2. The Riddle

Before beginning this study, read Geneses 1:1 - 3:5. (Do not read beyond 3:5, since that is the boundary of this lesson.)

2. The Riddle - for Notes

2. The Riddle - PP

 

2. The Riddle
Defining God; Defining Man

Let Us make man in our image and after our likeness (Genesis 1:26). He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14).

Adam is not our pattern; Jesus is our pattern. We do not define ourselves by Adam, for we do not come out from him. – In Adam all die (2 Corinthians 15:22). We define ourselves by Jesus, for He is our source.

For this reason, we will transfer everything God means in Genesis 1-2 from the Adam who threw it all away to the last Adam who returns it all to us as a life-giving Spirit.


The Metaphor of Life. Suddenly, this lesson is taking on a dimension I have never thought of before, a dimension that may give us a view for the rest of this series that I had not considered.

I will assume, in all of these lessons, that you have just read the text, in this case Genesis 1:1-3:5, and thus will include various phrases as needed without referencing them.

Here is God’s metaphor of LIFE. – Inside of Christ, God created heaven-earth. The earth was without life or light, but the Spirit hovered over the waters. Then God spoke His Seed into the Spirit, “Let there be light,” and the Word became what God intended inside creation (paraphrased).


Planted into the Ground. Let Us make man in our image and after our likeness – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1).

If a grain of wheat having been planted into the ground …should die, however {become something entirely different – the plant}, it bears much fruit {many more seeds just like itself} (John 12:23). My Word, planted in the earth, shall return to Me having accomplished all that I intend (Isaiah 55 – paraphrased).

So also it has been written: “The first man, Adam, became a living soul,” the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. – As we have worn the image of the earthy, we shall wear also the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:44 & 49).


Fulfilled inside of Us. Everything in Genesis 1 & 2 that references Jesus presents Him as a Seed planted in the earth to bring forth God’s intention, which is the life of God in us. Then, everything that references Adam is clearly transferred to Jesus, who, as a life-giving Spirit fulfills all those things in us.

Jesus cannot “return to the Father” until He has fulfilled all that He is inside of us.

Our part is to receive in all expectation of faith, which is a quality we possess fully since we share that same Spirit into which the original Word was spoken.


Heart – Spirit – Word. Heart – Spirit – Word. Why – How – What. Motive – Means – Opportunity. Purpose – Context – Substance. Heart – Why, Motive, Purpose. Spirit – How, Means, Context. Word – What, Opportunity (form), Substance.

And so we see that Genesis 1-2 contains Romans 8:28-30 and so many other similar New Testament verses, that is, the entrance of God, now coming through us, through the words that we speak.

God spoke Jesus in Genesis 1:3, Jesus spoke us in John 17, and we speak the substance into all appearance – the Word is in our mouths (Romans 10:8).

The Entrance of Father. What does it mean for us to be the likeness and image of God, now through the Lord Jesus Christ?

Let’s consider several points from Genesis 1-2, placing these things in our hearts and mouths as the revelation of Jesus Christ, Father Himself entering His creation through our hearts. Indeed, this is what is meant by God-Seed, planted in creation, bringing forth God-Life. It means the entrance of the Father into His creation through us, through our hearts and the words that we speak.

This then places “After My own Heart” on a whole deeper level of meaning and power.


Motive – Means – Opportunity. We place God’s Heart-Motive upon the beginning, upon every line and thought found in Genesis 1-2. – That all might know Me. –

We place God’s Spirit-Means upon every line as well. – Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. – But by My Spirit, saith the Lord. –

Then, God’s Word-Opportunity. Then God said, “Let us make man.” You see, opportunity means that you can prove that a “suspect” was BODILY at the scene of the “crime.”


God Himself. For God to be known, God must be present bodily, and God has one body – the Church, that is, humans, regular folk, you and me.

And that brings us to the most wondrous statement of faith I have known. – My heart is the entrance of God. – I am NOT God; I am not a “Christed one.” I am a simple man, created by God as His image and likeness, filled with all the fullness of God and revealing God to all by loving my fellow believers in Jesus.

This is God’s ONLY program, right from the start. It is God Himself coming through, that’s what rivers of Spirit means.


It Is NOT Good! Six times God speaks Christ in Genesis 1, and six times God sees all things good.

The issue is not the what coming out of God’s speaking and seeing, but of a God who calls into appearance things that had not yet appeared. It is the Word that forms the “what.” And then it is the seeing that turns it into goodness.

On the seventh day, however, God says that it is “not good.” – It is NOT good for man to be alone. God made man just like Himself – It is not good for Me to be alone. – I have found Me a man after My own heart.


A Female of His Same Species. If a grain of wheat is not planted in the earth and dies, it remains ALONE (John 12). Mono – only begotten. – Father, I DESIRE that these whom You have given Me might be with Me (here inside of You) (John 17).

The word “suitable helper” means specifically, a female of his same species, a woman who can receive his seed and bring forth many more just like the man.

Flesh of my flesh – Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. – I am speaking of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5).


The Great Crime. There are two primary metaphors developed through Genesis 1-2, the largest is the reproduction of life and the second is the issue of authority-synergeia.

We are looking at bringing forth life first, then we will come back to authority-synergeia. In fact, we will see that LIFE, God-revealed, is the motive, a female of God’s same kind is the opportunity, and the authority given to man to synergeo all things with God is the means.

And framing Genesis 1-2 as the commission of a crime is entirely legitimate, for when God did appear in the flesh, He was found guilty by human tribunals and executed.


The Same Crime Again. God had committed the crime of “blasphemy,” and here is His clear intention to commit the same crime again.

Having been conceived from above, not out of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

– Beloved, we are now children [birthed out from] God, and it has not yet been made visible what we will be. We know that if He becomes visible [to us], we will be just exactly like Him… – Anyone conceived out from God does not do sin, because the Sperm of God lives inside of him, and he does not have the ability to disconnect from God, because he has been conceived out from God (1 John 3:2 & 9).


An Abomination. I will make him a helper comparable to him, a female of his same species.

If you plant eagle seed into a female mouse, you will get nothing. In fact God set the crossing of species as an abomination. This is the exercise through which God took Adam in Genesis 2, over and over, seeing male and female of each species, yet Adam had no female for himself.

Peter and John claim that God-Sperm is planted in us that it might make us the same as Jesus, that is, God-Life. This is an abomination – UNLESS we are created like God.


The Riddle. Here is the riddle. – What is God? – What is man? We know God by knowing a man – He who has seen Me has seen the Father. And we know a man by knowing God – Let Us make man like Us.

God is known, then, only by and out from the human heart. – Christ lives in our hearts through faith.

Now, I have added the first five verses of Genesis 3 to the reading because they are prior to the fall and are intended to criminalize this incredible union between God and man. Although the great contest is found inside the authority-synergeia metaphor, it is God-through-us that is opposed.


Criminalizing God. 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.

We must limit ourselves to the primary treachery and filthiness found in these words. 1. Adam, you vile and filthy worm, you are NOT like God, but you can be, if you try to be godly yourself. 2. I, in my superior arrogance as the master of knowing good and evil, am now your image of “God.”

And so the devil teaches all Christians that they are not like God, not at all, and that to enter into union with God is to become supremely arrogant – and they believe him.


The Real Murder. The point here is that Satan is not striking at man, but at God, for he is polluting God’s woman in order to prevent the entrance of God into the knowledge of all.

And so when Jesus said that he is a murderer from the beginning, it is the child born of the union of God and man that he killed. And the dragon stands in the face of the woman about to bring forth, so that when she should bring forth, he might devour her child (Revelation 12:4).

And this becomes the entire issue of the first story of human-kind, Abel and Enoch, found in the next lesson.


God’s Woman. So, yes, I have been studying Genesis 1-3 intensely for over thirty years and through all that time I have known that you cannot separate Genesis 1-3 from Revelation 12 or from Romans 8.

And I was twenty years old when God opened my eyes to see the planting of His seed into His woman, of His same species, in the first two chapters of Genesis.

Let’s look at the issue of authority-synergeia, for here we find the incredible purpose of God. In fact, I am right now working on Hebrews 2 in The Jesus Secret II, “God has put all things under my feet.” I am pulling out all stops in the presentation of Hebrews and will do the same with 1 John.


Subdue. And God said to them… “Subdue.”

Here is how Hebrews 2:7-8 interprets this one word. – You crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him in charge over the works of Your hands. You have put all in subjection under the feet of humans (Psalm 8:4-6). For in already and always subjecting all to mankind, God left nothing not subject.

And Paul said in Romans 11 that the gifts and calling of God cannot ever be rescinded. All authority over heaven and earth, once given to mankind, cannot ever be returned to God.


Synergeia. Yet humans have no power. – For we have this treasure in an earthen vessel that the excellency of the POWER might be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:8).

And so Synergeia is required, two working together as one. And this is the layout of Genesis 2. God put the man in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. – And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.

Yet now we must deal with one of the greatest oddities of this mighty Being who tells us to call Him, “Father.” God just loves a good fight, and He made us the same. The problem is turning our fight in the right direction.


Protect the Bride! And God said to them… “Subdue.” – And they overcame him (Revelation 12:11). Do you see why Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 12 cannot be separated and why Revelation 12:11 has been a ruling verse of the Bible to me for over forty years?

This lesson is NOT about Adam, but about Christ Jesus. And this is why – God set Adam to be His champion in the earth, and especially to protect his wife, Eve, from abuse. Adam not only failed to protect Eve, but he became her chief abuser. And so it has been until now.

Jesus, on the other hand, laid down His life for His bride.


The Fight. Here, then, is the great contention. – “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Set against – This One [Jesus], in the days of His flesh, offered, with loud crying and tears, both heart-felt prayers and an olive branch of peace towards the One able to save Him continuously out from death and was always heard because of His careful reverence, though being a Son, He learned submission to what was spoken by [giving thanks in] all the circumstances, good or bad, acting upon Him.


The Defeat of Death. And having been brought to full completion and perfection, He became the causation of and responsibility for age-unfolding salvation to all who are hearing Him (Hebrews 5:7-9).

Jesus fought for us. Jesus fought death for our sakes and won. Jesus won LIFE for us. And He then becomes that same life of God inside of us, now our very and only life.

Then He says to us, “Fight. Fight for the sake of your brothers and sisters that they also might know My life inside of them.”


Speak the Same Word. We must understand that Romans 8 and Revelation 12, Paul’s gospel and John’s confirmation of that gospel, are built entirely upon Genesis 1-3.

Let’s bring all this back, now, into the wonder of the Riddle. – My heart is the entrance of God. – The Word God speaks is in my mouth. – Together with God, I see all things good.

Homologia – speak the same Word. When I spoke earlier of a “dimension not known before,” I meant the centrality of our speaking Christ inside of God’s Being and doing.

Heart – Word – Spirit. Why – What – How. Humans, you and me, speaking words of kindness and encouragement to one another – the revelation of God.

Note: To prepare for the next lesson, please read Genesis Chatpers 4 and 5 as well as Hebrews 11:4-7.