The Missing Dimension

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After God created Adam and Eve, He presented them with an all-important choice—a critical decision to take one of two paths. Notice: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:7-9).

Genesis 3:1-8 contains the account of Adam and Eve’s fateful decision. They listened to the serpent and chose the wrong tree! This carried grave implications beyond what most could dream because, by not choosing the TREE OF LIFE, Adam and Eve cut themselves off from the Spirit of God. They were left incomplete, incapable of receiving, understanding, or forming SPIRITUAL thoughts. They severed themselves from the vitally important MISSING DIMENSION to spiritual understanding of God’s purpose, the path to character-building, and right solutions to humanity’s problems!

Here is what happened next: “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life” (Gen. 3:22-24).

God denied Adam and Eve access to His presence and to His Spirit. While this was never His intention, it was the result of their choice. God intended from the beginning to give Adam and Eve His Spirit. It would have joined with the spirit in man to form a newly-begotten spirit life in each of them—and in all mankind to follow.

Adam was given more than a brain—he received a MIND, containing the HUMAN SPIRIT. He had the power to choose—to decide for himself his own fate. He was not forced to follow, or 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. But their joint decision carried grave implications for all human beings who came from them—who could not then have access to the Tree of Life. With this decision, Adam not only cut off himself and all mankind from access to God, but he also rejected the opportunity for eternal life—to “live forever” (Gen. 3:22).

Grasp what this means! Human beings are NOT FINISHED—they are incomplete! All knowledge that enters their minds is strictly limited to the physical and material. For his great sin of rejecting God and the Tree of Life, Adam was rejected by God and cast from the Garden, and humanity was cast out with him—now to be totally cut off from God until Christ’s Return!

This is absolutely remarkable understanding—unknown to all but a few today. And it was not understood until the twentieth century!

Some Few Will Never Yield

God’s purpose has never altered. He desires to offer eternal life to all who qualify for it. Now, almost everyone knows of the following verse: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Sadly, however, this towering passage is little more than a cliché without true meaning to hundreds of millions. But you have seen that there is an incredible purpose that God is working out in those He has called. Recall that we are clay and God is a potter with us as “the work of (His) hand” (Isa. 64:8). Paul understood how God works in Christians. He also recognized that salvation (Rom. 6:23), and even faith to receive it, are free gifts. These cannot be earned. But this does not mean God is not clearly working (and requires good works) in human beings, as He reproduces Himself.

Most will simply not permit God to work with them. Some few will even permanently reject God, refusing to obey Him—refusing to allow Him to work with them as clay. They will trust in their human minds and reject the missing dimension of God’s Spirit, which would have led them to eternal life. They will choose to remain incomplete—unfinished in purpose and character.

The next verses describe their end. Malachi 4:3 states, “And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the LORD of hosts.” The wicked will be destroyed forever. Matthew 10:28 demonstrated this clearly. Also notice Obadiah 16: “For as you have drunk upon My holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yes, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.”

Woe to those who knowingly reject God’s offer to qualify for the kingdom of God!

In Christ’s Image

Paul wrote of those in whom God is working, “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the IMAGE OF HIS SON, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). As explained, God is expanding His Family, adding more children. Christ was first and all others must conform to His image—to His character and likeness.

God is making more “brethren” in a Family in which ALL will have the same character and spirit composition.

Knowing that God and Christ made man in their “image and likeness” establishes why the New Testament talks of being “conformed to the image of His Son.” The Old and New Testament scriptures match—they fit perfectly together in revealing God’s purpose.

God has never worked in animals. They are lacking in moral and spiritual faculty. They are made for the enjoyment and service of both mankind and the environment. But they cannot acquire new knowledge and they have never been offered eternal life. They are not part of God’s Plan of character-building and reproducing Himself. God has never worked in or through animals toward any spiritual purpose. He is at work in begotten, Spirit-led human beings.

Human reproduction represents the very same pattern that God Himself uses. The human family is a TYPE of the Family that God is building. Revelation 19:7-9 shows that marriage between men and women pictures the great Marriage of Christ to His Bride, which will occur at His Return. This will be further explained in Chapter Seven.

We have learned the Bible teaches that God has a detailed Plan involving an actual birth into His kingdom for all those He has called. And the second birth does not occur in this life. We cannot be part of the Marriage to Christ in this life, but we can practice—rehearse!—through human MARRIAGE and FAMILY, God’s ultimate purpose.

Understand again! Each human being carries staggering potential, with capability far beyond brute beasts, and exceeding even the potential of God’s holy angels. Notice again: “Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, You are My Son, this day have I begotten You? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son?” (Heb. 1:4-5).

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