Seeking Jesus First - Aug.12, 2023
In the beginning, what did God make Adam to be? What was Adam’s purpose?
Why was Adam made in the image and likeness of God?
God used His own spiritual DNA to create Adam.
Did God desire a son?
One can most assuredly conclude from Scripture that God wanted a son. God desired family. And God wanted Adam to have the amazing gift of family as well. In Luke 3:23-38, we can read the lineage of Jesus. It starts with Jesus being “as was supposed” the son (huios) of Joseph and tracks the sonship back to God through Adam. This makes Adam the first son of God in the earth - the physical world.
Adam was formed by God out of the dirt of the earth so that he would have a physical body. However, God is a spirit. God is not flesh and blood. So being formed in the image and likeness of God can not be merely physical. I am compelled to believe that Adam was first, a spiritual being, made of life, love and light. When God formed Adam’s body from the clay of the earth, the dirt had no life in it until God breathed into it and connected Adam’s spiritual being to his physical body. Adam became a living soul, making him spirit, soul and body - a triune being. Adam was a life-giving spirit, with a living soul, living in a physical body. One can conclude that the only difference between Adam and God was a flesh body.
YHVH God and His created son Adam walked together and fellowshipped in the cool of the day. After some unknown period of time, God wanted Adam to experience companionship in the flesh. Then, God put Adam to sleep and used part of Adam to make Eve. One can conclude that God made Eve in a very similar manner as Adam, using clay with the part removed from Adam to form her body and His breath to assign a living spirit to it, making her a living soul as well. Adam and Eve were perfectly compatible as husband and wife. God made them this way so that they could procreate and fill the earth with His and their family.
If Adam was created to be God’s son and family, then all of us were created for this purpose. We will not be satisfied without a loving relationship with Our Father in heaven. We are created for relationship and fellowship with YHVH God.
When Eve took of the forbidden fruit and gave it to Adam, Adam chose to eat of it as she apparently had already done. Many believe that Adam gave in to temptation as well, and some believe that Eve simply served it up to him for dinner without his knowledge. There is also a possibility that Adam ate of the fruit as a way of saving her or participating in her judgement - that he could have done this because he loved her as God loved him. Adam knew that God had pronounced a sentence of death on anyone who ate of the fruit. Adam also knew that God is love. Adam was in right standing with God when he ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam knew how much YHVH God loved him. Adam chose to share in her fate and that all of his descendants would share in that same fate. If this is what happened, then Adam would have know that God would work it all out for good. God sentenced the serpent to a future judgement that crushes his head (all authority would be taken from him). God pronounced a sentence of judgement on Eve, and on the earth, and on Adam and on their descendants, but God also gave them a promise of deliverance.
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12, NKJV)
What was the temptation of the forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil? “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was 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.” (Genesis 3:4–6, NKJV)
The serpent promised, “You will be like God.”
Weren’t they already like God? Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. He was the son of God. Was there some kind of disconnect between Adam and Eve on this truth? Was Adam more like God than Eve when the serpent tempted her?
The serpent used his lack of likeness to God and his desire to be God to lie and say that God was keeping something from her. He was the father of lies. The serpent was a liar. He twisted things to make people believe lies. He made lies sound like truths. The things he tempted Eve with were lies. The serpent had rejected truth when he rejected God. The serpent was full of pride and self exaltation and made lying promises. The serpent lied and Eve believed the lie so she saw the fruit in a way that was not true.
Believing a lie, Adam and Eve began to live their lives apart from their purpose. God removed them from the garden so they could not keep eating of the tree of life in their current state of disobedience and punishment. The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil became the seed of comparison and jealousy in the life of their son Cain culminating in murder.
Adam was made to be a son of God who was like God and would fellowship with God on the common level of a loving family relationship with God.