Lesson # 004 The Seed Christ John 4:31; 1 John 5:18-20

Lesson # 004   The Seed Christ

John 4:31; 1John 5:18-20

God has design and purpose in everything He does.  He does nothing haphazardly.  The works of God bring light to the ways of God, and the ways of God bring light to the why of God. 

Understanding the knowledge taken into the mind has value – knowledge without understanding has no value.  Unless there is understanding in the spirit of our being, the information remains information - facts.  Without understanding in the spirit of our being, the why of God’s works and ways is not apprehended.  Thinking we know hinders understanding.  The works and ways of God remain facts in our mind with no effect or power in our lives. 

The eternal covenant of God is God’s plan for His creation.  All is of God.  What is that plan?  What is God’s eternal covenant?  In a word – it is children.  God’s purpose in creating man is to have a kingdom of sons of God in His image.  The eternal covenant is the hope of life everlasting and a holy calling of sons of God (2Timothy 1:9-10, Hebrews 13:20-21, 1Peter 1:17-25). 

A review of what we know: 

We know:  Spirit is the essence that God is (John 4:24a).  God is one Spirit in being, with three personal beings; He is Deity.  God is righteous in being; God is eternal life.  Spirit Being of Deity has no image, no form or appearance.  

We know:  Man is spirit in being; man is lawless in being.  Man is created spirit, soul and body.  Man is flesh and blood. 

We know:  Paul states in 1Corinthians 15:50 “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”  

We know:  An inheritance is handed down to family members.  Sons come from seed.  In order to inherit the privileges of the kingdom of God, one must have a birthright; one must be an heir.  One must be born into the family a son of God. 

We know:  God does not have an image and sons come from seed. 

We know:  God’s goal is sons of God in His image for His kingdom.  In order to inherit the kingdom, a son of Adam must choose to be born a son of God. 

We know:  That the two things – image and sons must be reconciled and God does the reconciling. 

We know:  God’s plan requires two men and two bodies to have His image and to have birthed sons in His image. 

The First Man in God’s Eternal Covenant

God provides the seed coat in the first man, Adam. 

The first man Adam was a living soul in a body - of the earth, earthy. 

In the Genesis record God begins with the end; He tells the conclusion of His plan.  With the creation of His first man, God shares how He will achieve His goal to have man in His image and to have a kingdom of sons.  

He will begin with the likeness.  Adam’s body is a likeness – flesh and bone body with the blood being the life of that body.  Adam’s body is the resemblance of the image of God – the goal is a body of flesh and bone with Spirit being the life of that body – a body like the resurrected body of Jesus. 

God will initiate His goal of an image - a body of Spirit and life eternal with a body of blood - a flesh and bone body.  God will begin with a natural body, a mortal body.  God first begins with the likeness - the representation to accomplish the image – the substance.  

The Lord God created Adam’s body a seed coat of flesh, which had seed in it to reproduce sons of flesh.  Like reproduces like; flesh and blood will produce flesh and blood.  Adam’s body did not come from a seed with a germ cell of life eternal.  Eternal life cannot be created.  Eternal life is Spirit being of Deity. 

The life of the seed coat is in the flesh.  For man, the life of his seed coat of flesh is in the blood.  With each breath man takes, oxygen is absorbed into the bloodstream; without breath, the life in the flesh ceases. 

What else do we know? 

We know:  The natural man is a man of time and sense.  He lives for the here and now.  The body is given to the inner man for his keeping.  He lives in it during his time on earth and he must not think of it as his own (1Corinthians 6:13c).  The body is given man for a purpose - it is the seed coat for the body of a new birth.  The temporary flesh and blood body born of the seed of man furnishes a seed coat for a permanent, deathless body of flesh and bone of spirit life.  

We know:  The body of flesh is precious to God.  In the flesh body (seed coat) the germ cell of life must be implanted so that a forever-living body can be raised up out of the dead seed coat. 

We know:  The personal being (mind, will and emotions) of spirit not only has the body in his keeping he also has the life of the soul, the spirit of his very being, in his keeping.  He is responsible to God for that which he minds. 

We know:  Apart from the discernment of the word of God to divide asunder the soul and spirit, one will deceive himself in his thinking (Hebrews 4:12).  

We know:  Only God – the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the understanding of what the will of God is – will satisfy the soul of man.  

The Second Man in God’s Eternal Covenant

The last Adam, Jesus, is the Seed provided for life everlasting. 

The last Adam, the first begotten from the dead, is a quickening Spirit – in a body of Spirit – the Lord from Heaven. 

God’s only image is the only begotten Son.  The first Son of God raised from the dead in a body of Spirit Being; a body of flesh and bone - incorruptible, a body eternal.  God achieves His goal to have man in His image in this glorified body.  

The seed for the image of God is the birthed Son – the body prepared – the seed coat of human flesh.  The beloved Son, in whom the Father was well pleased, came in the likeness that He shared with the man born of a virgin.  The seed for the image of God was not of the seed of man but of God who prepared the seed coat of human flesh.  

The personal being in the body prepared, the Word who is God, is the germ cell of life.  In Him is life eternal.  Held in the seed coat of human flesh, life eternal was birthed in a seed body of blood for creating the image of God - a seed body of Spirit, an eternal life of flesh and bone. 

The glorified Son of God is seed to bring forth after His kind, bodies raised up out from the dead, deathless and glorified.  If Jesus had not taken the mortal body – the likeness into death, the life for the deathless body would not have been released.  God would have one birthed Son, yet in a mortal body and no seed grain to bring forth deathless bodies raised out from the dead and glorified. 

We know:  the love of God is the end goal (John 3:16; 1John 3:1, 3:11, 4:7-8, 10-12; 4:16).  The love of God is the why of His works and ways. 

God’s end goal is children.  God is love; His love must be shared with His creation.  His desire is for many, many sons of glory, many sons of God.  Sons are produced from seed, whether they are sons of humanity or sons of God.  

As in the natural realm, so it is in the spiritual.  Without a union, there is no procreation.  In the natural realm, the seed of man reproduces flesh and blood bodies.  In the realm of the spirit – Christ is the seed – He is life everlasting.  Christ does not create life everlasting and He does not reproduce life everlasting – He shares Himself, life everlasting.  Without the union between the seed, who is the begotten Son raised from the dead, and man, there is no body of glory. 

God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have life everlasting.  God gave the begotten Son for life everlasting.  Receiving the life offered in the resurrected Christ gives man life everlasting.  

Without man’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection, man has no germ cell of life everlasting.  Because of this union, man will be raised up and will be in the image of God.  Man receives all the privileges entitled a son in the kingdom of God.  One must have a birthright; one must be an heir. 

We know:  This union is voluntary and the one created makes a deliberate decision.  God does not force His creation of sons of Adam to choose to become sons of God.  God provides man with a way to live forever, the seed Christ; “you must be born again” to become a son of God.  

The union of love is a love union.  God does not force His creation of man to love Him.  Love is voluntary.  You cannot make someone value what you value and you cannot want something more for someone than they want for themselves.  

As a son of God, one is no longer a son of Adam.  One cannot be in two creations.  Either one is in Adam or in Christ.  The union of love is one’s exit out of the one creation and entrance into the other.  If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation – not going to be a new creation or hope to be a new creation but is a new creation.  What does this mean?  

What one is in Adam passes away when he chooses a union with Christ.  He has been made alive unto God raised to walk in newness of life.  He is free not to mind his former manner of living – his behavior.  He is free to mind his life – Christ.  He is free to mind God; God’s thinking – the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the understanding of what the will of God is and to will to do His will (Philippians 2:13; Hebrews 13:21).  

Finally we know:  “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him:  and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1John 3:9).  

“We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.  

“We know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness.  And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God, and eternal life” (1John 5:18-20). 

Lesson # 003 Adam

Adam

Before the beginning, God was and in the beginning, God was.  And after that, man was.  Who is God?  Who is man?  Have you ever thought about or considered how it would be to suddenly open your eyes and be fully-grown?  

Suppose that you came into being full-grown.  One day you just were, a man.  You were not born, you have no parents, your peepers popped open and there, looking at you, was another who looks like you, but He is not; He is Other than you.  

What is a man?  How did you get there, well … wait a minute, where is there?  

How did there get there?  Who is the Other?  Obviously, the Other was there before you.  Why is the Other, other than you?  Besides the fact the Other was first, what makes the Other, other? 

You need the facts of who you are and why you are.  More importantly, however, you need the facts of the Other.  

The first man came into being this way:  One day he just was.  Both the Other that the man is looking at and the man are other than we are.  He was the first man and he was a creation, there was no other like him - that makes him other.  

Jesus, the Other, who was with the man, is God.  He is not a creation; He is One of the three personal beings of Deity.  Deity is Divine in being.  He is Eternal; He is without beginning, He is without end.  He is everywhere present; there is nowhere that He is not.  

God is all knowing, there is nothing hid from Him.  God is Love, Life, and Light.  God is outside of time; but at creation, He entered into time.  God is Righteous; God is Holy; God is Spirit Being and He is Other than all others. 

The “there” where the man found himself is the part of “the creation” - it is the earth.  The creation is a concept that God thought in His mind and brought forth into being by that which He spoke (Genesis 1) – a physical reality.  God spoke into being many things pertaining to His creation.  God spoke into being light, heaven and earth.  God spoke into being bodies of living things with different kinds of flesh - flesh bodies of seed grain, herbs and fruit (Genesis 1:11), flesh bodies of animals, fish bodies, bird bodies, living creatures, cattle, creeping things and beasts (Genesis 1:24). 

However, God was personally involved when He created those things that pertain to His eternal covenant.  God’s covenant plan is to have a universal kingdom of sons of God in His image.  He did not speak this part of His creation into being as He did the rest of creation.  God personally used His hands and then named those things that He made.  With His hands, God created the stars; with His hands, God planted His garden; and with His hands, God formed the body for man. 

God named the stars.  God named the Garden of Eden, the man’s residence, and He named the two trees in the midst of the garden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:8).  God also named the man. 

All that God created and made was holy – separated unto God, consecrated and blessed for divine service.  Yet the man was the most unique.  Of all that the Lord God created and made, only the man received the breath of God.  From the dust of the ground, God formed the body for the man - an earthen vessel, which God then breathed into and brought forth a soul of spirit life.  The soul is a personal being with a mind to think, emotions to feel and a will that has the power of choice. 

God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the body formed of the dust of the ground – spirit life, the life that God is and man became a soul of spirit being, whose life of being is spirit, clothed in a body of dust called flesh.  God did not bring the body into being with His breath; God brings the soul of spirit life into being with His breath - a very personal and intimate act.  

The man is a living soul of spirit being, an uncreated spirit being without end, dwelling within an earthen vessel.  God named this soul of spirit being Adam. 

God brought Adam into being a full-grown man in order for Adam to think along with God; thinking along with God is God’s design and desire.  Adam was not “pre-programed” with data.  He was a soul of spirit being who is to learn of God.  All that Adam had knowledge of, God taught him. 

From the moment God brings the man into being, he is learning of God.  There is nothing to sidetrack him.  There is nothing to divert his attention.  No books to read, there is no written language.  There are no movies or television to watch - nothing to waste the space in his head to keep him from minding God.  There is nothing to distract him.  Free within himself, there is no minding of himself.  There is no thinking, what will the others think?  There are no others!  Adam was the first and only one of his kind.  There was no other like him with whom to converse or interact.  

Free from self-consciousness, Adam is free to be occupied with God.  God brings the man into being full-grown so he is fully free to engage, absorb, and take interest in what God will be sharing with him as they walk and talk together in the garden. 

The man was naked; God brought Adam into being naked.  While it is true that the man’s covering, his body, has no clothing, it is the person; the soul of spirit being that is naked.  The person is naked.  Adam’s body had no life everlasting.  In eternity past God purposed to have a creation of sons in His image.  God designed His image to be an immortal body of His glory. 

God begins His image with a created body – a figure that God will share the likeness of.  A body is an object of time.  The earthly body of dust does not cover the soul of spirit being for eternity. 

Although Adam is naked in his earthen vessel, he is not ashamed.  Is there reason to be ashamed?  God never does anything without design.  The nakedness will serve as a teaching truth for the man.  Adam, the soul of spirit being needs a covering suited to his being of spirit life; Adam needs a body of spirit life.  Adam needs life everlasting.  The body the man dwells in is not a body of spirit being, but a body of earth, dust.  Of the earth, the covering for the man is temporal and the life of that body is in the blood.  It is created life dependent upon breath. 

After The LORD God formed the man, He put the man in His Garden, the Garden of Eden, and assigned the man the pleasant task of dressing and keeping the LORD’S garden.  This assignment will serve several purposes.  

First, this will teach the man he is responsible to the LORD God in his undertaking.  Is the garden Adams to do with as he pleases?  No, it is the Lord’s garden.  Adam’s task to dress the garden will teach Adam to be reliable, dependable and consistent.  The responsibility of the LORD God’s garden will prepare Adam to be disciplined both in body and in mind. 

The word dress and the word till in the Hebrew is the same word and means to work or serve.  However, when used in reference to things, it is usually followed by an accusative (object) of the things upon which the labor is expended, e.g., “to till” a field (Genesis 2:5 and often elsewhere) “to dress” a vineyard. 

A field and a garden are two different things.  A field is a piece of cleared land set off or enclosed for raising crops or raising livestock.  Tilling a field is associated with hard labor, the sweat of one’s brow (Genesis 3:19).  A garden is planned space set aside for cultivating plants and other living things, a place filled with living things pleasant to the sight and good for food.  Often a garden is a place of quiet and beauty, a haven or sanctuary from the bustle of outside things. 

The LORD’S garden, like the rest of His creation, was holy.  God’s garden was the holy of holies because God’s garden was His sanctuary - the place He set apart from the rest of the creation to draw the man to Himself.  The LORD’S garden was a garden of Delight.  Because the word “dress” is often used to mean vineyard, it is reasonable that God’s garden included a vineyard. 

The second task of keeping the garden implies that Adam is to give diligent attention to guarding the garden against intruders.  The Hebrew word for keep means to take care of or guard.  An interesting thought to consider:  Would Adam know what an intruder is?  Obviously, God would have shared with him the meaning of intruder - one who is a trespasser in a place not designed to be occupied by the squatter.  The possibility of an intruder brings with it the necessity of guarding the garden. 

The evening and the morning of Adam’s first day was the sixth day of creation, the dawning of the seventh.  Adam begins his life in the “evening” but not literally in the dark.  Evening is dusk; dusk is the period of daylight when it is more difficult to discern the true intent of visible things.  This also will be a picture to the man; God brings true clarity of the things of the spirit; they cannot be discerned without Him.  

Before the darkness of the night, do you think that Adam and His Creator had a little “look-see” around the garden?  The plan was for everything in Adam’s life to be a picture truth for Adam – a picture truth of what God planned for His creation of mankind. 

Adam has his first encounter of Joy in the garden of delight.  Just consider for a moment the wonder of it all:  the different sights and sounds - the hues of green and all the different colors of fruit and flowers and the blue of the river with the sparkle of the setting sun shining off it. 

1 Corinthians 15:46 (ESV) says, “But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.”  In the garden was the “natural” pictorial of the spiritual pictorial of the truth revealed in the stars. 

In preparation for the nighttime star-gazing lesson, it is very likely that God explains that in order for seed to reproduce, it must have life in it.  In the garden was seed for life.  All life comes from seed.  Also in the middle of the garden were the two trees that the Lord named, each bearing fruit, whose seed is in it, after its kind. 

All the trees of the garden were pleasant to the sight and good for food.  However, the two trees planted and named by God have a distinct purpose.  The two trees are teaching tools and speak of reaping what is sown.  Pictured in the symbolism of the two trees is life and death - the two ways man may choose to go – God’s way or man’s way.  The Tree of Life symbolizes what is needed to become a son of God in His image and after His likeness – the Seed of Life for life everlasting. 

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil illustrates the beguiling of knowledge; knowledge will not produce life everlasting.  Information gathering, wanting to know apart from God, does not bring life.  God gave man everlasting life – this life is in His Son.  The heavens declare this glory.  

Everything Adam heard and everywhere that Adam looked expressed his Creator’s will for His creation of mankind - one must be born again through Christ Jesus – the Man God has in His image – the body raised from the dead. 

Talking “seed” with Adam would bring understanding that the Other is the Seed grain needed for more bodies that would live forever – God’s Eternal Covenant.  God pictures His Eternal Covenant in the stars.  Can you imagine that night?  There is nothing artificial or synthetic.  The air is clean and free of pollutants; the fragrance smelled is sweetness all around like the Rose of Sharon and the lilies of the field.  

There are no lights, but overhead in the night sky is the splendor of the stars, God’s banner of love.  All is quiet, no noise, chatter, or irritating sounds.  Then, the voice of the Lord, powerful and full of majesty, yet gentle and soft, speaks.  Hushed in the love of God, in the stillness of the Garden of Eden, the Last Adam (the Other) shares with the First Adam His purpose for being.  

God shared His Eternal plan with Adam; two bodies of seed were required.  Adam is the figure of his Creator - the Last Adam, who was with Him in the garden.  How is Adam a figure?  Adam like His Creator is spirit being.  Adam is clothed with body.  God formed Adam’s body from the dust of the ground, a body of humanity.  The body of Adam is Adam’s dwelling place.  Adam’s Creator explains to him that he is a soul of spirit life, a spirit being of humanity.  

His Creator, the Other who is with him is also Spirit Being; He is Spirit Being of Deity in the likeness of the image of the man He has created.  He and the man share the same likeness – a body of flesh. 

The Other explains that Deity is different from humanity.  Humanity is created; Deity is eternal.  Deity is pre-existent and self-existent, uncreated Being.  Deity is Spirit; Deity is Righteous.  Deity is One God in three Persons - a God of Spirit being of Deity with three personal beings.  Each being is God – each has a mind, emotions and will - as one – all of the same Spirit of Deity. 

“[But] when the fullness of the time was come, God would send [sent] forth his Son, made of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4).  Spirit Being of Deity, Jesus, God’s birthed Son, would be birthed in a body prepared for Him in the womb of a virgin - a body enlifed with the life God is, the life of spirit being.  His body is in the likeness of man’s - flesh. 

For God to have a kingdom of sons of God in His image, God needs a mortal seed body – a seed coat to bring forth a Body of Spirit being - a Body with uncreated Life, a body where the Life of the body is life of Spirit Being, – from the breath of God, the life He is.  The body of Spirit is an immortal, incorruptible, imperishable body.  The body of Spirit being will be a Body of Life everlasting - a body that is deathless, a body of flesh and bone. 

A body of spirit being will require One of the persons of Deity to come in the likeness of man, having a body.  God cannot be other than He is, Spirit Being of Deity.  He is Life.  The Creator comes in the likeness of man in a body specially prepared for Him.  Jesus is not a God-man, nor is He a man who is a god but God “clothed” with the garment - the likeness of man.  The body prepared would be a flesh and bone and blood body, a mortal body, the seed of the woman.  

God cannot die; He is eternal life; He is Spirit Being (1John 1:2).  The mortal body in the likeness of man, the seed coat, could die and did but held within the seed coat of flesh and blood is the incorruptible Seed – life of Spirit Being.  Within the seed coat (the mortal body) is the Seed of Life everlasting.  It takes the death of the seed coat to bring forth the image of God, a flesh and bone body of Spirit (1Corinthians 15:45-48). 

Life everlasting is what the body needs.  Without the Life of Spirit being for the body, man is naked (Genesis 2:25).  Man needs a body of Spirit being.  The Creator has the covering needed.  God explained to Adam that man is brought forth a soul of spirit being clothed in a body of flesh that he might choose to become a son of God in the image of God and experience the rest of God forever through a union of love.  

Adam understood that he was other than His Creator - he understood he was the creation of His Creator and belonged to His Creator.  Being a creation and being a son are different; Seed life is required to become a son.  Being a son of God in God’s image requires a union of love - a joining together.  

The image of God must be after His kind - a body with Life of Spirit being.  For such a body God must have a Seed.  The Seed will bring forth an immortal imperishable body.  The immortal imperishable body brought forth from that seed will have Seed for much fruit of immortal imperishable bodies – flesh and bone bodies bearing the image of God. 

Man’s image is the dust body called flesh.  God’s image is the body of the First Begotten Son raised from the dead.  The First Begotten Son is the First Son of God in God’s image, a glorified body.  

Without the union between the Seed and man, there is no body of glory.  Without the union, there are no sons of God in the image of God.  This union is voluntary and the one created makes a deliberate decision.  God does not force His creation of man to choose to become sons of God.  

That would be unreasonable and unjust of the Creator.  The union of love is a love union.  God does not force His creation of man to love Him.  Love is voluntary.  

When Adam saw the lights of that night sky - What a thrill it was!  It was beautiful!  Adam had never seen such beauty and such glory.  Actually … Adam had not seen anything until that night.  But! That night, wonder of wonders, God His Creator began to share with Adam His glory - the way of life everlasting through the gift of righteousness, the Last Adam.  God began therefore before the beginning with … God. 

Adam never would have understood the purpose of God, apart from God.  It is God’s plan; God would explain it.  Adam is a creation.  He does not have it in himself to understand.  

That first evening God began to lay out His covenant plan illustrated in the pictorial of the luminaires and to shine His glory into the heart of His man.  

“Do you see that cluster of stars there Adam?  Yes, those right there.  Well, my heavens stretch out like a curtain in the sky all around the planet.  I have placed and arranged 12 of those clusters in a certain pattern for a purpose.  

“Three smaller clusters are attached to the twelve primary clusters.  The clusters are called constellations and the smaller clusters are called decans.  “Each stellar constellation and its three decans have a minimum of 12 star names.  That is 576 star names, at a minimum.  It’s very important that you have the light of the knowledge of these for they speak of Me. 

“This first stellar constellation …is the Virgin.  That bright star that she holds in her hand means “The Branch” and speaks of the Anointed Son, the Seed grain of the Woman.  

Who is the Woman?” ... well, she is symbolic of a vineyard in a very fruitful hill (Isaiah 5), the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and so God begins to share His plan.  Night after night, week after week, month after month, 365 days God shares the glory of God declared in the heavens – His plan.  

From the Son of His love, the Son of Man, God has His kingdom of sons of God in His image, a royal priesthood - the kingdom produced from the Seed of the Woman, the Branch of Life.  Like reproduces like. 

The number of days, weeks, months or years that God shared His covenant plan with Adam is not recorded in scripture.  However, consider this:  When you enter into time, you live within God’s laws of physics. 

It takes a year for the earth to revolve around the sun; thus, it would take Adam a year to complete the cycle of the covenant as it is written in the stars.  God works within His laws of physics.  

Forty-eight starry clusters are God’s banner of love written in the luminaires; God shares them with His first Adam in the evenings.  

Then in the early mornings, in the cool of the day, God and Adam meet in the Garden of Delight and discuss the truth taught the night before, possibly while they tilled the ground and dressed the garden. 

There is something special about digging in dirt; there are the smells of the garden, the warmth of the sun, the sound of living water, not to mention watching the rewarding result of the labor and finally the eating of the fruit.  

Night and day and day and night, week after week, month after month, God makes known the knowledge of His glory.  Knowledge is the information of facts.  Understanding is the enlightenment of the knowledge of facts as they really are through the Holy Spirit.  Adam took into his mind the knowledge of God’s heavenly pictorial in the evenings.  And in the morning in God’s garden, he took in his hands the practical substance of that picture:  the dirt, seed grain, water.  

In the garden, Adam sees in a different form the same pictorial - the natural realm gives confirmation to the spiritual realities seen in the stars.  The earthly is a pictorial of the heavenly realties.  The stars are a heavenly pictorial of an earthly reality. 

Thus, God brought the message of the glory of the “Life coming” that “The heavens declare” down to earth, so to speak, picturing to Adam the same truth in a different pictorial.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God. 

The fulfilling of the covenant in time and space is in a future garden.  The Seed will lay down His life – as a corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying lest He should abide alone (John 12:24).  That garden will not be a garden of Delight but of agony, distress and sorrow.  The pressing of the soul will occur in that garden, but the Seed looks to the joy set before Him, sons of God.  He willingly endures the suffering and despises the shame for the glory of the fruit, sons of God.  

The Life-Giver - the Rose of that garden, whose very fragrance is sweeter than any earthly aroma, will bear a crown of thorns upon his head and hang on a tree and be accursed, “…for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).  

Like the white trumpet lily announces the life brought forth from the seed planted in the ground (to die), so the resurrected Creator brings forth resurrection life - everlasting life.  The resurrected Creator (the Other) is the first begotten Son of God.  

John 19:41 says, “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never a man yet laid.”  Luke 22:44 says, “And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly:  and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  

Unless the seed grain falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone.  The “relationship” between God and man is through union.  Unless man unites himself with the Seed, the Branch of Life, there will be no “relationship.”  The bond for the relationship is in the body; the understanding of the union is through the spirit.  

Without the union – without the Seed of life everlasting planted in the heart of man, the body is not redeemed and man does not receive the image of a son of God - a body of glory.  Man puts clothing on to cover the naked body.  God puts clothing on the man – a body.  The pictorial in the stars above and the earth below complement each other perfectly; they are a prophetic revelation of God’s purpose for sons of God.  

Thus, Adam had everything he needed to get the picture.  God set before him life and death.  God taught Adam the ins and outs of becoming a gardener, the different kinds of seeds and herbs, taught him the names of the trees and different fruits and vegetables.  

God instructed Adam about the mannerisms of the animals, explaining to him that man’s behavior mirrors the animals’ mannerisms.  That one (fox) is sly, that one (lamb) gentle and over there (mule), well he is stubborn. 

Then “The LORD God brought to Adam every beast of the field and every fowl of the air to see what he would call them: and whatever Adam called them: … that was the name” (Genesis 2:19). 

All the aspects of heading a creation took considerable time – how is Adam to remember the revelation God shares in the stars?  It stands to reason or makes sense that he wrote an account.  As the first prophet and priest of God, Adam most certainly would have preserved the message of the glory of God by writing it down in the first star charts.  

The preservation of the glory is of vital importance, because just around the corner is an intruder, an enemy willing and able to pervert the truth - an intruder who would come to the Lord’s garden and deny the truth of God and call Him a liar.  The perversion of the truth is not merely a changing of the facts; it is the denial of the sacred.  The message of the stars is sacred; changing the facts calls God a liar. 

Like the rest of the creation, the stars are ordained of God (Psalm 8:3) fixed in position for the divine purpose of making known the glory of God.  To pervert the message in the stars given by God is to deny the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, and is a renunciation of the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.  

The perversion of the truth is the replacing of the glory of the un-corruptible God and substituting that glory with an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things (Romans 1:23).  To change the truth of God into a lie you must first have understanding of the truth of God - “that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it” in the stars (Romans 1:19).  You cannot pervert what you first do not understand. 

“To change the truth of God and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25) is to hold the truth in unrighteousness.  To worship the heavenly host, the sun, moon and stars, as Deity is an act of depravity.  

Having understanding of the righteousness of God, why would men pervert the truth?  So that others will not know God?  Where is the source of such thinking?  Who would do such a thing?  The enemy of God pictured in the stars - that old serpent, the devil and Satan (Revelation 12:9).  

Those who hold the truth in unrighteousness serve another master and refuse the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. 

As we begin our study of the stars, I want to make sure, absolutely sure, that it is understood that this study is not promoting the worship of the stars or their message.  

We give adoration, love, reverence and devotion to God the Creator of heaven and earth and NOT, let me repeat, NOT to the heavenly host; that is the sun, moon and stars.  That is blasphemy!  It is profane and wicked to set our affection outside of the sacred.  Sacred is where God or the glory of God is.  Changing the glory of the incorruptible Seed – making the glory of God a man perverts the sacred.  

We are looking at the heavenly pictorial that God placed and named on the fourth day of creation for the sole purpose to know Jesus and Him crucified and the power of His resurrection.  The heavenly pictorial is the message of God’s plan for an earthly kingdom of sons of God – sons in His image, a royal priesthood, united in a union of love with the incorruptible Seed, the un-corruptible God.  

The message of the heavenly pictorial is the glory of God - the hope of life everlasting and a holy calling; it is God’s eternal covenant to have sons of God.  It is Jesus! 

God gives man the message in the stars so man might choose to become a son of God through the union of love and in so doing might preach the message of reconciliation and regeneration to others – becoming the “voice” of the silent preachers. 

Glossary for Adam

Adam – the First – is the first man God created; who was full-grown.  Adam was a figure of His Creator, God’s last Adam, Jesus Christ, God’s Son. 

Adam – the Last – is another name for God’s Son, Jesus Christ. 

Eternal Covenant – is God’s agreement with Himself to have a universal Kingdom of Sons of God in bodies of glory in two realms – the heavenly and the earthly. 

Everlasting Life – is life that goes on forever in a body that will not die – life one receives from God by faith in His Son Jesus Christ. 

Image of God - is the body of the glorified Son of God. 

Naked – is what the personal being is if there is no forever-living body to cover or house the spirit being of man (See Soul). 

Seed Coat – is the mortal body of the First and Last Adam.  The first Adam has a seed coat with NO life everlasting in it and the Last Adam has a seed coat WITH everlasting life in it. 

Soul – is a personal being with a mind to think, emotions to feel and a will that has the power of choice (See Naked). 

Spirit Being of Deity – is the Life that God is - uncreated Life. 

Tree of Life – symbolizes the need to become a son of God – believing into the Seed of Life for life everlasting. 

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – illustrates the beguiling of knowledge; knowledge will not produce life everlasting. 

Union with the Seed – is in the body.  If man chooses to unite himself to Christ’s body by believing into Him, he receives a body of glory and lives forever. 

Lesson # 002 Heavenly Pictorial in the Seven Days of Creation

Heavenly Pictorial in the Seven Days of Creation

Genesis 1

God’s love and plan is seen everywhere.  The seven days of creation picture it. 

In God’s cosmos, numbers are foundational powers.  The creation record shows that the created world is based on mathematical relationships.  No doubt exists about the weights, measures and numbers pertaining to the universe, often referred to as the laws of nature.  

This begs these questions:  Could mathematical knowledge and research have originated without numerical relationships?  Could intellect alone weigh, measure, and number?  Can matter know the complex properties of space, time and numbers to obey them in the wondrous way it does without outside assistance?  

The answer to these questions is no.  No human creativity or big bang theory could accomplish this feat.  Only a Divine Creator creates a universe ruled by mathematical equations. 

God reveals His use of numbers in His symmetrical design and imagery of symbolism within the seven days of creation.  Because each day is a pictorial, the number of the day symbolizes a truth.  For example, an octave or musical scale includes seven different notes with the eighth note beginning anew a series of seven in another key.  Seven numbers are fundamental in the pictorial of the creation each number symbolizes a truth concerning the pictorial of creation. 

The Lord created the heavens and the earth in six days; He rested on the seventh day.  In the six days of the creation, God shows forth His intelligence as a Designer, His persona as the Creator and His purposed plan for His creation.  God’s creation provides a habitation for His creation of man.  God’s purpose for His creation of man is to have man in His image and after His likeness - a son of God. 

During the six days of the creation, God divides or separates.  The division in the creation cannot be changed; creation will not work in any other order. 

The first three days and the first three numbers have definite reference to the persons of the eternal spirit being of Deity; distinct within the three days of creation we see the fullness of the love, the light and the life of God. 

In the numerical structure, the ordinal “one” is “first” – the true beginning of all.  The number one in whatever way it applies excludes difference.  The imagery of the symbolism or picture truth of number one is that God, One Spirit of Deity, is the true beginning of all.  

Three things were absent in the creation – light, order and life.  Darkness is the absence of light.  Everything begins with light.  Without light, there is no life.  In darkness, the reality of light is not present – there is only darkness. 

God began with darkness – God began with disorder and absence of life; He did so deliberately.  God has purpose and design in everything He does.  In the imagery of God’s symbolism, light is reality.  Without light, there is no life. 

On the first day of creation, the spirit of God hovered – trembled over the surface of the deep and God called forth the light, dividing it from the darkness.  Hovered is an intransitive verb meaning to float or flutter in the air without moving far from one spot.  The spirit of God is the power - the breath - the life force.  The Light was the calling forth of the Living Eternal Word.  The light brought order to God’s universe. 

The picture truth is this:  When one is born into this world, he is in the dark to God born dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). 

Light, order, and life are wanting.  God is light and in Him is no darkness (I John 1:5).  God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.  God is not present in darkness.  Light is a person – the Person of God.  God foreknew that His work of redemption and regeneration would begin with man in darkness.  When the reality of the Person of Christ is not dwelling in man – man is in darkness concerning the things of God. 

The first step in the creation is to bring order to the darkened creation with the spirit of God, which was followed by the breaking in of the light upon the darkness.  It is the same for the soul of man.  Light must first be given.  Light provided by the Word in whom is Life and the Life is the Light of men (John 1:14).  All is the work of God. 

Two is the number that divides and separates.  However, when two or more agree, the number speaks of the witness of a true testimony. 

On the second day, God divides the waters above and below with the creation of heaven.  God dwells in the heaven.  The realm is separate from earth - man’s dwelling place. 

In eternity past, the eternal God was willing for the separation that God only knows.  God, the One Spirit of three personal beings of Deity, is the speaker, his word, and the spirit.  They made a transaction for a creation of sons of God that required one of the beings to take the likeness of man.  

This transaction forever changed that which was peculiar to God.  One of the personal beings needs a body in which to dwell and abide in forever.  For God to have His creation of sons of God in His image and after His likeness - God would provide a forever-living body for His sons of humanity - the meeting place - the dwelling place between God and man.  This provision involves two bodies.  

God initiated His provision “but when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth His Son, made of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4).  “And the angel answered and said unto her (Mary, the mother of Jesus), the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:  therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God …” (Luke 1:35).  “…thou shall call His name Jesus” (Luke 1:31). 

The blood of Jesus ratifies or validates the agreement of the transaction (Hebrews 13:20) – the shed blood of Jesus satisfied the transaction negotiated in eternity past.  Jesus in very essence God, clothed in flesh, became the servant of Jehovah – the retainer of the transaction for a creation of sons of God. 

“For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17).  “… Christ Jesus:  who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:  but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7). 

The number three speaks of reproduction and resurrection.  On the third day, God divides dry land from the seas with the creation of earth and the seed life.  The creation brings forth the grass, the herb, the fruit, and each bearing seed after its kind, whose seed is in it.  In the bearing of seed after its kind, God pictures the creation of sons of God. 

The birthed Son of God, Jesus, is the Life that God is, the life of Spirit Being - Deity.  The life of flesh that Jesus was clothed in was blood.  The flesh body of Jesus was a seed body (the process initiated), the incorruptible Seed, the Life of Spirit Being enlivening the body.  

The seed body of flesh “fell into the ground” and died (the validation of the transaction) that He abide not alone.  On the third day the first begotten Son of God was resurrected bearing Seed after His kind, the Seed body (the fulfillment) of Life everlasting (John 12:24). 

Remembering that the number One excludes difference, God’s one and only begotten Son of God was raised the Seed body of Life everlasting to reproduce seed after His kind.  God’s raised Son is His image and is after His likeness - a forever-living body.  

Within the next set of days and numbers, we see the creation itself.  The number four speaks of the four corners of the earth.  On the fourth day, God divides the day from the night with the creation of the light holders in the heaven. 

The division of light from the darkness occurred on the first evening and morning.  Light and darkness and day and night are not synonymous.  When God placed the light holders in the heavens, the nighttime entered His creation.  Before the fourth day, the light was supplied by the Presence of the Word, who had been called forth on the first day.  The light is now in the luminaries.  

In the light holders of the heaven, God declares His glory “…To give light upon the earth” (Genesis 1:17).  The light holders shine to the four corners of the earth for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. 

God uses the light holders, the luminaries of the heavens for a prophetic revelation.  With “days and years,” we understand the astronomical bodies measure time.  The word “signs” in the Hebrew means “a mark.”  A sign is a mark of something other than itself.  “Signs and seasons” were ordained of God to indicate events in the life of the coming Seed - the coming Redeemer-Deliverer.  The signs and the appointed events are not seen in the patterns of the stars themselves.  The meaning was revealed and the figures were drawn around the constellation on star charts.  

Darkness, disorder and death are in man’s world.  Light and order and life are absent.  Man’s very soul is in a state of chaos and wanting.  His life is without form and is empty; darkness is upon the surface of the waters of the wisdom of this world - the source of his thinking. 

God’s picture truth is that God shines the Light of the knowledge of the gospel of the glory of Christ into a heart to dispel the darkness.  The Holy Spirit is hovering over, bearing witness to the truth - the reality of the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation.  The person who has been in the dark – with no reality of the Person of Jesus - sees the Light shined in to dispel the darkness.  Everyone makes a choice to receive the Light and unite himself to Christ or to not receive the Light and remain as he is, having no hope, without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). 

The number five is the number of grace.  On the fifth day, God divides the water-life from the winged-life with the creation of the fish and fowl.  

In the typology of scripture, the fish speak of the sea of humanity and the fowl speak of the emissaries of the evil one - two kinds of people.  Five reveals a people called out - a people redeemed from death and saved from trespasses and sins, a people who walk with God in newness of life. 

Within the symbolism of the imagery is service – the offering of one’s self in obedience in the service of his master.  Pictured are those who are willing to receive the grace of God offered in Christ Jesus (the fish of the sea of humanity) and those who willingly refuse and serve the evil one (the fowl who type the emissaries of the evil one).  

God’s picture truth is that man is not his own; he is a creation of God with freedom of choice.  God created man because He desired a relationship with him.  To those who receive God’s grace of Light and Life, God begins to work in that soul - working to will and to do of His good pleasure.  He is the master of that soul.  Theirs is a love life of service.  Love is not servitude.  

As that one walks in the Light, the soul becomes rightly adjusted – that soul has a right sense of self – God’s reality (Philippians 2:13).  With a right sense of self, God is in His proper place.  When God is in His proper place, man recognizes his proper place as a creation of God. 

The number six is the number associated with man because it is the day of his creation; moreover, God appoints six days to him for his physical labor.  On the sixth day, God divides the living creatures, animals from man.  The animals that inhabit the earth come forth out of the earth.  God forms the image of the man from the dust of the ground – mankind, male and female.  

God brings forth the animals from the earth to serve mankind - the reason for their creation.  While animals do have a soul – mind, will and emotions, they are not spirit in being.  Their purpose is limited to an earthly existence.  God has design and purpose in everything He does. 

God’s picture truth is that God’s sole purpose for man is that he becomes a son of God - the highest good that God could bestow upon His creation.  Man’s sole purpose for being is that he chooses to become a son of God – man’s goal in life. 

The extended meaning of the number six is that it speaks of sin in its full intention, yet limited and controlled by God.  In the number of the beast (Revelation 13:17), we find six in three successively higher powers of the decimal scale – evil in its fullest, nonetheless its feebleness ever apparent. 

Thus God’s highest good for man – life everlasting is set in contrast to man’s living apart from God — the lowest of low. 

The number “seven” is used as no other number is in the scripture.  Seven and its compounds occur in multiples in the scripture.  The number expresses perfection or completeness – as is expressed by the words “ending and resting, blessing and sanctifying.” 

On the last day of creation, the seventh day, God ends his work; He rests from all His work that He created and made; He blesses the seventh day and He sanctifies it.  The word ended means to consummate or complete; rest means abstaining from labor; bless, to kneel, salute or greet; and sanctify, set apart as holy. 

God’s picture truth is that everything that is begins and ends with God.  When God is given His supremacy, submission to and dependence upon God in true faith results; man is blessed of God and sanctified as holy, order is restored to the end that God had in mind – that Christ be our life, man fulfills his purpose – to image God. 

By faith we understand God is dependable.  He says what He means and He means what He says.  God does not hide His purposes; He has no secret agenda. 

The seven days of creation are an earthly pictorial of a heavenly reality.  The stars are a heavenly pictorial of an earthly reality; each bears witness of God’s testimony of Himself to make known to us our Beloved Sovereign.  God wants us to know who He is and what His plan is.  God set the lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light of the knowledge of His glory - man must receive Life to become a Son of God. 

This “Life” is faith in the Son of God.  Faith is seeing with the eyes of our understanding those things having not yet appeared, things not yet made visible to physical eyesight but true and real nonetheless. 

Let us therefore by faith lay hold of that for which we have been laid hold of, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, let us press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:12-14). 

Let us not be distracted by the counterfeit story in the stars . . . RATHER, Let us mind the Glory that the stars reveal - the revelation of Himself, the hope of Life everlasting. 

And let us be changed from glory to glory as we look in the face of Jesus Christ.  (2Corinthians 3:18, 2Corinthians 4:6). 

God’s first man, Adam, exercised this faith.   Consideration of Adam’s “Life” follows. 

Glossary for the Seven Days of Creation

Number One is “first” – the true beginning of all. 

Number Two divides and separates.  However, when two or more agree, the number speaks of the witness of a true testimony. 

Number Three speaks of reproduction and resurrection. 

Number Four speaks of the four corners of the earth. 

Number Five speaks of grace. 

Number Six is the number of man as it is the day of his creation 

Number Seven and its compounds occur in multiples of seven in the scripture.  Thus, the number expresses perfection or completeness – as is expressed by the words “ending and resting, blessing and sanctifying.” 

Lesson # 001 Why Study the Stars?

Why Study the Stars? 

God’s plan to provide His creation with a body that will live forever shows the depth of His love.  He so longs for His creation to understand this that He pictures it over and over again – it is seen everywhere. 

Why should one study the stars?  Surely the Bible is all we need to know God?  Does the word of God teach that we are not to study the zodiac?  Are astrology and the zodiac part of the occult and in opposition to the gospel of Christ? 

These are reasonable questions. 

God’s word clearly states that He condemns the worship of the host of heaven.  Man is to reverence, honor and give homage to God who is sacred and is not to reverence, honor and give homage to his creation of luminaries.  The message of the luminaries is sacred not the stars themselves.  Any attempt, therefore, to associate the teaching of astrology with the gospel is heresy. 

Connecting the two is error and man is willfully deceived if he thinks that his personality and future are predicted by the position of the planets in relation to the sign of the zodiac under which he was born. 

To combine the thinking that the heavenly bodies have influence on human affairs with God’s message of life everlasting in the stars is a lie and strictly forbidden by God. 

This thinking and teaching is enmity to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The thinking and teaching are either the truth or the perversion of the truth.  That is all there is, one or the other, the truth or the perversion. 

To reverence the stellar signs rather than the Creator who designed them to declare the glory of God is to hold the truth in unrighteousness (Genesis 1:14, Psalm 19, Romans 1). 

Some of the words associated with the stars and the gospel of Jesus Christ are these: 

Astrology - is the study that assumes and attempts to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs.  Today we call this “study” the reading of the horoscope. 

The horoscope is an astrologer’s description of the personality and future of a person based on the position of the planets in relation to the sign of the zodiac under which the person was born. 

Constellations – are the twelve segments – signs in the Zodiac. 

Decan – means “a part.”  Each constellation has three decans.  The message of each decan is a part of that constellation’s message. 

Faith - “… is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  Faith is believing God and trusting that what He says is true.  Faith assures us that the things hoped for are real.  Faith substantiates through evidence and convicts the heart of the reality of the evidence and faith obeys the truth – the evidence. 

The Faith - is the testimony of the Son of God, the good news of the gospel of life everlasting.  “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world:  and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.  And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:4, 11-12). 

Fight of The Faith is the fight against the enmity of the mind. 

Occult – is supernatural forces, events and beings collectively and pertains to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies.  It is beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding, mysterious.  There is the spirit of this world and the Spirit of God.  The source of the spirit is the difference between mysticism, the occult, and things of the Spirit of God. 

Zodiac – means a circle and comes from the Greek word zodiakos.  The root meaning comes from a primitive root, zoad, and denotes “a way or a path or going by steps.”  The sun travels the ecliptic path of the zodiac or appears to move through the stars in twelve months.  This path repeats every year as the apparent position of the sun returns to almost the exact spot that it occupied on the same date the previous year. 

God declares His plan in the heavens and carries out His plan through men of faith, true worshipers who receive, believe and obey the testimony of the Witness of the hoped-for events planned by God but yet unseen.  The author to the Hebrews writes, through faith, we understand that the ages of these hoped-for things were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:1, 3).  The Greek verb “to frame” means to set in order, to adjust, to fit or finish.  In English, a framework is an established order or a planned system, the way a thing is put together.  The frame is the border in which a thing is set, a support on which something is stretched. 

In Scripture, the true and living God is the Creator of his creation and believing it requires faith (Hebrews 11:6).  Scripture does not speak of a creation that speaks of a Creator.  Rather, scripture speaks of a Creator, who makes Himself known through His creation.  God says in Colossians 1:16-17 that He is the Creator - the Originator of all things, “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:  all things were created by him, and for him:  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”  

His word does not argue the facts to prove He exists.  God’s character, His views, His actions require no explanation.  He is a spirit being of Deity who is higher than our thoughts.  “For the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).  If our ways are to become His ways, then His thoughts must become our thoughts. 

The difference between reasoning within ourselves and reasoning together with God is faith.  Through an act of the mind, we receive the truth revealed to us; through faith, we understand.  Reasoning with Him brings different conclusions than the conclusions that come independently from gathering the facts. 

God created the light holders (the sun moon and stars) and named them to declare His glory (Psalm 147:4, Psalm 19:1).  The Lord God set His plan within a frame laid out in His heaven as a blueprint to follow.  He wrote His testimony in the heavens as a witness to the good news of His Anointed Son, the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). 

Understanding this covenant gives man a rightly directed reverence for God and a true understanding of His purpose as a creation of God.  In the stretched out firmament, the heavenly luminaries bear witness to the unseen future hoped-for realities (Psalm 19:1-6). 

We believe the truth - not as a deduction of reasoning - but as declared and revealed to us by a loving caring Creator God.  God gives the facts; we receive the facts on the evidence of the testimony of God’s Word.  We receive the facts as truth revealed, declared and attested to by the infallible word of the living God. 

Everything changes when we look at creation from God’s point of view. 

The created things unfold and expand the God of our creation.  The invisible things of God are clearly seen when they are understood by the things that are made (Romans 1:20).  Understanding comes through faith.  Believing God brings understanding in our very being; we understand who He is, what He has done, and why He did it the way He did. 

With understanding comes a reverence for His majesty.  With a reverence of His majesty, we take our proper place as a creation in humility.  In humility, we submissively learn of Him. 

Before we consider our study of the stars, we are going to begin with the Creator of the luminaires.  In the record of the creation (Genesis 1), God Himself appears and tells us authoritatively who He is, what He has done, and why He did it. 

Moses used the Hebrew word Elohim which translates into God in English.  Elohim is a generic term for Deity.  Deity is different from humanity.  Humanity is created; Deity is eternal.  Deity is pre-existent and self-existent, uncreated Being.  Deity is Spirit; Deity is Righteous. 

Elohim is a plural noun – “im” is a plural ending; and “us” and “our” are plural.  The Hebrew language has singular – one, dual – two, and plural more than two, nouns and verbs.  The English language does not distinguish this plurality.  The word created is a singular verb. 

Because Elohim is a plural noun, we know there are more than two persons who are Deity; because created is a singular verb, we understand there is one Creator God and more than two persons in the One Creator God.  

Elohim speaks of a mighty, all-powerful Sovereign Ruler of the universe - a universe He created.  In the Genesis record, we see One God in three Persons: 

God the Speaker,

His Word in whom is Life and that Life is the Light of men, and

The Spirit of God. 

Elohim is one God of Spirit being of Deity with three personal beings.  Each being is God – each has a mind, will and emotions - as one – all of the same Spirit of Deity.  The Personal beings are not yet Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The blueprint for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was accomplished before God entered time; but the realization will occur in the fullness of time. 

The stellar signs are pictorials.  A picture is the most vivid way to express a truth.  Even children comprehend pictures.  Clustered in easily recognized groupings the stellar signs are pictorials of the good news of the Anointed Son of God.  Add names to the pictures, along with colors and numbers and the imprint is stamped in the mind like an engraving.  It is etched in the brain so that the man is without excuse in his knowledge of God. 

Information in a message and the understanding of the message are different.  The pictorial and the star names express the knowledge of the message.  Through faith, we understand the message.  Through faith, we apprehend the understanding of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. 

The ways of God are mysterious, but the works of God are not.  God is neither mystical nor magical.  There is the spirit of this world and the Spirit of God.  The difference between mysticism and spiritual is the spirit in which it is sourced.  Sometimes people interchange the term spiritual with mystical, thinking they are the same; and they are not. 

The singular purpose of the twelve stellar luminary signs placed in the heavens is to know God and His Christ.  Best of all, God’s written word not only confirms the truth revealed in the stars, numerous star references are in the word of God. 

Many of the scriptures that refer to the message of the stars are not recognized because the relevancy of the stars has been lost; however, just as the luminaries are scattered in the heavens so the message of the stars is scattered throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation. 

Thus, in our study of the stellar signs, we will consider scriptures that support the “reading of the signs,” and we will lay out the plan of God’s Eternal Covenant of Life Everlasting as it is revealed in the luminaries. 

God never does anything without design or purpose.  He loves symmetry and everything about Him speaks of order.  In fact, God numerically arranges the creation and scripture.  God divides and characterizes both according to the principles of His numerical structure.  

Verse two of Genesis 1 tells us how the One God called the universe into being and the remainder of the chapter is a pictorial of the prophetic account of the covenant of everlasting life displayed in the stars. 

God is faithful in His attention to detail and although men can and have perverted the message of the stars, the stars remain unchanged; they will abide forever (Jeremiah 31:35-36).  

God also pictures the prophetic covenant of everlasting life within the seven days of creation.  Those pictures will be looked at in the next lesson. 

Glossary for Why Study the Stars

See pages 1 and 2 of the Chapter