REVEALED KNOWLEDGE—long since rejected by mankind, yet still available to those given eyes to see.

The Bible provides the vital FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE that man could not discover by his own investigation or experimentation. When man rejects this knowledge, he inevitably lands in error. As I have explained in so many other books and booklets, and referenced earlier here, just as all equipment comes with an instruction manual, so has God provided such a Manual for mankind. Heeding the instructions of this Manual of spiritual information leads to happiness, fulfilment and peak performance. To abide by the Maker’s Instruction Manual assures blessings in every endeavour. To disregard it guarantees curses and eventual breakdown of all progress in every endeavour.

“And They Were Not Ashamed”

The attitude of shame in regard to sex can be traced back to ancient religions. Although the origin of this approach goes back to the Garden of Eden and the wrong choice made by Adam and Eve, there is direct evidence in early religion of the same course that Satan had persuaded Eve to take.

We have seen that what happened in the Garden of Eden set the course for all humanity. Man is composed of physical matter and subject to death—a mortal being. Yet, Satan told Adam and Eve that they were immortal and would not die. At this time, the devil also injected into their minds the tendency to feel shame in regard to sex. While countless millions have obviously found a way to “overcome” this feeling of shame as evidenced in the almost total sexual debauchery so rampant all over the world today, the initial result in the Garden encounter was shame in the minds of this first couple.

Unseen in the account, but true nevertheless, Satan possessed a degree of jealousy—that puny physical mankind could reproduce while he as a superior being could not.

After God had completed the physical creation, the Creator considered all that He had created and observed that it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Nothing that He created was shameful or disgraceful. The creation of the physical sex anatomy of human beings was no oversight on God’s part—rather, ALL of His creation was very good!

In Genesis 2, God had commanded, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (vs. 24). Verse 25 continues, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Shame only entered their minds once the man and his wife chose to follow Satan’s deceitful influence. They could have resisted, but chose not to.

Immediately upon taking of the forbidden fruit, a different awareness overtook Adam and Eve. Part of this awareness included this shame of their nakedness: “And the eyes of them were opened, and they knew they were naked...” (Gen. 3:7). Prior to the Garden encounter, this first couple had no cognizance of shame, prudery or embarrassment in any way, despite the fact that they were without clothing.

The account continues and reveals the change in thinking. As soon as God called out to them, Adam responded, “...I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And He [God] said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, the woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:10-13).