"Let us make man in our image."1 So spoke God. In the halls of eternity before the foundation of the world the everlasting Trinity was in council. Throughout ages without beginning or ending they had dwlet together as one. The Father of Glory, an awesome, majestic Spirit, was radiant with holiness and divine love. His chief delight was Jesus Christ, his Son, who was the living Word or expression of God. In his face shone all the character and beauty of the Father. Out of their perfect love the Holy spirit, the Lord and giver of life, came forth with divine power to establish the purposes of God. All three were Persons, yet there was but one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they agreed to make man in their image, for "God is love,"2 and love by its nature must be expressed and shared. So man came into being by the hspoken Word of God as a revelation of his own heart. He lived upon the earth which God created and richly furnished for his dwelling place. "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."3
What a glorious life the Father purposed for his human family, his royal sons and daughters who would share his Name and character. In God their Creator they would "live, and move, and have...[their] being",4 all their provision would flow to them through their marriage relationship with him. Such a favored people would rule on earth as kings and priests and reign forever in his eternal kingdom under the lordship of his Son. Living in the power of the Holy Spirit, they would reveal his glory and share his love, especially with the slow of heart who would not respond to him. For Almighty God in his wisdom had created man with a will of his own. He knew that man must be free to embrace or reject him, lest we be like robots who love only because we have no choice.
God's first children, Adam and Eve, lived with him in innocence in the garden of Eden, radiant, ruling with divine authority over all of creation. Centered in him alone they ate freely of the tgree of life, growing in the knowledge of the One true God whose being is love. But sin broke this fellowship when Satan, disguised as a serpent, lured them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of this tree God had said, "You shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."5
Falling from the realms of light into the darkness of the world, Adam and Eve were suddenly stripped of glory. Fearful, aware of their naked selves and of their capacity to sin, they hid themselves from their Creator and Friend. When He called out to them and confronted them with their rebellion they refused to acknowledge any guilt. Man's perfect relationship with God had been brief: our first parents had chosen willfully to separate themselves and the human family from our Source, our Life. Love of self and a proud desire to "be as gods, knowing good and evil"6 brought the curse of sin and death to all mankind. For God had said, "The soul who sins shall die."7
"What communion has light with darkness?"8 A God who is holy cannot dwell with sinners nor look upon their sin. Yet the "Father of mercies" reached down at once to his fallen creation, covering and forgiving their transgression through the blood sacrifice of animals, whose "coats of skins"9 He provided as clothing for Adam and Eve. This act of reconciliation prefigured the sacrifice of his love and holiness. For God had prepared a "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"10 to pay the price for sin and redeem us. And though God would continue faithfully through the ages to cover sin through the blood of animals, one day at Calvary the Lamb of God would give his own blood to take away the sins of the world and make us holy.
Because our first parents had chosen to rebel, man would live in a fallen world where his awareness of God would grow dim and his selfishness increase. At the end of his natural days he would return to the dust from which he had come. Yet the creature, made in the image of God, was destined for glory. Therefore the Sovereign Lord, who is our eternal Lover, cursed the enemy, Satan, and as man fell from his presence pronounced "the fountain head" of all prophecy:
I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman
(Eve), and between your offspring and her offspring
(Jesus); He (Jesus) shall bruise and tread your head under
food and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel.11
Thus Scripture foretells the great plan of salvation that Jesus, our Savior, would one day accomplish for us when He would break forever the power of sin and death. At Calvary the wood from the cross would bruise his heels, but as the Crucified One cried out in his death pangs, "It is finished,"12 He would crush Satan's head beneath his feet. In the resurrection He would share his victory with all who would believe in him, by faith.
As we trace man's spiritual history we read in Genesis that the sons of Adam, Cain and Abel, acknowledging God as the Creator and Provider, came to him with offerings, Cain bringing "the fruit of the ground"13 and Abel "the firstlings of his flock."14 In pride Cain had come before God without an offering for sin, bringing him instead an idol, the work of his hands. This God refused, but He accepted Abel's lamb, a blood offering expressing his need for forgiveness as he approached a holy God. Cain, revealing his fallen nature, slew his brother in jealous anger, thus sin and death showed forth their reign.
As time unfolded and the generations increased man willfully chose to ignore his Maker, walking further away from him, rejecting his way and his love.
For since the creation of the world God's...eternal power
and divine nature..have been clearly seen,...men are
without excuse. For although they knew God, they
neither glorified him as God now gave thanks to him, but
their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were
darkened.15
Today much of the world lives under the curse of secular humanism, a way of life and thought that totally denies our Creator and the reality of the personal sin that separates us from him. Based on the "theory" of evolution rather than on the authority of the Bible, God's unchanging Word, humanism proudly seeks to enthrone man and place him at the center of creation. Clearly the creature in his folly has brought himself and God's world to the brink of destruction.
Let me share with you my own spiritual history, for my life bears out the truth of God's Word. Though I did not know it I, too, was a humanist, proud, self-centered, blind to God's majesty, insensitive to the wooing of his love. Growing up in a family and church where Jesus Christ was just an historical figure, I did not know him personally, I did not receive the love, the joy, the security that the living Lord alone can give. Even as a small child I needed him so greatly. The first-born, the center of my parents' attention, I matured quickly but my world was shattered when my sister arrived, for their focus was on her. I was jealous, I felt hurt and rejected, especially when my grandmother was buried on my sixth birthday. She had spent special time with me, had made me feel important and accepted. As I grieved inwardly over the loss of love I began without realizing it to build walls around my heart. Retreating into self, I was soon unable to express the affection I felt. When I grew older the emotions just under the surface of my mind were in conflict, I found it hard to make friends because my self-image was low. Often I was depressed and angry at my parents' failure to love and understand me. My hardening heart was protecting a "wounded spirit."16 Alone and lost I did not realize that Jesus Christ himself was knocking at the door of my heart, seeking fervently to enter and befriend me.17
Many generations after Adam had rejected him, the Lord God, grieved in his heart by man's corruption, judged his creation in order to make a new beginning: for the "wickedness of man was great...and...every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."18 Though God in mercy always spares those who love and obey him, only one family turned and were saved from his cleansing wrath - - a flood that filled the entire earth.
By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet
seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the
saving of his household...and became heir of the
righteousness [right standing] which is according to
faith.19
Noah's was a family after God's own heart, in them we see his plans for the human race. Noah exercised the authority God had first given to Adam. His family, responding to Noah's leadership, trusted and obeyed the Lord and were counted righteous in God's sight. After the waters disappeared Noah offered a sacrifice upon an altar of stones and in response Almighty God spread a rainbow across the heavens as a sign of his promise never again to destroy creation with a flood. A time would come when the Father would enter into a covenant that would reconcile him with men and give them hearts of love toward him and one another.
My family and I had no understanding of the Father's plan for we were ignorant of the Scriptures, unaware of "covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world."20 Bruised emotionally, incomplete as persons, my parents were a part of a fallen race. Unable to give themselves in love to one another, they were in continual disagreement, disillusioned and wounded. They had not received in their own childhood the warm, touching relationships needed to raise a strong, united family. Separated in their hearts from God they needed his healing, life-changing forgiveness and love.
As God continued to brood over his creation, looking for men who would respond to him and fulfill his purposed on earth He found in Abram from Chaldea a man with whom He could share himself more fully in covenant agreement. Because of his faith Abram would become the father of God's "chosen People," Israel, and through this covenant people the Father would restore to mankind all that he had lost in Adam. Through the ages men had entered into blood covenants with one another , sacred commitments that bonded them together in love and trust, as each promised to withhold nothing from his brother when he was in need. Sworn by oaths, they were sealed with the blood of each man, often in the presence of a mediator who would bring them together rightly, guaranteeing a lasting agreement between them. By coming down to meet Abram in covenant terms that he understood, binding himself to him with his own oath, Almighty God would prove his faithfulness and give men a way once again to lay hold of him. Calling him out from the idol worship of his homeland, the Father committed himself fully to Abram, his friend, promising to lead him to Canaan, a land flowed with milk and honey.21 There He would prosper faithful Abram and his seed, making them his own children and giving them power over the enemies who would rise up to prevent them from possessing their full inheritance. For Almighty God committed himself and all that He has to the descendants of Abram when He sovereignly selected them to be his "treasured possession." Through this chosen people God planned to bless "all the nations of the earth."22 Abram in response believed wholeheartedly in the Lord God, and so committed and united himself with him by faith.23
But our Creator knows and understands our human hearts. Foreseeing that Abram, with his Adam nature, could never be consistently righteous, God made this agreement between them on the basis of his grace, his unmerited favor, and Abram's faith. Abram's belief in him alone would be counted as righteousness or right standing with his God.
Preparing for the Covenant, God asked Abram to slay and lay on the ground the animal substitutes, whose blood represented God's sign of the covenant.24 While Abram lay in a deep sleep a "blazing torch"25 that revealed the presence of Jesus Christ passed between the pieces of the animal sacrifice. For though God was making the promises to Abram, his pledges were also being made to his own Son, Jesus.26 One day He would mediate a better covenant that would bring God and man together in himself. After the "covenant of strong friendship" was enacted, Abram, in obedience, circumcised the flesh of his foreskin as a sign of the righteousness that was his by faith,27 a mark that was to be in the flesh of every covenant male. Thus the One true God who swears by himself, and Abram, father of Israel, a people yet to be born, were forever bound to each other with ties that remain until the present day.28
What a blessed friendship the Father had with Abram and his wife, to whom He gave the royal names of Abraham, "father of many nations, and Sarah, princess".29 As He visited their tent He promised them a son, and Sarah, who was well past the age of childbearing, conceived by faith, and bore Isaac, whose name means "son of promise" and "laughter".30 The desire of the Father's heart was unfolding, this was the beginning of his royal family. One day, according to his divine plan, a descendant of Abraham would give birth to Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, who would come only to be rejected and crucified by his own people. Yet his rejection would open the way for all men to inherit the blessing promised to Abraham, for Jesus would grant to all who received him "power to become sons of God."31
Though Abraham and his descendants had been promised abundance they did not come to know and trust a covenant God. When a time of testing brought a severe famine to the Israelites in Canaan, God, in his sovereign purpose led them into Egypt in search of food. There in a worldly and idolatrous land his chosen people came at length to the end of themselves. The nation singled out to reign as kings and priests was in captivity, slave to the pharaohs, used mercilessly to build their ungodly empires. Bound by Satan, far from Canaan, Israel cried out to Almighty God to set them free.
As I read the Old Testament I could identify with fallen Israel for I had not sought to know and trust the Lord. Hurts, real and imaginary, self-pity had caused me to turn away from what I had read of him. Into my heart came rebellion, bitterness and vengeance that separated me from him and others. Tense, fearful, unable to relate as a wife to my husband, I was coming to the end of myself. Israel's history was my history; I, too, needed a Deliverer to set me free.
The Father, remembering his covenant, raised up Moses, a leader strong in his meekness before him32 to lead his Israel back to the promised land. "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend,"33 revealing himself by his own personal name, Jehovah, I AM THAT I AM.34 For Moses and the tribes of Israel He provided the Passover to protect them during their time of deliverance, for the angel of death would smite the first born of each of their Egyptian oppressors to judge them for their refusal to let God's people go. Every family was to prepare an unblemished lamb, to eat its flesh and apply its blood to their door post. "When I see the blood," declared Jehovah, "I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt."35 Supernaturally sparing his own people by the covenant blood, He led the tribes safely to the Red Sea, parting its waters before them and drowning their enemies, the Egyptians. The rescue of Israel from Egypt is a type of deliverance the Father would provide for fallen man through the power of the blood that would flow from the wounds of his only-begotten Son.
In the wilderness near Canaan Jehovah gave Moses the Law, the ten commandments, to teach his beloved Israel to live within the covenant. Strongly desiring to dwell among them, He instructed Moses to build a Tabernacle, a "tent of meeting" where they could worship and commune with him. Behind a thick veil that covered the Holy of Holies was the ark of the covenant containing the commandments, and over the ark was the mercy seat, radiant with the Presence of the Holy One of Israel. Once a year on the most solemn Day of Atonement the high Priest, appointed by God, would lay his hands on the head of a live goat, confessing over it all of Israel sins and sending it into the wilderness. Then with reverential fear he entered within the veil to sprinkle the blood of a bull upon the mercy seat as an atonement, or covering, for his and the nation's sins. For the Holy God had said, "The soul who sins shall die.36 and in mercy, "The life...is in the blood, and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls."37
The old covenant of law with its yearly blood sacrifices was just a temporary bridge between Jehovah and his people. Through it the just God could withhold his wrath and "pass over man's sins, proving his love and faithfulness to his people. Yet it would clearly show them their own hearts: for "the law...can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship."38 A time would come when Jehovah would enact a "better covenant," sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ, to give man new heart.
Patiently, sorrowfully through the ages the eternal Father watched and waited for his people, Israel, who lived out their earth-bound existence, never really rising to know him and possess the full blessing of their inheritance. Though He longed to be their Sovereign, He gave them earthly judges and kings, for they cried out to him, demanding to imitate their heathen neighbors. Under righteous rulers Israel would walk in his ways, but most of their leaders led them astray. Forbidden marriages with the heathen lured them into idolatry, the priesthood became corrupt and the blood sacrifices gradually were forgotten. Repeatedly Jehovah's judgment fell upon them, for a righteous God must judge sin: "He does not leave the guilty unpunished."39 Today our nation is like Israel, deserving divine judgment, for she, too, has forsaken God in whom our forefathers trusted. Unless America returns to God and walks in his ways she will surely perish.
As a foretaste of their glorious destiny the people of Israel rose to great heights under the leadership of Samuel when he ordained David, a descendent of Abraham and a "man after ...(God's) own heart,"40 as Israel's King. As David brought the ark of the covenant with the overshadowing Presence of the Holy One to Jerusalem God's own people sang and danced freely before him in joyful celebration. To King David and his seed Jehovah again gave the promise of an eternal throne and kingdom, centered in Jerusalem,41 where He had placed his Name.
A magnificent temple was built and consecrated in that city as a house for: "the Glory of Israel" during the reign of Solomon, David's son. But the time of spiritual revival reached its peak and the nation quickly fell into ruin when King Solomon later in life turned to other gods. In divine judgment the Holy Spirit split the kingdom and eventually scattered God's "chosen people" across the face of the earth. Not until this present day had He begun to gather them back to their homeland where He will fulfill their destiny. Only Judah, the tribe from which Messiah would come, had stayed loyal to Jehovah, yet in time just a small remnant of Judah remained faithful.
Jehovah had reached the limit of his endurance. In his wrath, his righteous anger, He caused Jerusalem to be destroyed by the heathen, the temple to be plundered, the tribe of Judah to be taken captive into Babylon. Said the Sovereign Lord, "I will carry them off with no one to rescue them. Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek by face: in their misery they will earnestly seek me."42