Man – The Blood Flowing, Earth Becoming, Image of Messiah!
January 12, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Many years ago, as I sat in a Hebrew class in Seminary, our instructor taught us something which came to mind as I read the article by Dallas Darling in World News, which follows our heading.
The instructor said that the full Hebrew exposition of the first phrase in Genesis 1:26 was quite revealing.
Genesis 1:26a – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: (KJV)
“And God said, Let us (more than one) make man in our (more than one) image, after our (more than one) likeness:”
So what were the created characteristics of the image and likeness of the man God made?
He was an earth becoming, blood flowing man – God made man in the image He would one day take on Himself.
God, who in His fullness of manifesting three offices of the Godhead’s redemption plan, knowing that the first Adam would sin, planned from the beginning to work in three officers, or persons, as one God, to be just in justifying fallen man by the Father’s love, the Son’s sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit’s conviction for sin.
One could infer God made man in the body image He knew He would one day reside as the Son of God, living in the perfect sinless body of the Son of man, Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:23-26 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; [24] Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: [25] Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; [26] To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
God did indeed one day take on the sinless body of a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the man Christ Jesus – God became a blood flowing earth man, for the purpose of reconciling man to fellowship by offering his blood flowing, earth body for their sinful condition, which they inherited from the first Adam.
The man Christ Jesus died as the second Adam to undo,
to atone for, making reconciliation for, what the first Adam had passed on to indwell all men. The last Adam, Jesus, did not have the first Adam’s inherited sin nature, which was a necessity for God to be just in justifying the believer for his or her sins, through Jesus becoming the innocent substitute sacrifice for their sins by taking them in his own body on the cross, which is the word of reconciliation.
II Corinthians 5:18,19 – And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; [19] To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
I Corinthians 15:21,22 – For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
I Corinthians 15:45 – And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Man’s basic problem since the fall of Adam has always been the fallen nature he inherited from Adam. The woes and ills described in the article, which follows our headings, are all symptoms of his basic desire for his own welfare, and these woes and ills are only going to get worse with the passage of time. Things are not going to change until Christ’s Second Advent. I believe Jesus made this plain in Matthew 10:34-36 and I Corinthians 15:19-25.
Matthew 10:34-36 – Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. [35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. [36] And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
I Corinthians 15:19-25 – If in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we are of all men most miserable. [20] But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. [21] For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. [23] But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. [24] T hen
cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. [25] For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The Middle East situation is going to get worse, not better, as Messiah’ s Second Advent approache
s.
Article by WorldNews.com
Correspondent Dallas Darling
January 11, 2008
For good reason, Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground.” And for good cause, it is written in the Koran, “With water we have made all living things.” (Sura XXI-Anbiyaa:30).
Imagine for just a moment if the world pursued a Theology of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. In other words, what if these natural wonders (along with the entire Earth which sustains life) had similar God-given and unalienable rights like people do, beginning with reverence, peaceful co-existence with humankind and the right to be free from domination and war?
Much of the world is now familiar with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s speedboats that, according to the US, repeatedly charged three US warships along the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates described the incident as “troubling.” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the event “provocative” and accused Iran of being “the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see.” The Iranian Foreign Ministry characterized the incident as a case of mistaken identity and said the voices threatening to blow up a US warship were fabricated.
For thousands of years, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has given birth to many city states and ancient civilizations. This important waterway and strait, which connects the countries of the Middle East with the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, has witnessed the rise
of the Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and numerous Muslim Kingdoms. It has enabled these civilizations to advance by establish trading routes, exchanging ideas and promoting cultural interactions.
Beginning in 1095 and as a result of the Christian Crusades, Europeans were introduced to the luxury items of eastern Asia such as spices, silk and ivory. Portugal, a major European power, sought to monopolize this trade while continuing to spread Christianity. By 1514 the Portuguese, with the use of their navigational equipment, three-mast ships called caravels and cannons, had sailed around Africa and institutionalized slavery. They had also attacked and crushed Muslim and Italian trade routes to Asia by building a fort alongside the Strait of Hormuz-the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
Although the Portuguese empire was short lived, a precedence
was set for other European nations to follow. In 1622, the English East India Company conquered the Portuguese fort in the Strait of Hormuz. This company, and the English Empire, surpassed the Portuguese Empire and trading posts with private armies, paid mercenaries and the military conscription of the indigenous populations. The English, like the Spanish, Dutch, and French who were also competing for resources and conquering other parts of the world, brought with them a sense of religious and technological superiority.
Unlike the Indigenous and Eastern Faiths, though, the creed of Western Christianity and European powers consisted of industrialism, mass consumption, market economies, overuse of natural resources, and environmental degradation.
This new Gospel of Modernity, which would also be embraced by the United States of America, would not only bring suffering to millions of people in the Middle East, but also travail to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Due to the large deposits of crude oil and the need to fuel market economies and imperial war machines, after WW I and WW II the Western Powers seized and controlled much of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Today, 20-25% of the world’s oil passes through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, but at what cost? There are visible scars in the form of hundreds of oil pipelines and oil refineries at Abadan, Basra, Kuwait, Al Ahmai, Qatar, Said, and Matrah. There are numerous oil ports and terminals at Lavan Island, Khark Island, Bahrain, Umm, and Ras Tanura. The “cup of suffering” did not pass from the Persian Gulf when the USS Vincennes shot down and destroyed a passenger airbus killing hundreds of innocent Iranian children, women and men.
The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has also undergone the Iraq-Iran War and the US-Iran Tanker War. The atrocities of Gulf War One are still felt throughout the region due to more than 240 million gallons of crude oil that was spilled onto the land and into the water. Tens of thousands of animals and marine mammals were killed. Entire species became extinct. It still remains to be seen what the effects will be like from Gulf War Two and the current Gulf War Three.
In geographical terms, a “gulf” is a part of a large body of water that extends into a shoreline. In spiritual and psychological terms, a gulf means a gap or separation. The sins of the fathers, along with a lack of repentance and restitution, hangs over the Western powers and the US. Instead of respecting the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the “Garden of Eden,” the West has dominated and squandered God’s creation. Instead of being faithful stewards, the West has been
faithful materialists. It is this that has caused a gulf and a separation from God and from much of the world.
A second definition for the word “gulf” can also mean “abyss.” Today in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz: Instead of compasses for directional purposes there are radars and Global Satellites to direct missiles that kill innocent people; Instead of caravels there are air craft carrier groups with F-18’s (worth $57 million each) that fly deadly sorties; Instead of cannons there are nuclear warheads; Instead of slavery there exists economic dependency.
The unforgivable sin, which is the tyranny of war in order to protect an addiction for oil, has created an abyss which now overshadows the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. C an the United St
ates of America-a Christian nation, and Iran-an Islamic Republic, pursue a theology of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. After all, are they not the works and the creation of God? And if so, should they not be free from terror and war?
Dallas Darling – darling@wn.com
(Dallas Darling currently teaches U.S. and World History and writes for World News. He was a pastor in rural America for ten years and worked in a Guatemala Refugee Camp, the barrios of Panama, and in Mexico. Dallas was active in the Central American Peace Movement and currently works with Pastors For Peace in delivering humanitarian aid to foreign countries.
He has a Masters in Pastoral Theology and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Religion.)
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