Reverend's book 2 on Genesis continue to inspire us, with the events in the life of Adam and Eve. - The Fall of Man and The Perfect Salvation of God
I hope to cover important passages in the mentioned book, so that anyone reading this book review would be able to ruminate on the Word of God. Most passages are copied directly from the book to preserve the essence. I have grouped this review into three parts sin, salvation and contemplation. Sin describes the state of human beings, salvation addressing the solution to the problem of sin and contemplation the way forward in the Gospel of Water and Spirit.
Even though the gospel of the water and the Spirit is absolutely the biblical Truth, we see that the majority of Christians today define this Truth as false and reject it. Although the fact that God has blotted out all the sins of this world with the gospel of the water and the Spirit has never changed, far from believing in this, too many people still continue to stand against it. This is a great error stemming from this stereotyped biased view: “Whatever is supported by the majority is the truth.”
While it would not be an easy task to fully explain how this earth was made, one thing clear is that it was made by God. We have nothing but faith in this matter—as we’ve seen how the Word of God proclaims that it is God who created the heavens and the earth, we know it to be true, for we believe in it.
SIN
In Genesis 2:17, God had said, “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.” When we compare this Word to what Satan said to Eve, we can see the wiles of Satan that made her disobey God’s commandment. Satan said to Eve, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
The Devil surreptitiously misappropriates the Word of God as a way to inject his evil poison into people. In other words, by adding slight modifications to the Word of God or subtracting from it, Satan ultimately prevents people from believing in God’s Word.
Human beings, because they are all born as the descendants of Adam, can never practice virtue. Man is evil by nature. Adam and Eve fell into Satan’s temptation by not believing God. For you and me alike, we, too, will fall into the Devil’s temptation if we do not believe in God. Is mankind good by nature, or is it evil? The Bible says that mankind is evil and filthy by its very nature. It is written in Mark 7:20-22, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” As such, the Bible declares that mankind is filled with all sorts of iniquities. Mankind is filthy because there is sin in his heart. Filthier than anything else is mankind. So the Bible states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Our Lord said, “Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.”
The ground in this passage means our hearts. He who is to till our hearts is Jesus Christ alone, who came as the incarnated Word. God’s Word, moreover, brings rain on our fields, plows them, and yields such hearts of faith that can serve the God of absolute goodness. Before Jesus Christ came to our human realm, God wanted to plow the fields of our hearts. At the beginning, there was only mist on the ground. The earth or ground refers to the human heart. Therefore, the passage “A mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground” symbolizes the state of the hearts of those who don’t have Jesus Christ. In other words, the hearts of those who are not yet born again are filled with only their own thoughts.
God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all
cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly
you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.”
That Satan was now to live feeding on dust means that the fallen angel was to live in this world feeding on the lust and greed of mankind. Satan tempted mankind and made it sin, and as a result, he came to feed only on its sins. In other words, God cursed the Devil to eat the vile sins committed by human beings, and prevented him from having true life. God completely cut him off, so that he may never eat the spiritual bread of Heaven or the blessings coming from Him. That is why those who are trapped by the Devil cannot receive and eat the spiritual Word either.
As we carry on with our lives, could we really commit no sin at all? Of course not! No human being is capable of refraining from sin. Since everyone was born with sin, everyone is a sinner. And death and hell are inevitable to man. That is why God is saying to human beings, who are all such sinners, “The wages of sin is death.”
Salvation
It’s not because we commit a particularly horrendous sin that we are sent to hell, but it is because we do not believe in God’s Word that we end up committing the very sin that sends us to hell. Blaspheming the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the very blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 10:26-29).
Enemies fight each other. Mankind and the Devil fight each other as enemies; the Devil is God’s enemy, and he is also our enemy, the enemy of all mankind. However, there is no enmity between mankind and God. Human beings are creatures that God made for a profound purpose. It’s because of the fallen angel, Satan, that mankind became God’s enemy in this world.
“I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
--Genesis 3:15
“Her seed” here refers to Jesus Christ. And God said to the Devil, “You shall bruise His heel.” When Jesus came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, Satan thought that all that he had to do was just kill Him. He thought, “If only I kill Him, I will rule over this world forever.” Satan’s plan, however, resulted in a complete failure, for Jesus not only died on the Cross, but He also rose from the dead again. Satan then tried to assert his dominion over the world by trapping mankind in deception, but because of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he failed once again.
It’s because Jesus Christ had taken upon all the sins of the world through His baptism that He had to die on the Cross for sure. Failing to realize this, Satan thought that he just had to kill Him. Just as God had said, “You shall bruise His heel,” Satan entered into people’s hearts and told them to kill Jesus Christ. He went into the Pharisees’ hearts, to the High Priest’s heart, and then to the hearts of Roman soldiers and Pilate, and told them, “Kill Him! Just kill Him!” To the Jews, the Devil incited them to crucify Jesus, and to Pilate, he nudged him to forget about trying to determine whether Jesus was guilty or not, and to wash off his hands and just give Him up. So Pilate took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it” (Matthew 27:24). Then, he delivered Jesus to death. This meant that he insisted on his innocence, but in fact, Pilate had failed to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of all sinners, and he ended as an instrument of the Devil.
Satan thought that he succeeded by crucifying Jesus, but Jesus rebounded with a comeback win by rising from the dead again. The very moment that the Devil crucified Jesus, he had to give up all the power that he previously had to accuse mankind of every sin and control it.
It is by faith that we reach salvation, and it is also by faith that we receive blessings from God. Serving the Lord, too, is done by faith. It is by faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we are made God’s servants, and it is by faith that we practice the righteousness of God. God said, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). It is from faith that works come out, not faith from works. When we read the Book of James, it may seem as if it emphasizes works, but when it says, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” it is still premised on faith. In other words, it’s precisely because one has no faith that he has no works.
Contemplation
For us to receive the remission of our sins, we shouldn’t come up with self-centered excuses. Yet people have so many excuses. Every why has a wherefore. Who ever commits sin without an excuse? Everyone has his own plea, but all that we have to do is just admit that we have committed sin. Does the Almighty not know this? He knows it all. If we were to come up with excuses, there would be plenty of things to go around.
Before the Word of the Lord came to us, our hearts had been filled with our own thoughts. When one does not truly know the Lord’s Word, he cannot know anything about even his own sins, nor can he know what the Truth is. He is completely oblivious as to who he is as a human being, where he came from, where he is heading, what is the meaning of his existence, what his sins are, what is the righteousness of God, nor what His judgment is. Therefore, we should first look at the written Word, and from this Word realize how absolutely evil mankind is, and how our thoughts are different from God’s thoughts.
Just as fog is absolutely useless to crops, mankind’s thoughts are blocking God’s good plan and His Truth from entering its heart. We need to realize that our human thoughts can bring absolutely no benefit to us. You’ve probably experienced for yourselves how useless thoughts tend to arise in your minds like fog when you are sitting at home alone.
At this point we need to realize clearly and exactly how we should lead our lives of faith, and believe in our faith. “God has given me the tree of life. Knowing that I would become a sinner, Jesus came to this earth, took upon my sins once for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and has blotted out my sins and saved me. He has given me faith, and when I believed in Jesus Christ, He took me in as God’s child, gave me Heaven, brought me peace, and bestowed me with all His blessings. Given this, has my salvation come by faith or works? Is salvation reached by my virtuous deeds even though I believe in Jesus?” We need to be clear on this issue.
Why did God tell Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of this tree? The reason is that God wanted humans to accept and trust in His judgment, and live by faith, rather than judging good and evil on their own, like God Himself. God did not make the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for any other reason. He made this tree so that man would not exalt himself higher than God, and thus commit the arrogant sin of judging God for himself. That is why everyone who is tricked by the wiles of the Devil invariably commits the sin of arrogance and stands against God.
Genesis 3:21 says, “Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.”
Tunics of skin here refer to leather clothes, and leather clothes, even if they get worn out, can be sewed back and made whole again. There is a big difference between these tunics of skin and the garments of fig leaves that Adam and Eve had made for themselves. The clothes that Adam and Eve had made for themselves were made out of fig leaves, while the garments that God made and clothed them were tunics of skin. These tunics of skin were the kind of garments that do not tear easily and, once put on, last for one’s entire lifetime. The tunics of skin—that is, our salvation by Jesus Christ—never fade nor disappear. Adam wore these tunics of skin until the day he died. Likewise, as God sent Jesus Christ as our propitiation to give us everlasting salvation, the garment of this salvation is forever lasting. Once we put on the garment of salvation that God made and clothed us, it never disappears unless we ourselves take it off. Jesus Christ has clothed us with the garment of righteousness, and this is the perfect salvation that is like the tunics of skin, neither torn nor worn out.
My fellow believers, if you feel stifled and suffocating while living in this world, then you should pray to God. Look for what the Word says about prayer, confirm it for yourselves, and believe in it. Faith in God will then spring forth in your hearts, and peace will then come to your hearts. And the carnal
thoughts that are in your hearts will begin to disappear. How can faith in the Word of God find its place in our hearts?
This faith is attainable only when you deny your carnal thoughts. This is extremely important. Do you realize that faith in God comes from denying your carnal thoughts? You can believe in God’s Word only if you actually have faith in God; you can receive the remission of your sins by faith only if you know the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit; and it is when only you believe that you can become God’s children and be blessed for your faith.
It is by faith that we reach salvation, and it is also by faith that we receive blessings from God. Serving the Lord, too, is done by faith. It is by faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we are made God’s servants, and it is by faith that we practice the righteousness of God. God said, “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).
