The Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, gave Jesus a scenario of a woman who married 7 men (sequentially, since they all died prematurely) in her lifetime. They asked whose wife she would be in heaven. Jesus answered:
"You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. ..For in the resurrection they (men and women) neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." (Matthew 22:29-30)
' "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Genesis 2:8). Then the majestic words become quite specific: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10-14).'
Here, comment on the search for Eden, and the discovery of the location of a 'fossil river,' indicating the original location of the Tigris and the Euphrates via Landsat images from space. The land is very rich in material sources today.
Somewhere nearby, provided the elements have not disappeared from the earth, is the original dna pattern. Adam and Eve's 'dna'. Less than there is in your bloodstream.
Eve was taken from Adam.
'And the lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and he closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.' Gen 2: 21-13.
Adam and Eve were created adult, they had no childhood.
The cells in human bone marrow produce over a hundred trillion molecules of hemoglobin a second. Here's an outline suggestive of how Eve may have begun to come about in real time : active dna 'transcription', producing hemoglobin, the oxygen transport malloprotein in our blood. The action shown in the video below is also happening in every cell of our bodies, this minute.
'For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing.
For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good.
For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice. But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. For I delight in God's law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 'Who will deliver me from the body of death? Jesus Christ.' ( The Apostle Paul explaining that the believer placing their faith in Christ receives the help of the Holy Spirit, and walks in the Spirit, with a desire to obey the Lord).
Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, male and female, reflected God. They reflected the relationship between the Trinity. God. 'Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one' : this biblical statement declared God is the only God, 'One', three in one. 'Elohim', used in the Hebrew book of Genesis, shows He is more than One in himself; it is plural. Love, humility and mutual submission is the nature of the perfect Trinity: they are 'three in one'; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Messiah as part of the Godhead was suggested in the Old Testament era many times (click). The Holy Spirit as the 'third member of the Trinity' with the Father and the Son was not fully revealed until the New Testament era. He is frequently cited in the Hebrew bible (Old testament.)
Why did God go ahead and create us, knowing all the while so many wouldn't spend eternity with Him- knowing so many would be lost ? How can He say he is Love, and go ahead and create us, aware of the destiny of so many? We understand the concept of good and evil, and we acknowledge that we've failed, that we've fallen short of perfect purity. That's not hard to grasp. Why did God go ahead and create those who'd be lost? It would have been better to have thought better of it, we say. We say we'd have done so.
We are fallen man, and that's the sort of question we ask, and the sort of statement we make. It's unconscious sin. We are often mistaken, not understanding the scriptures, or the power of God.
Between our intentions and our actions there's a space; our fallen nature; often, our sin. Not so Elohim. He's Love in action. In Him there is no hypocrisy, no darkness. The moment we were conceived in the mind of the Father, we existed, though we came into being as we know it later. As soon as were wanted, we became. There's no difference between the thoughts and the perfect deeds of the Heavenly Father. The moment the Trinity suggested 'Let us make man in our image', they agreed , and mankind existed. There was no 'going back', nor was 'going back' considered. Time as we know it here is an entity created by God for us for the purpose of giving us every opportunity possible to discover and enjoy God. It's less Less relevant than Love in action, which is God. Elohim. 'The Father Himself loves you'. ( Jesus.)
'And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.'
' ...God said ' Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the birds in the air and the fish of the sea, and over the cattle (herds) over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His Own image; in the image of God he created them , male and female He created them.'
Adam and Eve walked in perfect love, their relationship emanated the nature of the Holy Trinity. Their relationship of mutual love, discovery and adoration perfectly echoed the relationship shared by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is male and female; Adam's entity was suggestive of the Heavenly Father himself, by Heavenly design.
'And the Lord God said 'It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him.' ( Gen 18. ) Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
This is the very first human being. He is simplicity, innocence and inexperience, and all he knows is God. ( at this stage.)
Whenever we see a lower intelligence ( the animal kingdom) doing such a thing as swim beneath the sea with a fleet of its kind all decorated in incredible colours, or paint with its trunk, or imitate two or three of our words, we express such extraordinary childlike joy of discovery, you'd think we'd discovered an intelligence higher than ourselves, an amazing creator behind the scenes, the way we go on. That reaction we have is curious. We all express it. It seems it's nothing but delight akin to the joy of discovery Adam probably expressed in the beginning when he saw all the created creatures for the first time; something innate.
Presumably since the first man saw every bird of the air and every fish of the sea, he was taken over the world. Why did God show Adam all this then?
God allowed Adam the progressive dawning 'there is no suitable helper who understands my life as I do' he allowed him joy of recognition on discovering 'Eve,' and experiential knowledge of the Lord's essential commandment; 'you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and all your mind, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself'. And then the Lord invited him to submit to very deep sleep.
'Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.' Gen 2: 21-13.'
The gospel of John records Jesus referring to the Holy Spirit as the 'helper' and 'comforter', who 'guides us into all truth'.
New International Version (©1984) But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
This was the first woman's role: 'helper'.
Eve's voice, to Adam, was a reflection of the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.
And Adam said: ' This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.' (Gen 2: 23.) 'Therefore a man shall leave his mother and father, and be joined to his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.'
It seems as if he must have been aware on some level, during the painless process when the rib from which Eve was created was removed from his body. A God given dream.
Adam and Eve have eternal life in their possession. In the garden of Eden are many trees. In the midst of the garden of Eden there are two; the tree of knowledge, and the tree of life. God has forbidden them both to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
'Then the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord commanded the man, saying "Of every tree in the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may shall not eat of it, for the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.' ( Gen 2: 15-17).
Death means eternal separation from God, the source of life. That's what death is.
That's all and everything that hell is: eternal separation from God. God is Love, imagination, creation, light, comfort, relief, safety, innocence, beauty; life. Total absence of Him is manifest in a place named 'Sheol,', hell.
God allows people to choose where they'll spend eternity. With or without Him?
The tree of knowledge would enable Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil; it would enable them to recognize and define satan in whatever form he might choose to appear.
And they were commanded not to eat of its fruit.
There's nothing wrong in knowing and discerning the difference between good and evil. God knows about good and evil. On our behalf, He defeated the evil that entered the world and blighted us , an act of his creationist Love.
'International Standard Version (©2008)
Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.' ( The Apostle Paul).
In desiring to spare Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil the Lord was sparing them awareness of evil. Yet, given that he knew satan was watching for an opportunity, why didn't God allow Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge?
Adam and Eve might have then recognised satan for what he was as soon as he approached.
And they'd certainly have refused him. Yet there would have been no unconditional loyalty to God in such a well informed decision; there'd have been showing God no unconditional love, no true faith. Love for love's sake, faith for its sweet sake, that's what God hoped for, it's what he loves. The faith he asks us for now. Adam and Eve had a choice. They were asked not to taste the fruit of the tree. They could have made a decision to return God love for love, and stayed with Him.
Whether satan he watched the whole of creation from the shadows' isn't clear. We know that he saw how Adam and Eve reflected the nature of God. satan wanted to dissemble their relationship; it was a reflection of the Holy Trinity relationship. He wanted to get to Adam by getting Eve, Adam's 'helper' to be false. He wanted to implant in the voice of the helper whose voice reflected the voice of the Holy Spirit, a lie guided by himself.
'Now the serpent was more cunning than any other beast of the field, which the Lord God has made. And he said to the woman, ' Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'
Eve's heard God's command about the tree of knowledge from Adam. She hasn't got the command first hand, we observe.
She responds. ' We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'
Eve was communicated the commandment by Adam, who's told her not to go anywhere near it.
'Then the serpent said to woman 'You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'
satan wanted Eve to embrace experiential evil (sin). He wanted her to ask 'Is God 'Yahweh false?' while experiencing knowledge. He wanted her to take after his own nature. ( Sin). And he wanted Adam to to state 'yes, God ' Yahweh' is false' while experiencing knowledge.
Much more than that, he wanted God wounded, caused immeasurable sorrow, and if possible, destroyed. He knows Elohim. He knows the extent God is Love in action; he knows Him. (He does not comprehend Love, the nature of God, but he recognizes God's actions.) Here in the garden of Eden he knew there was a terrible penalty for sin: death. He'd just experienced his penalty for sin; expulsion from paradise ( from the presence of God). He was in a position to evaluate that if Adam and Eve fell, God would step in, and accept to take their penalty in their place. Of course He would. If God failed in love in action at any stage, he (satan) would prove God is not. ( would prove Yaweh was not God.)
He'd decided to hold God to ransom. He'd tell God: 'You can have them back, can't you. But there's a penalty for sin, is there not. Either they pay, or you do.'
'So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.' ( Gen 3: 6-8).
'Nakedness' as described here in Gen 3 , aswell as being Adam and Eve's actual state, metaphorically represents guilt and spiritual shame, a sense of loss of self; Adam and Eve sensed that they'd lost their purity, lost their hold. They felt shame, and exposure to what they didn't know or understand; cold fear. Adam and Eve had never felt it before they ate. The first thing they did was try and hide from God.
Gen 3: 8-19
'And then they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden.'
'Then the Lord God called to Adam, and said 'Adam, where are you?'
'So he said 'I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.'
(In Gen 3 we see the simplest of confessions.)
Adam's been aware of the presence of God for some time; his memory of the joy of it; and intermittently, he's been hearing God's voice.
'And He said 'Who told you that you were naked? have you eaten of the fruit of the tree that I commanded you not to eat?'
And apparently Adam then recounted it. Presumably he trembled and wept . ' The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.'
And the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?'
King James Bible 1 Timothy 2: 14. 'And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.' ( Apostle Paul.)
And presumably the same distress and tears in Eve's simple confession . ' The serpent deceived me, and I ate.' Her confession is absolutely true.
There was a way back for Adam and Eve; through repentance and accepting their need for forgiveness and the coming Messiah's sacrifice. There's a way back for Adam and Eve's descendants, through the same ( if they lived BC) and if they lived after Christ on earth, like us, through the same repentance and accepting Messiah Jesus' Lordship in their lives.
There is no way back for satan:
The Lord promises mankind the Messiah as He continues:
'And I will put an enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.'
There is, here, a reference to the coming of the Messiah Jesus: 'There will be an enmity between you and the woman, between your spiritual descendants and hers ( believers in the Messiah) and he ( Jesus) shall crush your head, and you (satan) shall bruise his heel'. This verse refers to the crucifixion. Jesus would come to die. Jesus would defeat him who had the power of death ( satan) while satan would attack Him (crucifixion).
To the woman He said 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' In Gen the Lord turns to judge Adam for his wilful sin committed without any direct influence from satan: ' Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying "You shall not eat of it", cursed is the ground for your sake, in toil you shall eat of it, all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return'.
Elohim has begun again already; in the minds of Trinity, there's the preparation of a new heavens and a new earth, and it exists. Men and women will be given perfect, eternal bodies in the resurrection, and will be as the angels are.
Adam and Eve and their direct descendants named their children after God's promise of deliverance from him who had the power of death over them, and they comfort one another with the message of the coming Messiah, Jesus. The list of bible names in the transcript begin's with Adam's son, Seth, which means 'Appointed one.' Enosh, his son's name, means 'mortal', and his son, Kenan's name 'Sorrow.' His son Malahel's name means 'The blessed God.' He named his son Jared, which means 'Came down', and his son, Enoch's name, means 'teaching.' Methuselah means "His death shall bring; ' Lamech' means 'Strength' and Noah,' Comfort.'
'God Appointed' 'Mortal man' of 'Sorrow'
'The Blessed God' 'Came Down'
'Teaching'
'His Death Shall Bring'
'Strength' and 'Comfort' .
Adam and Eve's pitiful, futile first reaction to their guilt and shame ( covering themselves with leaves) would be rectified by God . He slew an animal ( the first bloodshed in Eden) and covered them with animal skin. This gesture represented the coming Messiah as the 'Lamb of God'; His atoning sacrifice would cover our guilt; He would pay the price for our sin.
'And Adam called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.' ( Gen 3: 22)
There is another reference to the Holy Trinity ensuite:
' Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever- Therefore th Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man, and placed Cherubim at the East of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.' ( Gen 3: 23-24)
The Messiah was born of a virgin, as the Hebrew bible continued to prophecy and declare. First through the patriarchs, the twelve tribes of Israel, the prophets, and the prophetic and suggestive stories.
Adam sinned of his own volition; Eve sinned while being deceived. Jesus the Messiah became human, born of Mary, and not a product of the union between Adam and Eve; he was uncontaminated by original sin, untouched by the uncleanliness of sinful nature. God had spoken that the offspring of the descendants of Adam and Eve would both, return to dust- the appearance of the Messiah came through virgin birth.
In Isaiah's prophecy 'Emmanuel' refers specifically to Jesus Christ, born of Mary. 'Emmanuel', is a clear scripture reference to the coming Messiah.
"Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (Mtt 1:23).
By the laws of the Hebrew bible, ( Old Testament) the Messiah should be untouched by the dust Adam and Eve became in death, untouched by the original sinful nature. He would be the first resurrected from the dead. He would have to avoid sin himself and so avoid becoming as the first man and woman, which He did. The virgin birth and the Messiah's purity is defined in procedures relating to the Tabernacle. Without trace of sin, the Messiah, at liberty to do so, would redeem sinners by paying the price for their sin. He would thus defeat him (satan) who had the power of death over us.
In Mathew 22 Jesus defeats the Sadducees, once again speaking as the co author of the scriptures, and not as a reader merely.
'And some of the scribes replied ' teacher, you have spoken well. ..And after that they didn't dare as him anymore questions.'
(It is unclear whether the scribes were delighted that Jesus had defeated the Saduccees, or whether the scribes, having gathered with the Sadducees against Jesus, were defeated as the Sadduccees were, accepting their defeat. The latter seems more likely.)
