This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered how to confront people by getting them to state their will about the past. Here is the summary:
Stating your will about a past action takes you out from under mercy, which allows God to respond to you through Justice.
We ought to WANT this so that we can go HOT towards God. This technique prevents us from being LUKEWARM.
However, people who are NOT excellent desire to remain LUKEWARM...so they will attempt to ignore the Questions.
We also saw a three Question technique to cover situations where a person's SAY and DO are incongruous.
First Question: Did you say you would do (action)?
Second Question: Did you do (action)?
Third Question: Do you think THAT is right?
Today, we will conclude the month with the technique for confronting the LEAST excellent people...
STATE YOUR WILL ABOUT THE FUTURE
When we have someone state their will about a past action, they can still ramp up emotionally and attempt to feel good about themself by feeling bad about us. The person can respond to "Do you think THAT is right?" with: "Who do you think you are...God? You aren't my judge! You aren't perfect either!"
If the confronted person did this, he would be proving he is not excellent. This brings up the following Question: Is there a way to confront someone so that they can't ramp up emotionally?
The answer is "Yes"...however, this technique is intended for the LEAST excellent people...especially people who are "damaged".
Basically, we take a present event (action or statement) that an individual did and we bring it to their attention in Question form about a future event that could happen to them.
For example, in the previous post, we took a past event (action or statement) that an individual did and we brought it to their attention in Question form. The specific example dealt with me hitting someone and being asked: "John, do you think it was right to hit that person?"
If I was LEAST excellent, this Question would become: "John, are you going to think it is right if someone hits you?"
There are some subtle points to notice about this Question...
First, answering "yes" would be a statement of the will that I will not complain in the future if they same thing happens to me...which is essentially a statement of the will that I don't believe I did anything wrong by hitting the person...which means I am stating my will that God can equal out Justice by having someone hit me.
Second, answering "no" would be a statement of the will that I was either wrong OR a hypocrite...and hypocrites don't go to Heaven. Either way, this answer allows God to equal out Justice against me.
Third, the confronter is NOT directly referring to me hitting someone else. IF I try not to answer this Question by getting defensive and linking this Question to my having hit someone, I would be PROJECTING and JUDGING the confronter which would become an admission of guilt!
I don't care how "unexcellent" or damaged a person is, I have NEVER seen a person immediately jump to making projecting and judgmental Statements to me when I have asked this type of Question. The unexcellent/damaged person knows THAT would be an admission of guilt...a statement of the will they know they are guilty.
If they did ramp up, the confronter could ask, "Do you have a guilty conscience? I didn't mention what you DID...I'm trying to understand how you would feel if you got hit."
The "best" the confronted could hope for is to walk away from the confronter without answering the Question...there is NO POSSIBILITY they can ramp up emotionally and maintain this state.
SUMMARY
This month we have looked at background foundational information so that we can better understand the solutions presented for today's church in Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
We have covered sin (first dimensional, second dimensional, third dimensional, and Original), God's Nature and first two interactions with humans, and confronting people.
We have seen God is much more focused on our reaction to our sin (second dimensional) than to the sin itself (first dimensional). God values Growth through Repair/Repentance. God specifically showed us HOW/WHY He confronted our first dimensional sin for our benefit...and judged second dimensional sin.
We have seen people tend to judge first dimensional sin which makes the person who judges a hypocrite. This tends to value something that is impossible (perfection) and actually PREVENTS growth.
Tomorrow, we will begin Matthew chapter 18...
Next Post
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
State Your Will About The Past
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered how God confronted people in the Bible. Here is the summary:
God used four methods to confront people depending on the excellence of the individual. We saw these methods were arranged on a scale depending on the excellence of the person being confronted.
The most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Statement. The next most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Question. Next, God confronted people with Judgment IF/THEN's. The rest of the people were confronted with a Non-Judgment Question.
We will look at two more ways to confront people. Both involve dealing with people who are even less excellent than what we've covered.
Today, we will cover the first of these two ways...
STATE YOUR WILL ABOUT THE PAST
We have covered this technique in various posts throughout the existence of this blog.
Basically, we take a past event (action or statement) that an individual did and we bring it to their attention in Question form. We used the following illustration to explain this:
The "if" Arrow is our Question that is combined with Arrow "four" which is actually the event from the individual's past (which is Arrow "sin").
This technique is very similar to a Non-Judgment Question. However, what makes it different is the question is intentionally presented in a manner that will lead to the individual bringing judgment on themselves with their answer.
For example, God's Non-Judgment Question to Adam was: "Where art thou?"
With a State Your Will About The Past, the Question would look more like this: "Adam, do you think it was right to hide from God?"
The purpose of this type of Question is to get the LUKEWARM person out from under mercy.
Remember, mercy is the time between the bad act and the punishment. If there is a short time, then there is little mercy. If there is a long time, there is great mercy.
Mercy is NOT the removal of punishment...THAT would violate Justice.
When a person has done something wrong, their punishment can be delayed because they are under mercy. God grants mercy in order to give the individual time to Repent/Repair the effects of the bad act. When a person has a lot of mercy, God will not resolve Justice NOW because the person hasn't even gotten to the step where they admit what they did was a bad act. God is giving the individual time to work it out.
However, if the individual were to state outloud they thought the bad act was good, God would have to resolve Justice NOW, otherwise, God would be leading the person to believe He wanted them to continue acting in this way. Let's look at an example...
If I hit someone and had a lot of mercy from God (because I give others a lot of mercy), God would give me time to come to the realization this act was bad and that I ought to Repent/Repair it. If I never speak about the act, then I would remain under mercy...until Judgment Day.
However, if I stated to you that I hit someone and it was a good thing, God would have to equal out Justice against me...THIS would actually be merciful!
Otherwise, if God did nothing, I would be convinced hitting people was in God's Will and I'd continue to hit people. Then when I got to Judgment Day and found out I will lose Reward for hitting people, I could have a complaint against God! I could say that He ought to have done something to discourage me from hitting people. Fortunately, He does...
In fact, I write "fortunately" because we ought to WANT God to punish us NOW for what we do wrong. We ought to WANT to state our will so we can know God's Will!
In this example, you would approach me and ask, "John, do you think it was right to hit that person?"
Now, if I say, "no", then I will be convicted not only by the Holy Spirit, but also by my Unaware Brain...until I confess and repent to that person.
If I say, "yes", then God can punish me NOW through Justice.
My experience is most people won't answer the Queston!!!!
This PROVES they are NOT excellent!...which is why this technique is on the less excellent part of the scale.
In fact, I have expanded this State Your Will technique to three Questions for people whose SAY and DO are incongruous...
First Question: Did you say you would do (action)?
Second Question: Did you do (action)?
Third Question: Do you think THAT is right?
For example, I may have told you I would give you a ride to work...and then I don't do it. You would say:
"John, did you say you would give me a ride to work?"
"John, did you give me a ride to work?"
"John, do you think that was right?"
I have told the confronter to begin by saying to the confronted:
1. I want to ask three Questions
2. All I am looking for is a "Yes" or a "No" (The Bible says in TWO PLACES, let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no".)
3. I will not say anything else...I will walk away
If the confronted person begins their answers with anything other than "yes" or "no", I have the confronter say, "I will hear ANYTHING you want to say AFTER you say 'yes' or 'no' ONLY."
You will be amazed how hard it is for people to answer three factual Questions! I have had confronters tell me it took an hour to get a confronted person to answer the first two questions!
For years, I believed people must know SUBCONSCIOUSLY that giving ANY answer will bring an end to their mercy...
We now know this technique is involving the Unaware Brain. The three Questions make the conscious brain share its intentions with the Unaware Brain. If the intentions are hypocritical, the Unaware Brain recognizes an inconsistent pattern and begins to shut down (depress) the confronted person.
I have taught this technique to people who are married. When they use it on their spouse, I tell them to release their spouse to God after they get the three answers. Sure enough, the confronted spouse doesn't sleep that night and wants to change or qualify their answers the next day.
SUMMARY
Stating your will about a past action takes you out from under mercy, which allows God to respond to you through Justice.
We ought to WANT this so that we can go HOT towards God. This technique prevents us from being LUKEWARM.
However, people who are NOT excellent desire to remain LUKEWARM...so they will attempt to ignore the Questions.
We also saw a three Question technique to cover situations where a person's SAY and DO are incongruous.
First Question: Did you say you would do (action)?
Second Question: Did you do (action)?
Third Question: Do you think THAT is right?
On Monday, we will conclude the month with the technique for confronting the LEAST excellent people...
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered how God confronted people in the Bible. Here is the summary:
God used four methods to confront people depending on the excellence of the individual. We saw these methods were arranged on a scale depending on the excellence of the person being confronted.
The most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Statement. The next most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Question. Next, God confronted people with Judgment IF/THEN's. The rest of the people were confronted with a Non-Judgment Question.
We will look at two more ways to confront people. Both involve dealing with people who are even less excellent than what we've covered.
Today, we will cover the first of these two ways...
STATE YOUR WILL ABOUT THE PAST
We have covered this technique in various posts throughout the existence of this blog.
Basically, we take a past event (action or statement) that an individual did and we bring it to their attention in Question form. We used the following illustration to explain this:
The "if" Arrow is our Question that is combined with Arrow "four" which is actually the event from the individual's past (which is Arrow "sin").
This technique is very similar to a Non-Judgment Question. However, what makes it different is the question is intentionally presented in a manner that will lead to the individual bringing judgment on themselves with their answer.
For example, God's Non-Judgment Question to Adam was: "Where art thou?"
With a State Your Will About The Past, the Question would look more like this: "Adam, do you think it was right to hide from God?"
The purpose of this type of Question is to get the LUKEWARM person out from under mercy.
Remember, mercy is the time between the bad act and the punishment. If there is a short time, then there is little mercy. If there is a long time, there is great mercy.
Mercy is NOT the removal of punishment...THAT would violate Justice.
When a person has done something wrong, their punishment can be delayed because they are under mercy. God grants mercy in order to give the individual time to Repent/Repair the effects of the bad act. When a person has a lot of mercy, God will not resolve Justice NOW because the person hasn't even gotten to the step where they admit what they did was a bad act. God is giving the individual time to work it out.
However, if the individual were to state outloud they thought the bad act was good, God would have to resolve Justice NOW, otherwise, God would be leading the person to believe He wanted them to continue acting in this way. Let's look at an example...
If I hit someone and had a lot of mercy from God (because I give others a lot of mercy), God would give me time to come to the realization this act was bad and that I ought to Repent/Repair it. If I never speak about the act, then I would remain under mercy...until Judgment Day.
However, if I stated to you that I hit someone and it was a good thing, God would have to equal out Justice against me...THIS would actually be merciful!
Otherwise, if God did nothing, I would be convinced hitting people was in God's Will and I'd continue to hit people. Then when I got to Judgment Day and found out I will lose Reward for hitting people, I could have a complaint against God! I could say that He ought to have done something to discourage me from hitting people. Fortunately, He does...
In fact, I write "fortunately" because we ought to WANT God to punish us NOW for what we do wrong. We ought to WANT to state our will so we can know God's Will!
In this example, you would approach me and ask, "John, do you think it was right to hit that person?"
Now, if I say, "no", then I will be convicted not only by the Holy Spirit, but also by my Unaware Brain...until I confess and repent to that person.
If I say, "yes", then God can punish me NOW through Justice.
My experience is most people won't answer the Queston!!!!
This PROVES they are NOT excellent!...which is why this technique is on the less excellent part of the scale.
In fact, I have expanded this State Your Will technique to three Questions for people whose SAY and DO are incongruous...
First Question: Did you say you would do (action)?
Second Question: Did you do (action)?
Third Question: Do you think THAT is right?
For example, I may have told you I would give you a ride to work...and then I don't do it. You would say:
"John, did you say you would give me a ride to work?"
"John, did you give me a ride to work?"
"John, do you think that was right?"
I have told the confronter to begin by saying to the confronted:
1. I want to ask three Questions
2. All I am looking for is a "Yes" or a "No" (The Bible says in TWO PLACES, let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no".)
3. I will not say anything else...I will walk away
If the confronted person begins their answers with anything other than "yes" or "no", I have the confronter say, "I will hear ANYTHING you want to say AFTER you say 'yes' or 'no' ONLY."
You will be amazed how hard it is for people to answer three factual Questions! I have had confronters tell me it took an hour to get a confronted person to answer the first two questions!
For years, I believed people must know SUBCONSCIOUSLY that giving ANY answer will bring an end to their mercy...
We now know this technique is involving the Unaware Brain. The three Questions make the conscious brain share its intentions with the Unaware Brain. If the intentions are hypocritical, the Unaware Brain recognizes an inconsistent pattern and begins to shut down (depress) the confronted person.
I have taught this technique to people who are married. When they use it on their spouse, I tell them to release their spouse to God after they get the three answers. Sure enough, the confronted spouse doesn't sleep that night and wants to change or qualify their answers the next day.
SUMMARY
Stating your will about a past action takes you out from under mercy, which allows God to respond to you through Justice.
We ought to WANT this so that we can go HOT towards God. This technique prevents us from being LUKEWARM.
However, people who are NOT excellent desire to remain LUKEWARM...so they will attempt to ignore the Questions.
We also saw a three Question technique to cover situations where a person's SAY and DO are incongruous.
First Question: Did you say you would do (action)?
Second Question: Did you do (action)?
Third Question: Do you think THAT is right?
On Monday, we will conclude the month with the technique for confronting the LEAST excellent people...
Next Post
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Confronting People
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
Last week, we covered the story of Adam and Eve and Original Sin (Genesis 3). This week we covered the story of Cain and Abel. (Genesis chapter 4). Here is the summary:
This story PERFECTLY matches God's interaction with Adam and Eve. The same principles we saw in the post titled, "Original Sin" are seen in this story.
Cain's REAL issue was his interaction with God. However, he focused on Abel instead. God attempted to show Cain if Cain would just focus on Cain and God (FIRST COMMAND) then all the effects (SECOND COMMAND) would be Profitable.
God essentially stated to Cain that his possible failing the FIRST COMMAND (Love the Lord thy God...) would result in Cain failing the SECOND COMMAND (Love your neighbor...). Failing the SECOND COMMAND resulted in First Dimensional sin. When God confronts us on First Dimensional sin, we can fail this with the result being we commit Second Dimensional sin against God.
First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual. We all have First Dimensional sins. First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model. First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God. All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day.
Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual.
We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins. Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model. Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God. All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day.
God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin.
God's ONLY concern with your First Dimensional sin is NOT that you committed it, but HOW you respond to your First Dimensional sin. We OUGHT to feel guilty for First Dimensional Sin. That guilt OUGHT to lead us to respond to our First Dimensional sin with confession and repentance to the individual we sinned against.
God's concern will be expressed through Justice...which can APPEAR to us like God is focused on First Dimensional sin. ACTUALLY, God's focus is much greater than ours. He is focused on our Salvation.
Cain's First Dimensional sin (killing his brother) resulted in the ground being cursed for him.
Cain's Second Dimensional sin (Lying to God) resulted in Cain going out from the presence of God.
The First Dimensional sin was against Abel, so judgment comes through Justice and affects Reward.
The Second Dimensional sin was against God, so judgment comes through Righteousness and affects Salvation...influence from God.
We have seen two stories of God confronting people...and the people got worse with each confrontation. We saw in Matthew 12, Jesus had four confrontations with the Pharisees...and the Pharisees got worse with each confrontation.
We saw Jesus stopped speaking truth directly...beginning in Matthew 13, Jesus ONLY spoke in parables. Jesus became more abstract. Likewise, after Genesis chapter 4, God the Father becomes more abstract.
The BEST understanding of God's Nature comes from these stories documenting His first two interactions with humans.
Today, we will look more closely at HOW God confronted people...
CONFRONTING PEOPLE
Over the years on this blog, we have covered confronting people in dozens of posts. In today's post, I want to present a series of ways people were confronted by God. We can see these confrontations arranged on a scale.
During the Leadership Series, we saw Leaders facilitate the Purpose and Progress of others. Leaders adjust their expectations of people according to the excellence of the individual. However, Leaders (God's doctrine) are harshest towards the most excellent people, while Bosses (Man's doctrine) are most harsh towards the least excellent people.
The Bible shows us God the Father and Jesus Christ acted more harshly the greater the maturity of the individual. Let's look at this scale beginning with the harshest confrontational style...
1. Judgment Statement - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Statement that Judges or Projects onto the individual.
Remember, we've already covered this verse during this Series:
"36 And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matthew 12:36)
If the Leader is wrong AT ALL, the Leader will pay for the portion they were wrong about. Consequently, God the Father and Jesus ought to be the only people who do this. However, the person they do this to is someone they considered as excellent. For example, we saw the following passage last month:
"22 And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee.
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:22-23)
Peter rebuked Jesus. Jesus' confrontational response? Jesus made a Judgment Statement.
Think about this: The embodiment of Right and Just called Peter the embodiment of evil. Is there anything Jesus could have said to Peter that would have been WORSE? Jesus had high expectations for this Leader among Jesus' Disciples.
Let's look at an Old Testament example:
"34 Men of understanding will say unto me, Yea, every wise man that heareth me:
35 Job speaketh without knowledge, And his words are without wisdom.
36 Would that Job were tried unto the end, Because of his answering like wicked men.
37 For he addeth rebellion unto his sin; He clappeth his hands among us, And multiplieth his words against God." (Job 34:34-37)
During the Job Series, we saw Elihu spoke for God when he stated these Judgment Statements to Job. The entire point of the Book of Job rests on the fact that Job was the most excellent person!
(In fact, we followed the Job Series with a Series on "The New Testament Job"...which was Peter going through the sifting process.)
2. Judgment Question - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Question that Judges or Projects.
"1 But Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
2 and asked of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
3 And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven:
4 and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9:1-4)
Jesus' first words to Paul (Saul) asked him why he was persecuting Jesus!
3. Judgement IF/THEN - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are an IF/THEN Statement bringing Judgment.
We have seen IF/THEN Statements are not, in and of themselves, condemning. We have seen during this Series, Jesus used this type of confrontation when dealing with the Pharisees on the WORST Sin:
"28 But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.
29 Or how can one enter into the house of the strong man, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
30 He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.
31 Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven." (Matthew 12:28-31)
Jesus stated an IF/THEN which could result in the Pharisees committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
A lot of the Old Testament Prophets talked this same way on God's behalf:
"1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness;
2 to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 They shall only bow down under the prisoners, and shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 10:1-4)
Notice, verses 1 and 2 were a Judgment IF/THEN.
Verse 3 contains THREE QUESTIONS.
Then Judgment Statements are made from verse 4 on...
4. Non-Judgment Question - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Question that does not Judge or Project.
We saw several examples of this last week and this week:
"9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9)
"6 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?" (Genesis 4:6)
"9 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?..." (Genesis 4:9)
These are the FIRST PEOPLE to have existed, so God was LEAST harsh with them.
Notice, the previous method (Judgment IF/THEN) was used during the Law...the people that existed from Exodus through Malachi.
Finally, notice the difference between the two Question methods (#2 and #4):
If Jesus had confronted Saul (Paul) the same way (#2) as God did Adam and Cain (#4), He would have said: "Saul, Saul, what are you doing?"
If God had confronted Adam the same way (#4) as Jesus did Saul (Paul) (#2), He would have said: "Adam, Adam, why did you disobey me?"
SUMMARY
God used four methods to confront people depending on the excellence of the individual. We saw these methods were arranged on a scale depending on the excellence of the person being confronted.
The most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Statement. The next most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Question. Next, God confronted people with Judgment IF/THEN's. The rest of the people were confronted with a Non-Judgment Question.
We will look at two more ways to confront people. Both involve dealing with people who are even less excellent than what we've covered.
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
Last week, we covered the story of Adam and Eve and Original Sin (Genesis 3). This week we covered the story of Cain and Abel. (Genesis chapter 4). Here is the summary:
This story PERFECTLY matches God's interaction with Adam and Eve. The same principles we saw in the post titled, "Original Sin" are seen in this story.
Cain's REAL issue was his interaction with God. However, he focused on Abel instead. God attempted to show Cain if Cain would just focus on Cain and God (FIRST COMMAND) then all the effects (SECOND COMMAND) would be Profitable.
God essentially stated to Cain that his possible failing the FIRST COMMAND (Love the Lord thy God...) would result in Cain failing the SECOND COMMAND (Love your neighbor...). Failing the SECOND COMMAND resulted in First Dimensional sin. When God confronts us on First Dimensional sin, we can fail this with the result being we commit Second Dimensional sin against God.
First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual. We all have First Dimensional sins. First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model. First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God. All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day.
Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual.
We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins. Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model. Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God. All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day.
God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin.
God's ONLY concern with your First Dimensional sin is NOT that you committed it, but HOW you respond to your First Dimensional sin. We OUGHT to feel guilty for First Dimensional Sin. That guilt OUGHT to lead us to respond to our First Dimensional sin with confession and repentance to the individual we sinned against.
God's concern will be expressed through Justice...which can APPEAR to us like God is focused on First Dimensional sin. ACTUALLY, God's focus is much greater than ours. He is focused on our Salvation.
Cain's First Dimensional sin (killing his brother) resulted in the ground being cursed for him.
Cain's Second Dimensional sin (Lying to God) resulted in Cain going out from the presence of God.
The First Dimensional sin was against Abel, so judgment comes through Justice and affects Reward.
The Second Dimensional sin was against God, so judgment comes through Righteousness and affects Salvation...influence from God.
We have seen two stories of God confronting people...and the people got worse with each confrontation. We saw in Matthew 12, Jesus had four confrontations with the Pharisees...and the Pharisees got worse with each confrontation.
We saw Jesus stopped speaking truth directly...beginning in Matthew 13, Jesus ONLY spoke in parables. Jesus became more abstract. Likewise, after Genesis chapter 4, God the Father becomes more abstract.
The BEST understanding of God's Nature comes from these stories documenting His first two interactions with humans.
Today, we will look more closely at HOW God confronted people...
CONFRONTING PEOPLE
Over the years on this blog, we have covered confronting people in dozens of posts. In today's post, I want to present a series of ways people were confronted by God. We can see these confrontations arranged on a scale.
During the Leadership Series, we saw Leaders facilitate the Purpose and Progress of others. Leaders adjust their expectations of people according to the excellence of the individual. However, Leaders (God's doctrine) are harshest towards the most excellent people, while Bosses (Man's doctrine) are most harsh towards the least excellent people.
The Bible shows us God the Father and Jesus Christ acted more harshly the greater the maturity of the individual. Let's look at this scale beginning with the harshest confrontational style...
1. Judgment Statement - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Statement that Judges or Projects onto the individual.
Remember, we've already covered this verse during this Series:
"36 And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matthew 12:36)
If the Leader is wrong AT ALL, the Leader will pay for the portion they were wrong about. Consequently, God the Father and Jesus ought to be the only people who do this. However, the person they do this to is someone they considered as excellent. For example, we saw the following passage last month:
"22 And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee.
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:22-23)
Peter rebuked Jesus. Jesus' confrontational response? Jesus made a Judgment Statement.
Think about this: The embodiment of Right and Just called Peter the embodiment of evil. Is there anything Jesus could have said to Peter that would have been WORSE? Jesus had high expectations for this Leader among Jesus' Disciples.
Let's look at an Old Testament example:
"34 Men of understanding will say unto me, Yea, every wise man that heareth me:
35 Job speaketh without knowledge, And his words are without wisdom.
36 Would that Job were tried unto the end, Because of his answering like wicked men.
37 For he addeth rebellion unto his sin; He clappeth his hands among us, And multiplieth his words against God." (Job 34:34-37)
During the Job Series, we saw Elihu spoke for God when he stated these Judgment Statements to Job. The entire point of the Book of Job rests on the fact that Job was the most excellent person!
(In fact, we followed the Job Series with a Series on "The New Testament Job"...which was Peter going through the sifting process.)
2. Judgment Question - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Question that Judges or Projects.
"1 But Saul, yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
2 and asked of him letters to Damascus unto the synagogues, that if he found any that were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
3 And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven:
4 and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9:1-4)
Jesus' first words to Paul (Saul) asked him why he was persecuting Jesus!
3. Judgement IF/THEN - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are an IF/THEN Statement bringing Judgment.
We have seen IF/THEN Statements are not, in and of themselves, condemning. We have seen during this Series, Jesus used this type of confrontation when dealing with the Pharisees on the WORST Sin:
"28 But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.
29 Or how can one enter into the house of the strong man, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
30 He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.
31 Therefore I say unto you, Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven." (Matthew 12:28-31)
Jesus stated an IF/THEN which could result in the Pharisees committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
A lot of the Old Testament Prophets talked this same way on God's behalf:
"1 Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness;
2 to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
3 And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4 They shall only bow down under the prisoners, and shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 10:1-4)
Notice, verses 1 and 2 were a Judgment IF/THEN.
Verse 3 contains THREE QUESTIONS.
Then Judgment Statements are made from verse 4 on...
4. Non-Judgment Question - the Leader's FIRST WORDS are a Question that does not Judge or Project.
We saw several examples of this last week and this week:
"9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9)
"6 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?" (Genesis 4:6)
"9 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?..." (Genesis 4:9)
These are the FIRST PEOPLE to have existed, so God was LEAST harsh with them.
Notice, the previous method (Judgment IF/THEN) was used during the Law...the people that existed from Exodus through Malachi.
Finally, notice the difference between the two Question methods (#2 and #4):
If Jesus had confronted Saul (Paul) the same way (#2) as God did Adam and Cain (#4), He would have said: "Saul, Saul, what are you doing?"
If God had confronted Adam the same way (#4) as Jesus did Saul (Paul) (#2), He would have said: "Adam, Adam, why did you disobey me?"
SUMMARY
God used four methods to confront people depending on the excellence of the individual. We saw these methods were arranged on a scale depending on the excellence of the person being confronted.
The most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Statement. The next most excellent people were confronted with a Judgment Question. Next, God confronted people with Judgment IF/THEN's. The rest of the people were confronted with a Non-Judgment Question.
We will look at two more ways to confront people. Both involve dealing with people who are even less excellent than what we've covered.
Next Post
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Genesis 4:8-16
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 4:6-7. That post answered several Questions posed to the reader from the post titled, "Genesis 4:1-5". If you haven't read the previous posts, please do this now.
Here is the summary for Genesis 4:6-7:
So, let's look at the Biblical answers to yesterday's Questions from the post titled, "Genesis 4:1-5":
State your will:
Has Cain sinned? NO
What was the sin? (not applicable)
Was it First Dimensional? (not applicable)
Was it Second Dimensional? (not applicable)
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground? NO
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke? God
-To Whom did He speak? Cain
-What did He speak?
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
God asked an IF/THEN Question.
God made an IF/THEN Statement that contrasted the IF/THEN Question.
The next verse in this story is one that most people aren't even aware of...
So, for tomorrow's post:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Today, we will finish this story of God's SECOND encounter with humans...
GENESIS 4:8-16
"8 And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him."
Notice, the first half of the next verse stated: "And Cain told Abel his brother". Cain told Abel about Cain's conversation with God!
Cain had understood God well enough to relate the story to Abel! Most people don't even realize this sentence is in this story!
Cain told Abel about his conversation which included God's TWO QUESTIONS, IF/THEN QUESTION, and IF/THEN STATEMENT.
In my opinion, this ought to have caused Abel to trust Cain...
However, the rest of the verse stated that after a period of time, when they were in the field, Cain murdered Abel.
The Bible did not state the following, but I can see this as possible: Cain may have asked Abel for help in picking out the best (Right WHAT), so that Cain could kill Abel (Wrong HOW/WHY)...which is deception.
The key point of this verse is that a period of time had passed from when God warned Cain until Cain's thought process got bad enough for him to kill Abel.
So, if we continue our exercise...
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
ACTUALLY, we will focus on the first half of the next verse...take a moment to state your will.
"9 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?..."
What was the next (half of a) verse?
-God spoke
-God spoke to Cain
-God asked a Question...about something He knew that had happened.
AGAIN...the ONLY reason God would ask a Question about a past event is to find out the individual's response.
God asked a Question about Cain's First Dimensional sin in order to find out his Second Dimensional response.
Did Cain learn from his parent's mistake?
Adam and Eve stated Right WHAT's with two Right WHAT's (facts), however the two facts were intended to be the HOW/WHY. These two facts ended up being the Wrong HOW/WHY because they justified themselves...which was idolatry. What is Cain's answer?
"9... And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper?"
Cain stated "I know not". This is a Wrong WHAT. This is a LIE! Cain ACTUALLY gave a WORSE answer than Adam and Eve!
Cain's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin was to LIE TO GOD!
Here is the rest of the story:
"10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
12 when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth.
13 And Cain said unto Jehovah, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it will come to pass, that whosoever findeth me will slay me.
15 And Jehovah said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And Jehovah appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him.
16 And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."
Notice, the ground wasn't cursed for Cain until AFTER he committed his First Dimensional sin!
People who teach that God couldn't respect Cain's offering because the ground was cursed for Cain's sake are teaching something different than what the Bible stated!
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical message: God is NOT focused on judging/condemning. God is focused on confronting people in a very specific Righteous and Just way for the individual's benefit.
When individual's read these stories AND THEN focus on judging others AND/OR tell others that God is focused on judging/condemning, the incongruity between the Unaware Brain and the conscious brain causes the person NOT to believe the Bible is the Word of God...and may even cause depression and/or physical illness...and we are only four chapters into the entire Bible!
SUMMARY
This story PERFECTLY matches God's interaction with Adam and Eve. The same principles we saw in the post titled, "Original Sin" are seen in this story.
Cain's REAL issue was his interaction with God. However, he focused on Abel instead. God attempted to show Cain if Cain would just focus on Cain and God (FIRST COMMAND) then all the effects (SECOND COMMAND) would be Profitable.
God essentially stated to Cain that his possible failing the FIRST COMMAND (Love the Lord thy God...) would result in Cain failing the SECOND COMMAND (Love your neighbor...). Failing the SECOND COMMAND resulted in First Dimensional sin. When God confronts us on First Dimensional sin, we can fail this with the result being we commit Second Dimensional sin against God.
First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual. We all have First Dimensional sins. First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model. First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God. All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day.
Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual.
We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins. Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model. Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God. All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day.
God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin.
God's ONLY concern with your First Dimensional sin is NOT that you committed it, but HOW you respond to your First Dimensional sin. We OUGHT to feel guilty for First Dimensional Sin. That guilt OUGHT to lead us to respond to our First Dimensional sin with confession and repentance to the individual we sinned against.
God's concern will be expressed through Justice...which can APPEAR to us like God is focused on First Dimensional sin. ACTUALLY, God's focus is much greater than ours. He is focused on our Salvation.
Cain's First Dimensional sin (killing his brother) resulted in the ground being cursed for him.
Cain's Second Dimensional sin (Lying to God) resulted in Cain going out from the presence of God.
The First Dimensional sin was against Abel, so judgment comes through Justice and affects Reward.
The Second Dimensional sin was against God, so judgment comes through Righteousness and affects Salvation...influence from God.
We have seen two stories of God confronting people...and the people got worse with each confrontation. We saw in Matthew 12, Jesus had four confrontations with the Pharisees...and the Pharisees got worse with each confrontation.
We saw Jesus stopped speaking truth directly...beginning in Matthew 13, Jesus ONLY spoke in parables. Jesus became more abstract. Likewise, after Genesis chapter 4, God the Father becomes more abstract.
The BEST understanding of God's Nature comes from these stories documenting His first two interactions with humans.
Tomorrow, we will look more closely at HOW God confronted people...
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 4:6-7. That post answered several Questions posed to the reader from the post titled, "Genesis 4:1-5". If you haven't read the previous posts, please do this now.
Here is the summary for Genesis 4:6-7:
So, let's look at the Biblical answers to yesterday's Questions from the post titled, "Genesis 4:1-5":
State your will:
Has Cain sinned? NO
What was the sin? (not applicable)
Was it First Dimensional? (not applicable)
Was it Second Dimensional? (not applicable)
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground? NO
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke? God
-To Whom did He speak? Cain
-What did He speak?
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
God asked an IF/THEN Question.
God made an IF/THEN Statement that contrasted the IF/THEN Question.
The next verse in this story is one that most people aren't even aware of...
So, for tomorrow's post:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Today, we will finish this story of God's SECOND encounter with humans...
GENESIS 4:8-16
"8 And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him."
Notice, the first half of the next verse stated: "And Cain told Abel his brother". Cain told Abel about Cain's conversation with God!
Cain had understood God well enough to relate the story to Abel! Most people don't even realize this sentence is in this story!
Cain told Abel about his conversation which included God's TWO QUESTIONS, IF/THEN QUESTION, and IF/THEN STATEMENT.
In my opinion, this ought to have caused Abel to trust Cain...
However, the rest of the verse stated that after a period of time, when they were in the field, Cain murdered Abel.
The Bible did not state the following, but I can see this as possible: Cain may have asked Abel for help in picking out the best (Right WHAT), so that Cain could kill Abel (Wrong HOW/WHY)...which is deception.
The key point of this verse is that a period of time had passed from when God warned Cain until Cain's thought process got bad enough for him to kill Abel.
So, if we continue our exercise...
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
ACTUALLY, we will focus on the first half of the next verse...take a moment to state your will.
"9 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?..."
What was the next (half of a) verse?
-God spoke
-God spoke to Cain
-God asked a Question...about something He knew that had happened.
AGAIN...the ONLY reason God would ask a Question about a past event is to find out the individual's response.
God asked a Question about Cain's First Dimensional sin in order to find out his Second Dimensional response.
Did Cain learn from his parent's mistake?
Adam and Eve stated Right WHAT's with two Right WHAT's (facts), however the two facts were intended to be the HOW/WHY. These two facts ended up being the Wrong HOW/WHY because they justified themselves...which was idolatry. What is Cain's answer?
"9... And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper?"
Cain stated "I know not". This is a Wrong WHAT. This is a LIE! Cain ACTUALLY gave a WORSE answer than Adam and Eve!
Cain's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin was to LIE TO GOD!
Here is the rest of the story:
"10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
11 And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
12 when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee its strength; a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth.
13 And Cain said unto Jehovah, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth; and it will come to pass, that whosoever findeth me will slay me.
15 And Jehovah said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And Jehovah appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him.
16 And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."
Notice, the ground wasn't cursed for Cain until AFTER he committed his First Dimensional sin!
People who teach that God couldn't respect Cain's offering because the ground was cursed for Cain's sake are teaching something different than what the Bible stated!
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical message: God is NOT focused on judging/condemning. God is focused on confronting people in a very specific Righteous and Just way for the individual's benefit.
When individual's read these stories AND THEN focus on judging others AND/OR tell others that God is focused on judging/condemning, the incongruity between the Unaware Brain and the conscious brain causes the person NOT to believe the Bible is the Word of God...and may even cause depression and/or physical illness...and we are only four chapters into the entire Bible!
SUMMARY
This story PERFECTLY matches God's interaction with Adam and Eve. The same principles we saw in the post titled, "Original Sin" are seen in this story.
Cain's REAL issue was his interaction with God. However, he focused on Abel instead. God attempted to show Cain if Cain would just focus on Cain and God (FIRST COMMAND) then all the effects (SECOND COMMAND) would be Profitable.
God essentially stated to Cain that his possible failing the FIRST COMMAND (Love the Lord thy God...) would result in Cain failing the SECOND COMMAND (Love your neighbor...). Failing the SECOND COMMAND resulted in First Dimensional sin. When God confronts us on First Dimensional sin, we can fail this with the result being we commit Second Dimensional sin against God.
First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual. We all have First Dimensional sins. First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model. First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God. All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day.
Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual.
We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins. Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model. Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God. All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day.
God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin.
God's ONLY concern with your First Dimensional sin is NOT that you committed it, but HOW you respond to your First Dimensional sin. We OUGHT to feel guilty for First Dimensional Sin. That guilt OUGHT to lead us to respond to our First Dimensional sin with confession and repentance to the individual we sinned against.
God's concern will be expressed through Justice...which can APPEAR to us like God is focused on First Dimensional sin. ACTUALLY, God's focus is much greater than ours. He is focused on our Salvation.
Cain's First Dimensional sin (killing his brother) resulted in the ground being cursed for him.
Cain's Second Dimensional sin (Lying to God) resulted in Cain going out from the presence of God.
The First Dimensional sin was against Abel, so judgment comes through Justice and affects Reward.
The Second Dimensional sin was against God, so judgment comes through Righteousness and affects Salvation...influence from God.
We have seen two stories of God confronting people...and the people got worse with each confrontation. We saw in Matthew 12, Jesus had four confrontations with the Pharisees...and the Pharisees got worse with each confrontation.
We saw Jesus stopped speaking truth directly...beginning in Matthew 13, Jesus ONLY spoke in parables. Jesus became more abstract. Likewise, after Genesis chapter 4, God the Father becomes more abstract.
The BEST understanding of God's Nature comes from these stories documenting His first two interactions with humans.
Tomorrow, we will look more closely at HOW God confronted people...
Next Post
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Genesis 4:6-7
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 4:1-5. There were several Questions posed to the reader. If you haven't read the previous post, please do this now.
Here is how the previous post ended:
"4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."
Abel also brought an offering to God. This is also a Right WHAT.
However, Abel's offering was of the fat (the best) AND God had respect on Abel's offering.
Again, some people like to say Cain sinned and Abel didn't. Let's review a CRITICAL chapter from this Series: Matthew 6.
Matthew chapters 5 through 7 document Jesus' Premiere Teaching. I call the middle chapter "The Reward Chapter". The chapter was NOT speaking about Salvation when it used the word "reward". If it did, then we lose our Salvation when we give and others know that we gave...we would lose our Salvation when we tithed! Do the pastors who teach Matthew 6 deals with Salvation also teach tithing as a way to lose your Salvation?
Here is a summary of Matthew 6 from this Series:
"In this chapter, Jesus CONSISTENTLY presented a Right WHAT with a Wrong HOW/WHY to show the result was no Reward. Then He presented the SAME Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY that resulted in Reward. Clearly, Jesus was more focused on the HOW/WHY than the WHAT."
Jesus did NOT say it was a sin to a give (Right What) with a Wrong HOW/WHY. He just said it resulted in NO reward from God...which means, doing a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY results in a Reward from God...it results in God giving something to the individual. Now, look at this passage again...
Cain gave (Right WHAT) "of" the ground, meaning NOT the best of his fruit. So, God does NOT have to give Cain anything back.
Abel gave (Right WHAT) the best (Right HOW/WHY). So, God does have to give Abel something back...which is "respect".
The result is that Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. Some people say that Cain sinned when he was wroth and his countenance fell.
Some people say God could not give respect to Cain's offering because it was of the cursed ground.
State your will:
Has Cain sinned?
What was the sin?
Was it First Dimensional?
Was it Second Dimensional?
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground?
Remember, this is the SECOND example of God interacting with humans. During the FIRST example, we did an exercise where you tried to PREDICT the next verse. Tomorrow, we will look at the rest of this story.
Before tomorrow's post, answer the following Questions:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Today, we will solely focus on answering these questions...
GENESIS 4:6-7
"6 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
7 If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door: and unto thee shall be its desire, but do thou rule over it."
God spoke to Cain. Look what He said!!!!
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
Then God asked an IF/THEN QUESTION.
Then God made an IF/THEN Statement that was contrastive to the IF/THEN QUESTION.
The TWO QUESTIONS God asked were intentionally meant to get Cain to determine the cause (WHY) behind his attitude. Just like we saw with Adam and Eve, God knew the answer to the Questions...so the reason God asked the Questions was to see how Cain would respond...to his own First Dimensional response (being wroth and letting his countenance fall).
God's IF/THEN QUESTION ALSO pointed Cain towards a cause that would result in doing the Right WHAT...in order to get the effect Cain wanted to get. So, AGAIN, God is asking a Question to see Cain's response.
God's IF/THEN Statement is pointing out that sin desires Cain IF Cain does the Wrong WHAT.
WOW!!!!
God just stated that IF Cain did the Wrong WHAT in the FUTURE, then sin would have Cain.
At this point in the story, Cain had NOT sinned!!!!
People who teach that Cain had sinned at this point in the story, not only don't understand God, they are teaching a version of God that contradicts what peoples' Unaware Brains know to be true!
Notice, God presents this catastrophic effect in a Statement...NOT a Question. God was truly ATTEMPTING to help Cain with his thought process. This passage also shows that our thought processes can change our ability to take in sin. We've covered this before...
Lucifer was created perfect. However, because of "much traffic"...because of much interaction that changed his thought process, sin was eventually found in him.
People have gotten so distracted by this apparent contradiction, they have stated God made the devil evil...or God wanted the devil to become evil...or God created Cain to be evil...or Cain's father was the serpent (Eve was raped by the serpent). All of these answers contradict the Bible, however, people know the ultimate answer is non-contradictory, so they attempt to create an answer to achieve this end. This man-made superficial answer is idolatry.
SUMMARY
So, let's look at the Biblical answers to yesterday's Questions:
State your will:
Has Cain sinned? NO
What was the sin? (not applicable)
Was it First Dimensional? (not applicable)
Was it Second Dimensional? (not applicable)
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground? NO
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke? God
-To Whom did He speak? Cain
-What did He speak?
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
God asked an IF/THEN Question.
God made an IF/THEN Statement that contrasted the IF/THEN Question.
The next verse in this story is one that most people aren't even aware of...
So, for tomorrow's post:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 4:1-5. There were several Questions posed to the reader. If you haven't read the previous post, please do this now.
Here is how the previous post ended:
"4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."
Abel also brought an offering to God. This is also a Right WHAT.
However, Abel's offering was of the fat (the best) AND God had respect on Abel's offering.
Again, some people like to say Cain sinned and Abel didn't. Let's review a CRITICAL chapter from this Series: Matthew 6.
Matthew chapters 5 through 7 document Jesus' Premiere Teaching. I call the middle chapter "The Reward Chapter". The chapter was NOT speaking about Salvation when it used the word "reward". If it did, then we lose our Salvation when we give and others know that we gave...we would lose our Salvation when we tithed! Do the pastors who teach Matthew 6 deals with Salvation also teach tithing as a way to lose your Salvation?
Here is a summary of Matthew 6 from this Series:
"In this chapter, Jesus CONSISTENTLY presented a Right WHAT with a Wrong HOW/WHY to show the result was no Reward. Then He presented the SAME Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY that resulted in Reward. Clearly, Jesus was more focused on the HOW/WHY than the WHAT."
Jesus did NOT say it was a sin to a give (Right What) with a Wrong HOW/WHY. He just said it resulted in NO reward from God...which means, doing a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY results in a Reward from God...it results in God giving something to the individual. Now, look at this passage again...
Cain gave (Right WHAT) "of" the ground, meaning NOT the best of his fruit. So, God does NOT have to give Cain anything back.
Abel gave (Right WHAT) the best (Right HOW/WHY). So, God does have to give Abel something back...which is "respect".
The result is that Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. Some people say that Cain sinned when he was wroth and his countenance fell.
Some people say God could not give respect to Cain's offering because it was of the cursed ground.
State your will:
Has Cain sinned?
What was the sin?
Was it First Dimensional?
Was it Second Dimensional?
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground?
Remember, this is the SECOND example of God interacting with humans. During the FIRST example, we did an exercise where you tried to PREDICT the next verse. Tomorrow, we will look at the rest of this story.
Before tomorrow's post, answer the following Questions:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Today, we will solely focus on answering these questions...
GENESIS 4:6-7
"6 And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
7 If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door: and unto thee shall be its desire, but do thou rule over it."
God spoke to Cain. Look what He said!!!!
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
Then God asked an IF/THEN QUESTION.
Then God made an IF/THEN Statement that was contrastive to the IF/THEN QUESTION.
The TWO QUESTIONS God asked were intentionally meant to get Cain to determine the cause (WHY) behind his attitude. Just like we saw with Adam and Eve, God knew the answer to the Questions...so the reason God asked the Questions was to see how Cain would respond...to his own First Dimensional response (being wroth and letting his countenance fall).
God's IF/THEN QUESTION ALSO pointed Cain towards a cause that would result in doing the Right WHAT...in order to get the effect Cain wanted to get. So, AGAIN, God is asking a Question to see Cain's response.
God's IF/THEN Statement is pointing out that sin desires Cain IF Cain does the Wrong WHAT.
WOW!!!!
God just stated that IF Cain did the Wrong WHAT in the FUTURE, then sin would have Cain.
At this point in the story, Cain had NOT sinned!!!!
People who teach that Cain had sinned at this point in the story, not only don't understand God, they are teaching a version of God that contradicts what peoples' Unaware Brains know to be true!
Notice, God presents this catastrophic effect in a Statement...NOT a Question. God was truly ATTEMPTING to help Cain with his thought process. This passage also shows that our thought processes can change our ability to take in sin. We've covered this before...
Lucifer was created perfect. However, because of "much traffic"...because of much interaction that changed his thought process, sin was eventually found in him.
People have gotten so distracted by this apparent contradiction, they have stated God made the devil evil...or God wanted the devil to become evil...or God created Cain to be evil...or Cain's father was the serpent (Eve was raped by the serpent). All of these answers contradict the Bible, however, people know the ultimate answer is non-contradictory, so they attempt to create an answer to achieve this end. This man-made superficial answer is idolatry.
SUMMARY
So, let's look at the Biblical answers to yesterday's Questions:
State your will:
Has Cain sinned? NO
What was the sin? (not applicable)
Was it First Dimensional? (not applicable)
Was it Second Dimensional? (not applicable)
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground? NO
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke? God
-To Whom did He speak? Cain
-What did He speak?
God asked TWO QUESTIONS.
God asked an IF/THEN Question.
God made an IF/THEN Statement that contrasted the IF/THEN Question.
The next verse in this story is one that most people aren't even aware of...
So, for tomorrow's post:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Next Post
Monday, May 24, 2010
Genesis 4:1-5
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
Last week we looked at God's first interaction with humans to determine whether God is focused on First Dimensional sin or Second Dimensional sin. Here was the conclusion to Genesis 3:1-19:
Adam and Eve chose to consciouly think according to two of the four God-given principles.
Their response to the sin they did to each other was to attempt to deceive God and justify themselves...which is idolatry.
This Second Dimensional sin was the FIRST SIN committed against God by humans...it is the Original Sin...the sin that is the cause of every sin we do against God.
Adam and Eve's choice to do this was a Third Dimensional choice...it was NOT pre-destined. It was possible to chose to think differently. It is still possible today to think differently, yet people still choose to think with the same conscious brain as Adam and Eve.
God judged the serpent without asking a Question. It looks as if God took the serpent's conscious brain away...which included its ability to consciously think and talk. God did not give the serpent the opportunity to confess and repent.
God judged Adam and Eve AFTER asking four Questions and BECAUSE of their Thought Process (HOW/WHY...cause)...NOT because they ate of the tree (WHAT...effect).
God's Righteous Judgment which is Qualitative and concerned with Second Dimensional sin (what they did to God) resulted in expulsion...loss of Paradise for Adam, Eve, and the serpent.
God's Just Judgment which is Quantitative and concerned with First Dimensional sin (what they did to each other) resulted in the curses...which were related to what they did to each other.
Now we see this First Dispensation ended with a Judgment Day! Everything was equaled out with Two Judgments! People who don't understand there are Two Judgments mentioned in Revelation 20 are missing the most critical aspect of Genesis 3...which we have seen is a story FULL of doctrine. The Bible begins with a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise...and THEN there is a Judgment Day. The Bible ends with a Judgment Day...and THEN there is a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise.
Original Sin is concerned with eternal damnation and requires us to attain Salvation. Original Sin is NOT concerned with Justice and Rewards...balancing out the quantitative effects of the actions. Orignal Sin is a Qualitative issue...
The reason Original Sin is so debated is people define the Original Sin as eating the fruit...and the contradictions flow from this definition of sin as a WHAT instead of a HOW/WHY...as an effect instead of a cause.
Original Sin resulted in separation between humans and God. If the Original Sin was eating the fruit, this is something we ought to repair ourselves...it is also NOT something every human does. However, if Original Sin is not being honest with God and justifying ourselves, this is something that every human still does and causes separation with God.
If Original Sin was the eating of the fruit, then EVE committed the Original Sin...she ate first. However, Paul wrote in I Corinthians that sin came in through Adam...sin ORIGINATED through Adam. The ONLY thing Adam did first was try to deceive God...which we now know is Second Dimensional sin...which is the First sin humans did against God.
However, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical interpretation of this passage. EVERYONE who reads this passage and consciously creates a different interpretation is actually causing an incongruity between their conscious brain and Unaware Brain. In fact, notice what this looks like to the Unaware Brain...
The Unaware Brain just read a story about humans committing idolatry by rationalizing and justifying themselves instead of God. Then the Unaware Brain sees the conscious brain DO THE SAME THING TODAY when it rationalizes and justifies an interpretation of this critical passage so the conscious brain can remain comparative and comfortable.
NO WONDER most people can't read through their Bible, let alone the Book of Genesis! The Unaware Brain of the individual is depressing the individual in an attempt NOT to commit even more idolatry.
I believe God BEGAN the human race with their nucleus basalis propped open...with effortless complete consciousness...and this would ONLY be Profitable if humans would ONLY take direction from God.
The human race chose to take direction from themselves...which caused a separation from God.
The battlefield is the Brain.
Our desire to take direction from God will be objectively proven on Judgment Day...Spritiually, with our Mind/Soul...Physically, with our Brain.
It looks like God still intends for humans to spend eternity taking direction from God in a state of complete consciousness...
When God BEGAN the human race, Paradise was obtained WITHOUT knowledge of any other way.
It looks like God NOW intends for Paradise to be consciously chosen WITH the knowledge of every other way.
Our Physical objective for Eternity is to keep our nucleus basalis open...to become like babies.
Today, we will look at God's NEXT interaction with humans...
GENESIS 4:1-5
"1 And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah."
Did Adam and Eve have intercourse in the garden? This verse makes it sound like they hadn't until they left the garden...which means Adam and Eve weren't in the garden together for a very long time.
"Modeling God's Wills" covered the Doctrine of Marriage. We also covered this during this Series in Matthew 1:18-25.
Clearly, Adam and Eve didn't have a wedding ceremony. There are no wedding ceremonies in the Bible. The wedding ceremony we have today is a man-made doctrine that is less than 500 years old. We have seen that government recognized marriage is a man-made doctrine that is about 250 years old.
In the Bible, marriage is a covenant that can begin in any of three ways:
1) Exchange of vows
2) Exchange of tokens
3) Sexual Intercourse
However, the covenant isn't completed until the couple has sexual intercourse. Just like we saw with Joseph and Mary, it is possible for Adam and Eve to be husband and wife without the marriage having been consummated.
Either way, we know for sure at the beginning of Genesis chapter four, Eve conceived while she was NOT in Paradise. Some people want to say Cain was conceived by the serpent raping Eve. This verse clearly stated Adam was the father of Cain...and Cain was conceived AFTER God put enmity between the woman and the serpent.
"2 And again she bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground."
Eve conceived again.
Eve had two sons, one was a shepherd and the other was a farmer.
There are some people who state Cain was "evil" because he was a farmer...because he worked the ground that God cursed. The curse was NOT on the fruit of the ground...just that it would be HARDER to get food from working the land. If anything, Cain had a tougher job than Abel BECAUSE God had cursed the ground...Cain, the older brother, took the toughest job.
"3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah."
Time has passed...
Then, Cain brought an offering to God. This is a Right WHAT.
Before reading the next verse, take a moment to state your will about this: Did Cain sin by bringing an offering to God?
"4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."
Abel also brought an offering to God. This is also a Right WHAT.
However, Abel's offering was of the fat (the best) AND God had respect on Abel's offering.
Again, some people like to say Cain sinned and Abel didn't. Let's review a CRITICAL chapter from this Series: Matthew 6.
Matthew chapters 5 through 7 document Jesus' Premiere Teaching. I call the middle chapter "The Reward Chapter". The chapter was NOT speaking about Salvation when it used the word "reward". If it did, then we lose our Salvation when we give and others know that we gave...we would lose our Salvation when we tithed! Do the pastors who teach Matthew 6 deals with Salvation also teach tithing as a way to lose your Salvation?
Here is a summary of Matthew 6 from this Series:
"In this chapter, Jesus CONSISTENTLY presented a Right WHAT with a Wrong HOW/WHY to show the result was no Reward. Then He presented the SAME Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY that resulted in Reward. Clearly, Jesus was more focused on the HOW/WHY than the WHAT."
Jesus did NOT say it was a sin to a give (Right What) with a Wrong HOW/WHY. He just said it resulted in NO reward from God...which means, doing a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY results in a Reward from God...it results in God giving something to the individual. Now, look at this passage again...
Cain gave (Right WHAT) "of" the ground, meaning NOT the best of his fruit. So, God did NOT have to give Cain anything back.
Abel gave (Right WHAT) the best (Right HOW/WHY). So, God did have to give Abel something back...which was "respect".
The result was that Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. Some people say that Cain sinned when he was wroth and his countenance fell.
Some people say God could not give respect to Cain's offering because it was of the cursed ground.
State your will:
Has Cain sinned?
What was the sin?
Was it First Dimensional?
Was it Second Dimensional?
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground?
Remember, this was the SECOND example of God interacting with humans. During the FIRST example, we did an exercise where you tried to PREDICT the next verse. Tomorrow, we will look at the rest of this story.
Before tomorrow's post, answer the following Questions:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
Last week we looked at God's first interaction with humans to determine whether God is focused on First Dimensional sin or Second Dimensional sin. Here was the conclusion to Genesis 3:1-19:
Adam and Eve chose to consciouly think according to two of the four God-given principles.
Their response to the sin they did to each other was to attempt to deceive God and justify themselves...which is idolatry.
This Second Dimensional sin was the FIRST SIN committed against God by humans...it is the Original Sin...the sin that is the cause of every sin we do against God.
Adam and Eve's choice to do this was a Third Dimensional choice...it was NOT pre-destined. It was possible to chose to think differently. It is still possible today to think differently, yet people still choose to think with the same conscious brain as Adam and Eve.
God judged the serpent without asking a Question. It looks as if God took the serpent's conscious brain away...which included its ability to consciously think and talk. God did not give the serpent the opportunity to confess and repent.
God judged Adam and Eve AFTER asking four Questions and BECAUSE of their Thought Process (HOW/WHY...cause)...NOT because they ate of the tree (WHAT...effect).
God's Righteous Judgment which is Qualitative and concerned with Second Dimensional sin (what they did to God) resulted in expulsion...loss of Paradise for Adam, Eve, and the serpent.
God's Just Judgment which is Quantitative and concerned with First Dimensional sin (what they did to each other) resulted in the curses...which were related to what they did to each other.
Now we see this First Dispensation ended with a Judgment Day! Everything was equaled out with Two Judgments! People who don't understand there are Two Judgments mentioned in Revelation 20 are missing the most critical aspect of Genesis 3...which we have seen is a story FULL of doctrine. The Bible begins with a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise...and THEN there is a Judgment Day. The Bible ends with a Judgment Day...and THEN there is a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise.
Original Sin is concerned with eternal damnation and requires us to attain Salvation. Original Sin is NOT concerned with Justice and Rewards...balancing out the quantitative effects of the actions. Orignal Sin is a Qualitative issue...
The reason Original Sin is so debated is people define the Original Sin as eating the fruit...and the contradictions flow from this definition of sin as a WHAT instead of a HOW/WHY...as an effect instead of a cause.
Original Sin resulted in separation between humans and God. If the Original Sin was eating the fruit, this is something we ought to repair ourselves...it is also NOT something every human does. However, if Original Sin is not being honest with God and justifying ourselves, this is something that every human still does and causes separation with God.
If Original Sin was the eating of the fruit, then EVE committed the Original Sin...she ate first. However, Paul wrote in I Corinthians that sin came in through Adam...sin ORIGINATED through Adam. The ONLY thing Adam did first was try to deceive God...which we now know is Second Dimensional sin...which is the First sin humans did against God.
However, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical interpretation of this passage. EVERYONE who reads this passage and consciously creates a different interpretation is actually causing an incongruity between their conscious brain and Unaware Brain. In fact, notice what this looks like to the Unaware Brain...
The Unaware Brain just read a story about humans committing idolatry by rationalizing and justifying themselves instead of God. Then the Unaware Brain sees the conscious brain DO THE SAME THING TODAY when it rationalizes and justifies an interpretation of this critical passage so the conscious brain can remain comparative and comfortable.
NO WONDER most people can't read through their Bible, let alone the Book of Genesis! The Unaware Brain of the individual is depressing the individual in an attempt NOT to commit even more idolatry.
I believe God BEGAN the human race with their nucleus basalis propped open...with effortless complete consciousness...and this would ONLY be Profitable if humans would ONLY take direction from God.
The human race chose to take direction from themselves...which caused a separation from God.
The battlefield is the Brain.
Our desire to take direction from God will be objectively proven on Judgment Day...Spritiually, with our Mind/Soul...Physically, with our Brain.
It looks like God still intends for humans to spend eternity taking direction from God in a state of complete consciousness...
When God BEGAN the human race, Paradise was obtained WITHOUT knowledge of any other way.
It looks like God NOW intends for Paradise to be consciously chosen WITH the knowledge of every other way.
Our Physical objective for Eternity is to keep our nucleus basalis open...to become like babies.
Today, we will look at God's NEXT interaction with humans...
GENESIS 4:1-5
"1 And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah."
Did Adam and Eve have intercourse in the garden? This verse makes it sound like they hadn't until they left the garden...which means Adam and Eve weren't in the garden together for a very long time.
"Modeling God's Wills" covered the Doctrine of Marriage. We also covered this during this Series in Matthew 1:18-25.
Clearly, Adam and Eve didn't have a wedding ceremony. There are no wedding ceremonies in the Bible. The wedding ceremony we have today is a man-made doctrine that is less than 500 years old. We have seen that government recognized marriage is a man-made doctrine that is about 250 years old.
In the Bible, marriage is a covenant that can begin in any of three ways:
1) Exchange of vows
2) Exchange of tokens
3) Sexual Intercourse
However, the covenant isn't completed until the couple has sexual intercourse. Just like we saw with Joseph and Mary, it is possible for Adam and Eve to be husband and wife without the marriage having been consummated.
Either way, we know for sure at the beginning of Genesis chapter four, Eve conceived while she was NOT in Paradise. Some people want to say Cain was conceived by the serpent raping Eve. This verse clearly stated Adam was the father of Cain...and Cain was conceived AFTER God put enmity between the woman and the serpent.
"2 And again she bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground."
Eve conceived again.
Eve had two sons, one was a shepherd and the other was a farmer.
There are some people who state Cain was "evil" because he was a farmer...because he worked the ground that God cursed. The curse was NOT on the fruit of the ground...just that it would be HARDER to get food from working the land. If anything, Cain had a tougher job than Abel BECAUSE God had cursed the ground...Cain, the older brother, took the toughest job.
"3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah."
Time has passed...
Then, Cain brought an offering to God. This is a Right WHAT.
Before reading the next verse, take a moment to state your will about this: Did Cain sin by bringing an offering to God?
"4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."
Abel also brought an offering to God. This is also a Right WHAT.
However, Abel's offering was of the fat (the best) AND God had respect on Abel's offering.
Again, some people like to say Cain sinned and Abel didn't. Let's review a CRITICAL chapter from this Series: Matthew 6.
Matthew chapters 5 through 7 document Jesus' Premiere Teaching. I call the middle chapter "The Reward Chapter". The chapter was NOT speaking about Salvation when it used the word "reward". If it did, then we lose our Salvation when we give and others know that we gave...we would lose our Salvation when we tithed! Do the pastors who teach Matthew 6 deals with Salvation also teach tithing as a way to lose your Salvation?
Here is a summary of Matthew 6 from this Series:
"In this chapter, Jesus CONSISTENTLY presented a Right WHAT with a Wrong HOW/WHY to show the result was no Reward. Then He presented the SAME Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY that resulted in Reward. Clearly, Jesus was more focused on the HOW/WHY than the WHAT."
Jesus did NOT say it was a sin to a give (Right What) with a Wrong HOW/WHY. He just said it resulted in NO reward from God...which means, doing a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY results in a Reward from God...it results in God giving something to the individual. Now, look at this passage again...
Cain gave (Right WHAT) "of" the ground, meaning NOT the best of his fruit. So, God did NOT have to give Cain anything back.
Abel gave (Right WHAT) the best (Right HOW/WHY). So, God did have to give Abel something back...which was "respect".
The result was that Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. Some people say that Cain sinned when he was wroth and his countenance fell.
Some people say God could not give respect to Cain's offering because it was of the cursed ground.
State your will:
Has Cain sinned?
What was the sin?
Was it First Dimensional?
Was it Second Dimensional?
Is God focused on the offering being of the cursed ground?
Remember, this was the SECOND example of God interacting with humans. During the FIRST example, we did an exercise where you tried to PREDICT the next verse. Tomorrow, we will look at the rest of this story.
Before tomorrow's post, answer the following Questions:
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did He speak?
-What did He speak?
Next Post
Friday, May 21, 2010
Original Sin
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
This week we have been looking at Genesis 3:1-19...God's interaction with Adam and Eve. We have seen most people consciously tell this story with God immediately judging/condemning Adam and Eve. In reality, God asked Adam and Eve four Questions. In fact, the Questions God asked concerned past events...events an omniscient God ought to know. Most people are completely oblivious to this critical point. When asked WHY God asked Questions about past events, there are two general answers most people give:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
(Excerpt from the post titled, "Genesis 3:8-11".)
The previous post (Genesis 3:12-19) presented the non-contradictory Biblical reason. Here is the summary:
We now know God was not focused on judging/condemning Adam and Eve.
He asked four Questions of Adam and Eve. However, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY Questions. God immediately judged/condemned the serpent.
Here's the question from yesterday's post: WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
God must have asked these question because He was looking forward. God asked because there was something He DIDN'T know for sure...something that hadn't happened yet. What was it?
God knew they had eaten from the tree.
God knew they knew they had eaten from the tree.
What didn't God know that was a future event?
The only explanation for this passage is God was focused on Adam's response to his own actions...not on the actual action of Adam eating of the tree.
Another way of saying this is: God was focused on Adam's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin...not on Adam's First Dimensional sin.
Let's take this one step further: God was focused on Adam's Thought Process!
We even saw yesterday the EFFECT of Adam answering God's first two Questions were WE got to see Adam's Thought Process!
Your Unaware Brain is a perfect modeler. Your Unaware Brain knows this is the correct explanation. Every attempt to justify or teach a different explanation is actually damaging your own conscious brain...and the conscious brain of others. Do you agree?
God asked Adam and Eve Questions in order to LEARN their response to their sin against each other...their response to their First Dimensional sin.
BOTH Adam and Eve responded TO GOD by blaming OTHERS!
Adam blamed God and Eve for his actions!
Eve blamed the serpent for her actions!
BOTH Adam and Eve committed Second Dimensional sin against God with their responses.
Adam and Eve were FACTUAL with their response to God...however, Adam and Eve were NOT TRUTHFUL with their responses to God. They were DECEPTIVE. They had a Right WHAT ("I ate the fruit") with a Wrong HOW/WHY ("others were the cause of my sin").
This was the FIRST SIN committed by humans against God.
Today, we will look at the effects of this "Original Sin"...
ORIGINAL SIN
Adam and Eve both took an external stimulus and responded with sin against each other. We called this First Dimensional sin and represented the process with the following illustration:
Arrow "one" is the stimulus ("serpent" for Eve and "Eve" for Adam)
Arrow "two" represents the comparative thought process each had.
Arrow "three" represents their actions which in this case was "sin".
For the next process, Adam and Eve's stimulus was internal...it was their own First Dimensional sin. (Notice, Eve committed this sin FIRST.) God took this First Dimensional sin and combined it with Questions and directed it back towards Adam and Eve in order to find out their Second Dimensional response. The response can be life or death and we represented the process with the following illustration:
Arrow "sin" is the stimulus (Arrow "three" from the First Dimensional process)
Arrow "four" WITH Arrow "if" is the redirection of the First Dimensional sin by God combined WITH God's Questions.
Arrow "five" represents Adam and Eve's thought process...the HOW/WHY...the cause.
Arrow "life or death" represents Adam and Eve's response to God...the WHAT...the effect.
With these illustrations, we can see God tends to focus on Arrow "life or death"...while most people portray a God focused on Arrow "three" (in the first illustration) and Arrow "sin" (in the second illustration). Actually, God is focused on the last two Arrows. Let's look more closely at these last two Arrows...
We have seen Arrow "life or death" was a FACTUAL response from Adam and Eve.
Adam admitted he ate the fruit, Eve offered it to him, and this woman was provided to him by God. THREE FACTS.
Eve admitted she ate the fruit, and the serpent beguiled her. TWO FACTS.
The bottomline: Adam and Eve admitted what they DID...however, they both attributed the cause of their sin to someone other than themselves. Remember, Adam and Eve were responding to God about a sin Adam and Eve committed against each other...so their responses to God were the FIRST SIN humans did against God. (Notice, Adam did it FIRST.)
However, remember, when it comes to sinning against God, the sin is NOT the action itself...the sin is NOT the WHAT (effect)...the sin is the HOW/WHY...the sin is the cause. The Bible shows the SAME ACTION may be sin for one person and NOT sin for another. The cause of the action is the sin. (If you need the full explanation, read "What Is Sin?".)
The sin is ACTUALLY found with Arrow "five"!!!!
I realize I make the following points everytime I have the opportunity...and this is because it is the difference between "life or death":
We have seen DECEPTION is a Right WHAT with a Wrong (or NO) HOW/WHY.
We have seen TRUTH is a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY.
The ONLY difference between TRUTH and DECEPTION is in the HOW/WHY.
A FACT is a Right WHAT.
The ability for a FACT to be Profitable or Unprofitable is COMPLETELY dependent on the HOW/WHY...which is Arrow "five".
The Bible documented the FACTUAL response to God. What would have been a TRUTHFUL response to God?
Adam: I ate the fruit (Right WHAT) because I didn't follow Your command, I didn't teach my wife Your Word well enough, and I didn't want to be lonely. This was wrong of me to do to MY WIFE. God help me to Repair this damage I have done to her.
Eve: I ate the fruit (Right WHAT) because I didn't follow Your command, I didn't follow what my husband taught me, I chose to be influenced by a novel creature (serpent), and I chose to tempt my husband into justifying my wrong decision. This was wrong of me to do to MY HUSBAND. God help me to Repair this damage I have done to him.
Remember, a PERFECT Confession has three parts:
-I admit what I did
-I know WHY I did it
-I admit it was wrong
Remember, Repentance is a DO...it is taking action to Repair the damage that has been done. The result ought to be something MORE. True Repentance/Repair results in something more...it creates.
This TRUTHFUL RESPONSE would have resulted in creating more!
Confession and Repentance are the only way to remove guilt.
If Adam and Eve had confessed and repented, would they have stayed in Eden? I believe they would have been allowed to...otherwise, the rest of the Bible is contradictory.
However, Adam and Eve justified themselves. They admitted WHAT they did, however, they took NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for their actions. This is a Thought Process! This points to a HOW/WHY...
Adam and Eve's thought process was to rationalize their actions TO GOD.
Not only did they attempt to DECEIVE God with their FACTUAL response...they intended to make themselves greater than God! They committed idolatry! This is pride!
This is the ORIGINAL SIN because it is the CAUSE of EVERY sin we commit against God!
EFFECTS OF ORIGINAL SIN
Let's look at Adam and Eve's Thought Process PRINCIPLES...
CAUSALITY - Both Adam and Eve spoke according to Causality. They stated an effect and its cause.
NON-CONTRADICTION - Both Adam and Eve referenced lack of Contradiction as proof they were right.
COMPARATIVE - Both Adam and Eve looked ONLY at the FACTS that didn't Contradict their intent.
COMFORT - Both Adam and Eve looked for the most immediate and comfortable response: justify myself.
We have seen the Unaware Brain models according to all four God-given principles without intentional effort:
-Causality
-Non-contradiction
-Contrastive
-Growth
We have seen the conscious brain begins working according to two of the God-given principles (Causality and Non-contradiction) and according to the opposite of the other two of the God-given principles (Comparative and Comfort)...which is EXACTLY the same Thought Process Principles Adam and Eve had!
We have seen how I believe before Adam and Eve dealt with the serpent, God opened up Adam and Eve's nucleus basalis'. They would have been completely conscious WITHOUT effort...like a baby is during the "critical period".
However, it looks to me like Adam and Eve took over control of their nucleus basalis when THEY CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE to eat the fruit. EVERYTHING after they ate the fruit was an EFFECT of their CONSCIOUS THOUGHT PROCESS.
Adam and Eve chose to consciously think according to Causality, Non-contradiction, Comparative, and Comfort. Consequently, EVERYONE who was born after Adam and Eve has this same conscious brain...which is the cause of EVERY sin we do against God.
The ONLY way to attain Salvation is by grace through faith.
Grace resists the proud. Grace resists the Comparative and Comfort driven.
Faith is a belief in something we can't see either because it is invisible or hasn't happened yet. Faith is built on Experience and Understanding. Faith is built on Causality and Non-contradiction.
WHY can we overcome our sin nature? Grace.
God's divine influence upon our heart, and its reflection in the life through the Holy Spirit is ONLY possible because of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross.
HOW can we overcome our sin nature? By grace through faith...by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God and was raised from the dead.
These are the SPIRITUAL HOW/WHY answers. What are the PHYSICAL HOW/WHY answers?
Our Unaware Brain works according to the four God-given principles. Our conscious brain works according to two of the four God-given principles.
PHYSICAL HOW: Choose to consciously work according to all four God-given principles.
PHYSICAL WHY: Let's look to Dr. Norman Doidge for the explanation...
"The competitive nature of plasticity affects us all. There is an endless war of nerves going on inside each our brains. If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map for space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead." (Norman Doidge, MD "The Brain That Changes Itself")
It turns out everyday we determine the brain we will have tomorrow!
If we spend today being comparative and comfortable...that is, NOT learning ANYTHING that makes us uncomfortable and that we disagree with, tomorrow our brains will have less ability to learn something new AND our brains will take what we do know and spread it out more...essentially take up more room in the brain with things we already know! Notice, it will be EASIER tomorrow to be comparative and comfortable.
However, if we spend today being contrastive and growth focused...that is, learning SOMETHING that makes us uncomfortable and that we disagreed with, tomorrow our brains will have more ability to learn something new AND our brains will take what we do know and simplify it so it takes up less room in the brain! Notice, it will be EASIER tomorrow to be contrastive and growth focused.
GOD MADE OUR BRAINS THIS WAY!
It is OUR responsibility if we CHOOSE to progress our brains towards consciously thinking according to all four God-given principles OR progressing towards NONE of the four God-given principles. We have seen how people are able to damage their brains to the point they are no longer able to think according to Causality and Non-Contradiction!
This physiological understanding has been confirmed in the past few years.
Now look at something written almost fifty years ago...
"The Discarded Image" was the last book by CS Lewis. It was published in 1964 after he died. Lewis was focused on creating "the Model" explaining our beliefs. He even shared Two Rules for creating this Model:
"All apparent contradictions must be harmonised. A Model must be built which will get everything in without a clash; and it can do this only by becoming intricate, by mediating its unity through a great, and finely ordered, multiplicity." (Page 11)
"But if we demanded no more than that from theory, science would be impossible, for a lively inventive faculty could devise a good many different supposals which would equally save the phenomena. We have therefore had to supplement the canon of saving the phenomena by another canon - first, perhaps, formulated with full clairity by Occam. According to this second canon we must accept (provisionally) not any theory which saves the phenomena but that theory which does so with the fewest possible assumptions." (Page 15)
LEWIS' FIRST RULE OF MODELING: The Model must be made up of specific causes accounting for ALL the observed effects without contradiction.
LEWIS' SECOND RULE OF MODELING: If more than one Model accounts for ALL the observed effects without contradiction, then we must embrace the simpler Model.
CS Lewis PERFECTLY described the process our conscious brain goes through each night to either become more or less able to grow!
The First Rule covers how the brain determines whether to increase or decrease its ability to learn more.
The Second Rule covers how the brain determines what to do with what we already know.
SUMMARY
Adam and Eve chose to consciouly think according to two of the four God-given principles.
Their response to the sin they did to each other was to attempt to deceive God and justify themselves...which is idolatry.
This Second Dimensional sin was the FIRST SIN committed against God by humans...it is the Original Sin...the sin that is the cause of every sin we do against God.
Adam and Eve's choice to do this was a Third Dimensional choice...it was NOT pre-destined. It was possible to chose to think differently. It is still possible today to think differently, yet people still choose to think with the same conscious brain as Adam and Eve.
God judged the serpent without asking a Question. It looks as if God took the serpent's conscious brain away...which included its ability to consciously think and talk. God did not give the serpent the opportunity to confess and repent.
God judged Adam and Eve AFTER asking four Questions and BECAUSE of their Thought Process (HOW/WHY...cause)...NOT because they ate of the tree (WHAT...effect).
God's Righteous Judgment which is Qualitative and concerned with Second Dimensional sin (what they did to God) resulted in expulsion...loss of Paradise for Adam, Eve, and the serpent.
God's Just Judgment which is Quantitative and concerned with First Dimensional sin (what they did to each other) resulted in the curses...which were related to what they did to each other.
Now we see this First Dispensation ended with a Judgment Day! Everything was equaled out with Two Judgments! People who don't understand there are Two Judgments mentioned in Revelation 20 are missing the most critical aspect of Genesis 3...which we have seen is a story FULL of doctrine. The Bible begins with a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise...and THEN there is a Judgment Day. The Bible ends with a Judgment Day...and THEN there is a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise.
Original Sin is concerned with eternal damnation and requires us to attain Salvation. Original Sin is NOT concerned with Justice and Rewards...balancing out the quantitative effects of the actions. Orignal Sin is a Qualitative issue...
The reason Original Sin is so debated is people define the Original Sin as eating the fruit...and the contradictions flow from this definition of sin as a WHAT instead of a HOW/WHY...as an effect instead of a cause.
Original Sin resulted in separation between humans and God. If the Original Sin was eating the fruit, this is something we ought to repair ourselves...it is also NOT something every human does. However, if Original Sin is not being honest with God and justifying ourselves, this is something that every human still does and causes separation with God.
If Original Sin was the eating of the fruit, then EVE committed the Original Sin...she ate first. However, Paul wrote in I Corinthians that sin came in through Adam...sin ORIGINATED through Adam. The ONLY thing Adam did first was try to deceive God...which we now know is Second Dimensional sin...which is the First sin humans did against God.
However, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical interpretation of this passage. EVERYONE who reads this passage and consciously creates a different interpretation is actually causing an incongruity between their conscious brain and Unaware Brain. In fact, notice what this looks like to the Unaware Brain...
The Unaware Brain just read a story about humans committing idolatry by rationalizing and justifying themselves instead of God. Then the Unaware Brain sees the conscious brain DO THE SAME THING TODAY when it rationalizes and justifies an interpretation of this critical passage so the conscious brain can remain comparative and comfortable.
NO WONDER most people can't read through their Bible, let alone the Book of Genesis! The Unaware Brain of the individual is depressing the individual in an attempt NOT to commit even more idolatry.
I believe God BEGAN the human race with their nucleus basalis propped open...with effortless complete consciousness...and this would ONLY be Profitable if humans would ONLY take direction from God.
The human race chose to take direction from themselves...which caused a separation from God.
The battlefield is the Brain.
Our desire to take direction from God will be objectively proven on Judgment Day...Spritiually, with our Mind/Soul...Physically, with our Brain.
It looks like God still intends for humans to spend eternity taking direction from God in a state of complete consciousness...
When God BEGAN the human race, Paradise was obtained WITHOUT knowledge of any other way.
It looks like God NOW intends for Paradise to be consciously chosen WITH the knowledge of every other way.
Our Physical objective for Eternity is to keep our nucleus basalis open...to become like babies.
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
This week we have been looking at Genesis 3:1-19...God's interaction with Adam and Eve. We have seen most people consciously tell this story with God immediately judging/condemning Adam and Eve. In reality, God asked Adam and Eve four Questions. In fact, the Questions God asked concerned past events...events an omniscient God ought to know. Most people are completely oblivious to this critical point. When asked WHY God asked Questions about past events, there are two general answers most people give:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
(Excerpt from the post titled, "Genesis 3:8-11".)
The previous post (Genesis 3:12-19) presented the non-contradictory Biblical reason. Here is the summary:
We now know God was not focused on judging/condemning Adam and Eve.
He asked four Questions of Adam and Eve. However, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY Questions. God immediately judged/condemned the serpent.
Here's the question from yesterday's post: WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
God must have asked these question because He was looking forward. God asked because there was something He DIDN'T know for sure...something that hadn't happened yet. What was it?
God knew they had eaten from the tree.
God knew they knew they had eaten from the tree.
What didn't God know that was a future event?
The only explanation for this passage is God was focused on Adam's response to his own actions...not on the actual action of Adam eating of the tree.
Another way of saying this is: God was focused on Adam's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin...not on Adam's First Dimensional sin.
Let's take this one step further: God was focused on Adam's Thought Process!
We even saw yesterday the EFFECT of Adam answering God's first two Questions were WE got to see Adam's Thought Process!
Your Unaware Brain is a perfect modeler. Your Unaware Brain knows this is the correct explanation. Every attempt to justify or teach a different explanation is actually damaging your own conscious brain...and the conscious brain of others. Do you agree?
God asked Adam and Eve Questions in order to LEARN their response to their sin against each other...their response to their First Dimensional sin.
BOTH Adam and Eve responded TO GOD by blaming OTHERS!
Adam blamed God and Eve for his actions!
Eve blamed the serpent for her actions!
BOTH Adam and Eve committed Second Dimensional sin against God with their responses.
Adam and Eve were FACTUAL with their response to God...however, Adam and Eve were NOT TRUTHFUL with their responses to God. They were DECEPTIVE. They had a Right WHAT ("I ate the fruit") with a Wrong HOW/WHY ("others were the cause of my sin").
This was the FIRST SIN committed by humans against God.
Today, we will look at the effects of this "Original Sin"...
ORIGINAL SIN
Adam and Eve both took an external stimulus and responded with sin against each other. We called this First Dimensional sin and represented the process with the following illustration:
Arrow "one" is the stimulus ("serpent" for Eve and "Eve" for Adam)
Arrow "two" represents the comparative thought process each had.
Arrow "three" represents their actions which in this case was "sin".
For the next process, Adam and Eve's stimulus was internal...it was their own First Dimensional sin. (Notice, Eve committed this sin FIRST.) God took this First Dimensional sin and combined it with Questions and directed it back towards Adam and Eve in order to find out their Second Dimensional response. The response can be life or death and we represented the process with the following illustration:
Arrow "sin" is the stimulus (Arrow "three" from the First Dimensional process)
Arrow "four" WITH Arrow "if" is the redirection of the First Dimensional sin by God combined WITH God's Questions.
Arrow "five" represents Adam and Eve's thought process...the HOW/WHY...the cause.
Arrow "life or death" represents Adam and Eve's response to God...the WHAT...the effect.
With these illustrations, we can see God tends to focus on Arrow "life or death"...while most people portray a God focused on Arrow "three" (in the first illustration) and Arrow "sin" (in the second illustration). Actually, God is focused on the last two Arrows. Let's look more closely at these last two Arrows...
We have seen Arrow "life or death" was a FACTUAL response from Adam and Eve.
Adam admitted he ate the fruit, Eve offered it to him, and this woman was provided to him by God. THREE FACTS.
Eve admitted she ate the fruit, and the serpent beguiled her. TWO FACTS.
The bottomline: Adam and Eve admitted what they DID...however, they both attributed the cause of their sin to someone other than themselves. Remember, Adam and Eve were responding to God about a sin Adam and Eve committed against each other...so their responses to God were the FIRST SIN humans did against God. (Notice, Adam did it FIRST.)
However, remember, when it comes to sinning against God, the sin is NOT the action itself...the sin is NOT the WHAT (effect)...the sin is the HOW/WHY...the sin is the cause. The Bible shows the SAME ACTION may be sin for one person and NOT sin for another. The cause of the action is the sin. (If you need the full explanation, read "What Is Sin?".)
The sin is ACTUALLY found with Arrow "five"!!!!
I realize I make the following points everytime I have the opportunity...and this is because it is the difference between "life or death":
We have seen DECEPTION is a Right WHAT with a Wrong (or NO) HOW/WHY.
We have seen TRUTH is a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY.
The ONLY difference between TRUTH and DECEPTION is in the HOW/WHY.
A FACT is a Right WHAT.
The ability for a FACT to be Profitable or Unprofitable is COMPLETELY dependent on the HOW/WHY...which is Arrow "five".
The Bible documented the FACTUAL response to God. What would have been a TRUTHFUL response to God?
Adam: I ate the fruit (Right WHAT) because I didn't follow Your command, I didn't teach my wife Your Word well enough, and I didn't want to be lonely. This was wrong of me to do to MY WIFE. God help me to Repair this damage I have done to her.
Eve: I ate the fruit (Right WHAT) because I didn't follow Your command, I didn't follow what my husband taught me, I chose to be influenced by a novel creature (serpent), and I chose to tempt my husband into justifying my wrong decision. This was wrong of me to do to MY HUSBAND. God help me to Repair this damage I have done to him.
Remember, a PERFECT Confession has three parts:
-I admit what I did
-I know WHY I did it
-I admit it was wrong
Remember, Repentance is a DO...it is taking action to Repair the damage that has been done. The result ought to be something MORE. True Repentance/Repair results in something more...it creates.
This TRUTHFUL RESPONSE would have resulted in creating more!
Confession and Repentance are the only way to remove guilt.
If Adam and Eve had confessed and repented, would they have stayed in Eden? I believe they would have been allowed to...otherwise, the rest of the Bible is contradictory.
However, Adam and Eve justified themselves. They admitted WHAT they did, however, they took NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for their actions. This is a Thought Process! This points to a HOW/WHY...
Adam and Eve's thought process was to rationalize their actions TO GOD.
Not only did they attempt to DECEIVE God with their FACTUAL response...they intended to make themselves greater than God! They committed idolatry! This is pride!
This is the ORIGINAL SIN because it is the CAUSE of EVERY sin we commit against God!
EFFECTS OF ORIGINAL SIN
Let's look at Adam and Eve's Thought Process PRINCIPLES...
CAUSALITY - Both Adam and Eve spoke according to Causality. They stated an effect and its cause.
NON-CONTRADICTION - Both Adam and Eve referenced lack of Contradiction as proof they were right.
COMPARATIVE - Both Adam and Eve looked ONLY at the FACTS that didn't Contradict their intent.
COMFORT - Both Adam and Eve looked for the most immediate and comfortable response: justify myself.
We have seen the Unaware Brain models according to all four God-given principles without intentional effort:
-Causality
-Non-contradiction
-Contrastive
-Growth
We have seen the conscious brain begins working according to two of the God-given principles (Causality and Non-contradiction) and according to the opposite of the other two of the God-given principles (Comparative and Comfort)...which is EXACTLY the same Thought Process Principles Adam and Eve had!
We have seen how I believe before Adam and Eve dealt with the serpent, God opened up Adam and Eve's nucleus basalis'. They would have been completely conscious WITHOUT effort...like a baby is during the "critical period".
However, it looks to me like Adam and Eve took over control of their nucleus basalis when THEY CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE to eat the fruit. EVERYTHING after they ate the fruit was an EFFECT of their CONSCIOUS THOUGHT PROCESS.
Adam and Eve chose to consciously think according to Causality, Non-contradiction, Comparative, and Comfort. Consequently, EVERYONE who was born after Adam and Eve has this same conscious brain...which is the cause of EVERY sin we do against God.
The ONLY way to attain Salvation is by grace through faith.
Grace resists the proud. Grace resists the Comparative and Comfort driven.
Faith is a belief in something we can't see either because it is invisible or hasn't happened yet. Faith is built on Experience and Understanding. Faith is built on Causality and Non-contradiction.
WHY can we overcome our sin nature? Grace.
God's divine influence upon our heart, and its reflection in the life through the Holy Spirit is ONLY possible because of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross.
HOW can we overcome our sin nature? By grace through faith...by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God and was raised from the dead.
These are the SPIRITUAL HOW/WHY answers. What are the PHYSICAL HOW/WHY answers?
Our Unaware Brain works according to the four God-given principles. Our conscious brain works according to two of the four God-given principles.
PHYSICAL HOW: Choose to consciously work according to all four God-given principles.
PHYSICAL WHY: Let's look to Dr. Norman Doidge for the explanation...
"The competitive nature of plasticity affects us all. There is an endless war of nerves going on inside each our brains. If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map for space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead." (Norman Doidge, MD "The Brain That Changes Itself")
It turns out everyday we determine the brain we will have tomorrow!
If we spend today being comparative and comfortable...that is, NOT learning ANYTHING that makes us uncomfortable and that we disagree with, tomorrow our brains will have less ability to learn something new AND our brains will take what we do know and spread it out more...essentially take up more room in the brain with things we already know! Notice, it will be EASIER tomorrow to be comparative and comfortable.
However, if we spend today being contrastive and growth focused...that is, learning SOMETHING that makes us uncomfortable and that we disagreed with, tomorrow our brains will have more ability to learn something new AND our brains will take what we do know and simplify it so it takes up less room in the brain! Notice, it will be EASIER tomorrow to be contrastive and growth focused.
GOD MADE OUR BRAINS THIS WAY!
It is OUR responsibility if we CHOOSE to progress our brains towards consciously thinking according to all four God-given principles OR progressing towards NONE of the four God-given principles. We have seen how people are able to damage their brains to the point they are no longer able to think according to Causality and Non-Contradiction!
This physiological understanding has been confirmed in the past few years.
Now look at something written almost fifty years ago...
"The Discarded Image" was the last book by CS Lewis. It was published in 1964 after he died. Lewis was focused on creating "the Model" explaining our beliefs. He even shared Two Rules for creating this Model:
"All apparent contradictions must be harmonised. A Model must be built which will get everything in without a clash; and it can do this only by becoming intricate, by mediating its unity through a great, and finely ordered, multiplicity." (Page 11)
"But if we demanded no more than that from theory, science would be impossible, for a lively inventive faculty could devise a good many different supposals which would equally save the phenomena. We have therefore had to supplement the canon of saving the phenomena by another canon - first, perhaps, formulated with full clairity by Occam. According to this second canon we must accept (provisionally) not any theory which saves the phenomena but that theory which does so with the fewest possible assumptions." (Page 15)
LEWIS' FIRST RULE OF MODELING: The Model must be made up of specific causes accounting for ALL the observed effects without contradiction.
LEWIS' SECOND RULE OF MODELING: If more than one Model accounts for ALL the observed effects without contradiction, then we must embrace the simpler Model.
CS Lewis PERFECTLY described the process our conscious brain goes through each night to either become more or less able to grow!
The First Rule covers how the brain determines whether to increase or decrease its ability to learn more.
The Second Rule covers how the brain determines what to do with what we already know.
SUMMARY
Adam and Eve chose to consciouly think according to two of the four God-given principles.
Their response to the sin they did to each other was to attempt to deceive God and justify themselves...which is idolatry.
This Second Dimensional sin was the FIRST SIN committed against God by humans...it is the Original Sin...the sin that is the cause of every sin we do against God.
Adam and Eve's choice to do this was a Third Dimensional choice...it was NOT pre-destined. It was possible to chose to think differently. It is still possible today to think differently, yet people still choose to think with the same conscious brain as Adam and Eve.
God judged the serpent without asking a Question. It looks as if God took the serpent's conscious brain away...which included its ability to consciously think and talk. God did not give the serpent the opportunity to confess and repent.
God judged Adam and Eve AFTER asking four Questions and BECAUSE of their Thought Process (HOW/WHY...cause)...NOT because they ate of the tree (WHAT...effect).
God's Righteous Judgment which is Qualitative and concerned with Second Dimensional sin (what they did to God) resulted in expulsion...loss of Paradise for Adam, Eve, and the serpent.
God's Just Judgment which is Quantitative and concerned with First Dimensional sin (what they did to each other) resulted in the curses...which were related to what they did to each other.
Now we see this First Dispensation ended with a Judgment Day! Everything was equaled out with Two Judgments! People who don't understand there are Two Judgments mentioned in Revelation 20 are missing the most critical aspect of Genesis 3...which we have seen is a story FULL of doctrine. The Bible begins with a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise...and THEN there is a Judgment Day. The Bible ends with a Judgment Day...and THEN there is a tree, a husband, and a wife in Paradise.
Original Sin is concerned with eternal damnation and requires us to attain Salvation. Original Sin is NOT concerned with Justice and Rewards...balancing out the quantitative effects of the actions. Orignal Sin is a Qualitative issue...
The reason Original Sin is so debated is people define the Original Sin as eating the fruit...and the contradictions flow from this definition of sin as a WHAT instead of a HOW/WHY...as an effect instead of a cause.
Original Sin resulted in separation between humans and God. If the Original Sin was eating the fruit, this is something we ought to repair ourselves...it is also NOT something every human does. However, if Original Sin is not being honest with God and justifying ourselves, this is something that every human still does and causes separation with God.
If Original Sin was the eating of the fruit, then EVE committed the Original Sin...she ate first. However, Paul wrote in I Corinthians that sin came in through Adam...sin ORIGINATED through Adam. The ONLY thing Adam did first was try to deceive God...which we now know is Second Dimensional sin...which is the First sin humans did against God.
However, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory Biblical interpretation of this passage. EVERYONE who reads this passage and consciously creates a different interpretation is actually causing an incongruity between their conscious brain and Unaware Brain. In fact, notice what this looks like to the Unaware Brain...
The Unaware Brain just read a story about humans committing idolatry by rationalizing and justifying themselves instead of God. Then the Unaware Brain sees the conscious brain DO THE SAME THING TODAY when it rationalizes and justifies an interpretation of this critical passage so the conscious brain can remain comparative and comfortable.
NO WONDER most people can't read through their Bible, let alone the Book of Genesis! The Unaware Brain of the individual is depressing the individual in an attempt NOT to commit even more idolatry.
I believe God BEGAN the human race with their nucleus basalis propped open...with effortless complete consciousness...and this would ONLY be Profitable if humans would ONLY take direction from God.
The human race chose to take direction from themselves...which caused a separation from God.
The battlefield is the Brain.
Our desire to take direction from God will be objectively proven on Judgment Day...Spritiually, with our Mind/Soul...Physically, with our Brain.
It looks like God still intends for humans to spend eternity taking direction from God in a state of complete consciousness...
When God BEGAN the human race, Paradise was obtained WITHOUT knowledge of any other way.
It looks like God NOW intends for Paradise to be consciously chosen WITH the knowledge of every other way.
Our Physical objective for Eternity is to keep our nucleus basalis open...to become like babies.
Next Post
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Genesis 3:12-19
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 3:8-11 one verse at a time while giving the reader the opportunity to grow by PREDICTING who said the next verse and what the person said. Here are the actual verses:
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
Here is the summary:
God did NOT condemn Adam and Eve EVEN at this point. Most people who tell this story present a God that is focused on judgment and condemnation for First Dimensional sin. However, we have seen this is NOT THE CASE according to the Bible.
God asked THREE Questions!!!!
In fact, did you notice anything strange about these Questions?
God asked Adam: Where art thou?
God asked Adam: Who told thee that thou wast naked?
God asked Adam: Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
We are going to conclude with a Question for you:
WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
In order to make this easier, let me share the two most popular answers to this Question:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory answer.
Your conscious response shows how much incongruity you have when it comes to God's Word...and God's Nature.
Obviously, people who give (or teach) either of these two answers are damaging their brain...and the brains of others.
Today, we will answer this last Question in a non-contradictory manner...
GENESIS 3:12-19
"12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
God asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree. Adam's response to God's Question was to state a FACT: I did eat.
However, Adam also stated a couple of facts BEFORE answering God's Question:
-God gave the woman to be with Adam
-The woman gave Adam the fruit
Both of these statements are FACTS...they are Right WHAT's.
We have seen TRUTH is a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY.
We have seen DECEPTION is a Right WHAT with a Wrong (or NO) HOW/WHY.
Look at Adam's answer again...
Is there a HOW?
Is there a WHY?
It looks like the two preceding FACTS are the HOW and WHY!
Adam's WHAT: I did eat of the tree
Adam's HOW/WHY: God gave me a woman who offered the fruit to me
Remember, the WHAT is the effect...the result of the HOW and WHY (which are causes).
However, there is a subtle rationalization in Adam's response...
Remember, BEFORE Eve was created, EVERY animal was created, interacted with, found to be lacking, and named. How long was Adam ALONE? God SPECIFICALLY created Eve so that Adam was NOT alone (and so Adam would have a "help meet"...someone perfectly suited to helping him grow).
The woman ate of the fruit and then offered it to Adam. Adam's choices were:
1) to reject her offer and break Fellowship with her (and be alone) or
2) eat the fruit and continue to be in Fellowship with the one person God provided (AND break Fellowship with God...but Adam couldn't look Long Term at this point).
Now look again at Adam's answer to God's question of whether he ate from the tree:
"12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
A lot of people have God judging/condemning Adam at this point...after all, Adam just blamed God and Eve for his eating of the fruit.
THE NEXT (half of a) VERSE:
"13 And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done?..."
-God spoke
-God spoke to Eve
-He asked a Question
(This is actually only half the verse.)
God was STILL NOT focused on judging/condemning! He asked Questions. The same Question I asked you at the end of yesterday's post can be asked again: WHY did God ask Eve a Question about a past event?
What is the next (half of the) verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
THE NEXT (half of a) VERSE:
"13... And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
-Eve spoke
-She spoke to God
-She stated two FACTS
It looks as if Eve's Right WHAT is: I did eat. (Effect)
Eve's HOW/WHY is: The serpent beguiled me. (Cause)
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Most people know God spoke to the serpent next. However, when a person has gone through this verse-by-verse exercise, they are SHOCKED to see God ONLY spoke in QUESTIONS. So far, God spoke four sentences and ALL four have been QUESTIONS! So, almost everyone states God spoke a Question to the serpent...
THE NEXT VERSE
"14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
-God spoke
-He spoke to the serpent
-God judged/condemned the serpent
Notice, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY questions...
So, now we see that when God judged/condemned, He made Statements. Option #2 from yesterday's post has just been confirmed WRONG. God did NOT ask Adam and Eve Questions about the past in order to judge/condemn them.
I hope you realize God already knew BOTH the FACTUAL and TRUTHFUL answers to His Questions...otherwise, He wouldn't be God.
God judged the serpent...
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
NEXT VERSES
"16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
-God spoke
-He first spoke to Eve, then to Adam
-God judged/condemned them
Notice, God stated Adam shall NOW rule over her...because Adam did NOT rule over her before. God did NOT intend for males to rule over females. The reason WHY was according to Justice...according to Eve's HOW/WHY rationalization: the serpent beguiled me.
God stated Adam shall NOW work by the sweat of his brow for his physical supply (food)...after all, this all started because she was looking for food. However, it was by the sweat of his brow because Adam did NOT work by physical exertion before.
EVERYTHING Adam did was with WORDS...name the animals, teach his wife the Word of God...perhaps even HOW he tended the garden! (I've covered this before, but think about it this way, in the garden, we had the ability to affect the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical with Words through a Statement of the Will. The garden lost us the ability to do this directly in the Physical. Perhaps this will be restored in Eternity. However, we are still able to affect the spiritual with Words: Salvation and Spiritual Warfare.)
God's reason WHY for His judgment of Adam was according to Justice...according to Adam's HOW/WHY rationalization: Staying in agreement over physical supply (food) with the woman that was provided to me.
The serpent will have his head bruised by her seed because he used his head to beguile her. Her seed will have its heel bruised because she was deceived by the serpent. Grasping the heel means "supplanter"...to take something illegally or immoral means...deceiver. This comes from Jacob's birth...
Genesis 25:26 "And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esau's heel. And his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them."
In fact, Tom Hubbard raises a great point in the comments section of this post that leads to this point: this passage in Genesis 3 is a mini-Judgment Day!
The curses God pronounces on Adam, Eve, and the serpent are according to their works...which is the Reward Judgment...which is a Quantitative Judgment determined by Justice.
God's expulsion of Adam, Eve, and the serpent from the garden is according to internal decisions...which is a Qualitative Judgment determined by Righteousness.
Just like on Judgment Day, one Judgment is for First Dimensional sins and the other Judgment is for Second Dimensional sins. We will look at this more closely tomorrow.
SUMMARY
We now know God was not focused on judging/condemning Adam and Eve.
He asked four Questions of Adam and Eve. However, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY Questions. God immediately judged/condemned the serpent.
Here's the question from yesterday's post: WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
God must have asked these question because He was looking forward. God asked because there was something He DIDN'T know for sure...something that hadn't happened yet. What was it?
God knew they had eaten from the tree.
God knew they knew they had eaten from the tree.
What didn't God know that was a future event?
The only explanation for this passage is God was focused on Adam's response to his own actions...not on the actual action of Adam eating of the tree.
Another way of saying this is: God was focused on Adam's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin...not on Adam's First Dimensional sin.
Let's take this one step further: God was focused on Adam's Thought Process!
We even saw yesterday the EFFECT of Adam answering God's first two Questions were WE got to see Adam's Thought Process!
Your Unaware Brain is a perfect modeler. Your Unaware Brain knows this is the correct explanation. Every attempt to justify or teach a different explanation is actually damaging your own conscious brain...and the conscious brain of others. Do you agree?
God asked Adam and Eve Questions in order to LEARN their response to their sin against each other...their response to their First Dimensional sin.
BOTH Adam and Eve responded TO GOD by blaming OTHERS!
Adam blamed God and Eve for his actions!
Eve blamed the serpent for her actions!
BOTH Adam and Eve committed Second Dimensional sin against God with their responses.
Adam and Eve were FACTUAL with their response to God...however, Adam and Eve were NOT TRUTHFUL with their responses to God. They were DECEPTIVE. They had a Right WHAT ("I ate the fruit") with a Wrong HOW/WHY ("others were the cause of my sin").
This was the FIRST SIN committed by humans against God.
Tomorrow, we will look at the effects of this "Original Sin"...
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 3:8-11 one verse at a time while giving the reader the opportunity to grow by PREDICTING who said the next verse and what the person said. Here are the actual verses:
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
Here is the summary:
God did NOT condemn Adam and Eve EVEN at this point. Most people who tell this story present a God that is focused on judgment and condemnation for First Dimensional sin. However, we have seen this is NOT THE CASE according to the Bible.
God asked THREE Questions!!!!
In fact, did you notice anything strange about these Questions?
God asked Adam: Where art thou?
God asked Adam: Who told thee that thou wast naked?
God asked Adam: Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
We are going to conclude with a Question for you:
WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
In order to make this easier, let me share the two most popular answers to this Question:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory answer.
Your conscious response shows how much incongruity you have when it comes to God's Word...and God's Nature.
Obviously, people who give (or teach) either of these two answers are damaging their brain...and the brains of others.
Today, we will answer this last Question in a non-contradictory manner...
GENESIS 3:12-19
"12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
God asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree. Adam's response to God's Question was to state a FACT: I did eat.
However, Adam also stated a couple of facts BEFORE answering God's Question:
-God gave the woman to be with Adam
-The woman gave Adam the fruit
Both of these statements are FACTS...they are Right WHAT's.
We have seen TRUTH is a Right WHAT with a Right HOW/WHY.
We have seen DECEPTION is a Right WHAT with a Wrong (or NO) HOW/WHY.
Look at Adam's answer again...
Is there a HOW?
Is there a WHY?
It looks like the two preceding FACTS are the HOW and WHY!
Adam's WHAT: I did eat of the tree
Adam's HOW/WHY: God gave me a woman who offered the fruit to me
Remember, the WHAT is the effect...the result of the HOW and WHY (which are causes).
However, there is a subtle rationalization in Adam's response...
Remember, BEFORE Eve was created, EVERY animal was created, interacted with, found to be lacking, and named. How long was Adam ALONE? God SPECIFICALLY created Eve so that Adam was NOT alone (and so Adam would have a "help meet"...someone perfectly suited to helping him grow).
The woman ate of the fruit and then offered it to Adam. Adam's choices were:
1) to reject her offer and break Fellowship with her (and be alone) or
2) eat the fruit and continue to be in Fellowship with the one person God provided (AND break Fellowship with God...but Adam couldn't look Long Term at this point).
Now look again at Adam's answer to God's question of whether he ate from the tree:
"12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
A lot of people have God judging/condemning Adam at this point...after all, Adam just blamed God and Eve for his eating of the fruit.
THE NEXT (half of a) VERSE:
"13 And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done?..."
-God spoke
-God spoke to Eve
-He asked a Question
(This is actually only half the verse.)
God was STILL NOT focused on judging/condemning! He asked Questions. The same Question I asked you at the end of yesterday's post can be asked again: WHY did God ask Eve a Question about a past event?
What is the next (half of the) verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
THE NEXT (half of a) VERSE:
"13... And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
-Eve spoke
-She spoke to God
-She stated two FACTS
It looks as if Eve's Right WHAT is: I did eat. (Effect)
Eve's HOW/WHY is: The serpent beguiled me. (Cause)
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Most people know God spoke to the serpent next. However, when a person has gone through this verse-by-verse exercise, they are SHOCKED to see God ONLY spoke in QUESTIONS. So far, God spoke four sentences and ALL four have been QUESTIONS! So, almost everyone states God spoke a Question to the serpent...
THE NEXT VERSE
"14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
-God spoke
-He spoke to the serpent
-God judged/condemned the serpent
Notice, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY questions...
So, now we see that when God judged/condemned, He made Statements. Option #2 from yesterday's post has just been confirmed WRONG. God did NOT ask Adam and Eve Questions about the past in order to judge/condemn them.
I hope you realize God already knew BOTH the FACTUAL and TRUTHFUL answers to His Questions...otherwise, He wouldn't be God.
God judged the serpent...
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
NEXT VERSES
"16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
-God spoke
-He first spoke to Eve, then to Adam
-God judged/condemned them
Notice, God stated Adam shall NOW rule over her...because Adam did NOT rule over her before. God did NOT intend for males to rule over females. The reason WHY was according to Justice...according to Eve's HOW/WHY rationalization: the serpent beguiled me.
God stated Adam shall NOW work by the sweat of his brow for his physical supply (food)...after all, this all started because she was looking for food. However, it was by the sweat of his brow because Adam did NOT work by physical exertion before.
EVERYTHING Adam did was with WORDS...name the animals, teach his wife the Word of God...perhaps even HOW he tended the garden! (I've covered this before, but think about it this way, in the garden, we had the ability to affect the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical with Words through a Statement of the Will. The garden lost us the ability to do this directly in the Physical. Perhaps this will be restored in Eternity. However, we are still able to affect the spiritual with Words: Salvation and Spiritual Warfare.)
God's reason WHY for His judgment of Adam was according to Justice...according to Adam's HOW/WHY rationalization: Staying in agreement over physical supply (food) with the woman that was provided to me.
The serpent will have his head bruised by her seed because he used his head to beguile her. Her seed will have its heel bruised because she was deceived by the serpent. Grasping the heel means "supplanter"...to take something illegally or immoral means...deceiver. This comes from Jacob's birth...
Genesis 25:26 "And after that came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on Esau's heel. And his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them."
In fact, Tom Hubbard raises a great point in the comments section of this post that leads to this point: this passage in Genesis 3 is a mini-Judgment Day!
The curses God pronounces on Adam, Eve, and the serpent are according to their works...which is the Reward Judgment...which is a Quantitative Judgment determined by Justice.
God's expulsion of Adam, Eve, and the serpent from the garden is according to internal decisions...which is a Qualitative Judgment determined by Righteousness.
Just like on Judgment Day, one Judgment is for First Dimensional sins and the other Judgment is for Second Dimensional sins. We will look at this more closely tomorrow.
SUMMARY
We now know God was not focused on judging/condemning Adam and Eve.
He asked four Questions of Adam and Eve. However, God did NOT ask the serpent ANY Questions. God immediately judged/condemned the serpent.
Here's the question from yesterday's post: WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
God must have asked these question because He was looking forward. God asked because there was something He DIDN'T know for sure...something that hadn't happened yet. What was it?
God knew they had eaten from the tree.
God knew they knew they had eaten from the tree.
What didn't God know that was a future event?
The only explanation for this passage is God was focused on Adam's response to his own actions...not on the actual action of Adam eating of the tree.
Another way of saying this is: God was focused on Adam's Second Dimensional response to his First Dimensional sin...not on Adam's First Dimensional sin.
Let's take this one step further: God was focused on Adam's Thought Process!
We even saw yesterday the EFFECT of Adam answering God's first two Questions were WE got to see Adam's Thought Process!
Your Unaware Brain is a perfect modeler. Your Unaware Brain knows this is the correct explanation. Every attempt to justify or teach a different explanation is actually damaging your own conscious brain...and the conscious brain of others. Do you agree?
God asked Adam and Eve Questions in order to LEARN their response to their sin against each other...their response to their First Dimensional sin.
BOTH Adam and Eve responded TO GOD by blaming OTHERS!
Adam blamed God and Eve for his actions!
Eve blamed the serpent for her actions!
BOTH Adam and Eve committed Second Dimensional sin against God with their responses.
Adam and Eve were FACTUAL with their response to God...however, Adam and Eve were NOT TRUTHFUL with their responses to God. They were DECEPTIVE. They had a Right WHAT ("I ate the fruit") with a Wrong HOW/WHY ("others were the cause of my sin").
This was the FIRST SIN committed by humans against God.
Tomorrow, we will look at the effects of this "Original Sin"...
Next Post
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Genesis 3:8-11
This year we have covered the first seventeen chapters of The Gospel According To Matthew.
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 3:1-7. Here is the summary:
God intended for Adam and Eve to live in PARADISE...to live in the moment and NOT look to the future. I believe He opened up their nucleus basalis and gave them direction. With each piece of information, their thoughts in their conscious brain would have been IMMEDIATE...that is, they would have gone through only one causal feedback loop....would have looked at only immediate contradictions.
However, Adam and Eve encountered a creature that was NOT novel to Adam, but MAY have been novel to Eve. (Adam named all the creatures BEFORE Eve was created.)
I believe their CONSCIOUS decision to eat the fruit was an expression of THEIR WILL to control their nucleus basalis.
Once they ate the fruit, they were able to LOOK BEYOND the immediate moment...to look at Long Term implications.
Ed makes the point Adam and Eve ALWAYS knew they were naked. However, upon eating the fruit, Adam's and Eve's EYES WERE OPENED and they KNEW they were naked...so this must mean they KNEW the Long Term implications and took Long Term actions. (Perhaps they were afraid they might cause "others" (angels, God, animals, etc.) to commit sexual immorality. Perhaps Adam and Eve hadn't had intercourse yet and this realization of HOW sex could be perverted made them ashamed. I do not know...) Whatever the specific realization, Adam and Eve were no longer living in the moment...they were no longer experiencing Paradise.
From this point on, everything in this Genesis account takes on a much deeper meaning when viewed from Ed's perspective...
GENESIS 3:8-11
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden."
Clearly, Adam and Eve RESPONDED to the voice of God by hiding!
This month we have covered a lot of background in order to appreciate this one verse. Let's take a moment to understand the implications of this verse...
During the post titled, "Doctrine of Sin (Overview)", we saw that while sin is a violation of God's objective standard, the standard changed twice throughout the Bible. People make the mistake of seeing The Law as ALWAYS being God's objective standard. However, there was one standard BEFORE The Law and a new standard in our dispensation once Jesus fulfilled The Law and sent the Holy Spirit. If you want a complete explanation, please click on the previously provided link. Here is a brief excerpt from "Doctrine of Sin (Overview)":
"BEFORE THE LAW (Genesis)
Before the Dispensation of The Law, people didn't know SPECIFICALLY what was a sin UNTIL they did it. Then once they had done a SPECIFIC sin, they knew that SPECIFIC action was sinful BEFORE they did it the next time."
In that same post, I presented a parable to illustrate the three different conditions related to sin. Here is an excerpt of that parable dealing only with the condition that existed in Genesis (BEFORE The Law):
"SIN PARABLE
Imagine you are in a completely dark living room. How would you make "progress"? How would you get from one wall to the opposite wall?"
"You would begin walking forward, slowly, until you ran into an object. Then you would adjust and try not to walk into that object again. This is the same as sin before The Law."
"The object is analogous to "sin". You don't know the "sin" until you encounter it...then you work to avoid it in the future. You work according to YOUR understanding and experience...your faith."
This month, we also brought greater Resolution to the Doctrine of Sin by understanding there are First Dimensional, Second Dimensional, and Third Dimensional sins.
Here is the summary from the post titled, "First Dimensional Sin":
"First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual."
"We all have First Dimensional sins."
"First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model."
"First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God."
"All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day."
Here is the summary from the post titled, "Second Dimensional Sin":
"Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual."
"We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins."
"Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model."
"Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God."
"All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day."
"God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin."
Applying all of this to verse 8, we see:
-Adam sinned against Eve by not teaching her the Word of God.
-Eve sinned against Adam by offering him the fruit.
-Adam and Eve hiding from God's voice was in response to the First Dimensional sins they had committed against each other.
THE BIBLE vs. MAN-MADE NOVELS
One of the subtle differences with the Bible as literature is how the main Persons were presented. In a novel, we learn about some aspect of the character in the beginning...and we continue to get more and more understanding of the true nature of the character as the story goes on.
In the Bible, when it comes to The Trinity, the best understanding of each Person was obtained upon Their introduction...and then They became more and more abstract as the story went on. For example, how often did God the Father speak throughout the Bible?
He began the Bible speaking to people directly (Adam, Eve, Cain...) and by the time Moses is gone, God the Father is only speaking to people through prophets. In the New Testament, God the Father spoke during Jesus' Baptism and the Transfiguration...and very little is mentioned about God the Father directly.
In the Book of Matthew, Jesus gave a specific explanation of His objective and doctrine during His PREMIERE Teaching (Matthew chapters 5 through 7). This was the clearest explanation of Jesus' doctrine. Everything after that Teaching was more abstract and complex because Jesus adjusted to people.
Notice, The Holy Spirit appeared in The Book of Acts, which was the best description we get and then became more abstract through the rest of the New Testament...as the Holy Spirit adjusted to people.
Consequently, the best understanding of God the Father comes at the beginning of the Bible. As people make more and more poor choices, God the Father adjusted to humans and we see less and less of His Nature directly and more of Him indirectly. That means the following exchange between God and Adam/Eve will give us the clearest understanding of God's Nature and Objectives.
This is a VERY well-known story. However, I have found people don't consciously recall this story correctly. In fact, I've learned our Unaware Brain KNOWS this story accurately. I believe the disconnect between what people consciously SAY about this story and what the Unaware Brain DOES with this story is what is causing some people today to believe the Bible is NOT truth...that it is NOT the Word of God. A lot of pastors and national ministries are lamenting the statistics showing 90% of the teenagers raised in the church don't attend church once they graduate high school...yet these pastors and national ministries don't want to consider the reason may be their inability to teach God's Word accurately and without contradiction.
Realize, a person who sets out to read the Bible AND consciously misinterprets this FIRST STORY of the Bible will VERY LIKELY not be able to finish reading the Bible (let alone Genesis) without the Unaware Brain juicing the person AWAY from reading the Bible!!!!
Think about this: teaching the Bible incorrectly ACTUALLY encourages people to NOT be motivated to read their Bible because their Unaware Brain recognizes the contradictions and Long Term damage!
We have seen people who read "Modeling God" WANT to read their Bible MORE because the Bible makes sense. "Modeling God" is NOT the answer. The Bible is the answer. "Modeling God" is a tool helping people get the answer...people who read "Modeling God" GET the Bible.
These next three verses COMPLETELY determine YOUR view of God.
For the rest of this post, I'm going to ask you to PREDICT what God said. I'm going to ask you to PREDICT the next verse.
If you want to GROW, answer the questions before proceeding with the verse.
So, let's back up...
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden."
For their entire life, Adam and Eve openly received from God when God spoke. Now, Adam and Eve HID themselves from God when they heard His Voice.
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?"
-God spoke
-He spoke to Adam
-God asked a Question
Notice, God did NOT judge Adam and Eve. He SPECIFICALLY asked Adam a Question. If your answer was a Statement, then you believe God is focused on judging. If your answer was a Question along the lines of "Why are you hiding?", then you STILL believe God is focused on judging because God would be accusing Adam of hiding.
God asked Adam a Question: "Where art thou?"
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
-Adam spoke
-He spoke to God
-Adam spoke a Statement that followed the First Feedback Loop and Second Feedback Loop Models.
Stimulus: heard God's voice
Connecting Thought: I am naked
Associated Emotion: Afraid
Response: Hid
The First Feedback Loop resulted in a Full Thought: I heard God's voice and became afraid because I was naked.
The Second Feedback Loop resulted in a Response: I hid myself.
We are seeing Adam's Thought Process!
One more verse...
Adam shared his Thought Process.
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
-God spoke
-He spoke to Adam
-He asked TWO Questions.
Most people who claim to know this story answer with God making a Statement to Adam and Eve that judged/condemned them!
God did NOT condemn Adam and Eve EVEN at this point. Most people who tell this story present a God that is focused on judgment and condemnation for First Dimensional sin. However, we have seen this is NOT THE CASE according to the Bible.
God asked THREE Questions!!!!
In fact, did you notice anything strange about these Questions?
God asked Adam: Where art thou?
God asked Adam: Who told thee that thou wast naked?
God asked Adam: Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
We are going to conclude today's post with a Question for you:
WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
In order to make this easier, let me share the two most popular answers to this Question:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory answer.
Your conscious response shows how much incongruity you have when it comes to God's Word...and God's Nature.
Obviously, people who give (or teach) either of these two answers are damaging their brain...and the brains of others.
Tomorrow, we will answer this last Question in a non-contradictory manner...
Next Post
Matthew chapters 18 and 19 are two crucial chapters of the New Testament. These chapters have the answers (HOW/WHY) church today is NOT creating the value needed to bring about God's Will on earth as it is done in Heaven.
However, people miss the solutions presented by Jesus because they lack the foundational doctrine. We will see most churches today do the OPPOSITE of Matthew chapters 18 and 19.
In order to more fully appreciate the information, we will spend the rest of this month getting foundational background.
In the previous post, we covered Genesis 3:1-7. Here is the summary:
God intended for Adam and Eve to live in PARADISE...to live in the moment and NOT look to the future. I believe He opened up their nucleus basalis and gave them direction. With each piece of information, their thoughts in their conscious brain would have been IMMEDIATE...that is, they would have gone through only one causal feedback loop....would have looked at only immediate contradictions.
However, Adam and Eve encountered a creature that was NOT novel to Adam, but MAY have been novel to Eve. (Adam named all the creatures BEFORE Eve was created.)
I believe their CONSCIOUS decision to eat the fruit was an expression of THEIR WILL to control their nucleus basalis.
Once they ate the fruit, they were able to LOOK BEYOND the immediate moment...to look at Long Term implications.
Ed makes the point Adam and Eve ALWAYS knew they were naked. However, upon eating the fruit, Adam's and Eve's EYES WERE OPENED and they KNEW they were naked...so this must mean they KNEW the Long Term implications and took Long Term actions. (Perhaps they were afraid they might cause "others" (angels, God, animals, etc.) to commit sexual immorality. Perhaps Adam and Eve hadn't had intercourse yet and this realization of HOW sex could be perverted made them ashamed. I do not know...) Whatever the specific realization, Adam and Eve were no longer living in the moment...they were no longer experiencing Paradise.
From this point on, everything in this Genesis account takes on a much deeper meaning when viewed from Ed's perspective...
GENESIS 3:8-11
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden."
Clearly, Adam and Eve RESPONDED to the voice of God by hiding!
This month we have covered a lot of background in order to appreciate this one verse. Let's take a moment to understand the implications of this verse...
During the post titled, "Doctrine of Sin (Overview)", we saw that while sin is a violation of God's objective standard, the standard changed twice throughout the Bible. People make the mistake of seeing The Law as ALWAYS being God's objective standard. However, there was one standard BEFORE The Law and a new standard in our dispensation once Jesus fulfilled The Law and sent the Holy Spirit. If you want a complete explanation, please click on the previously provided link. Here is a brief excerpt from "Doctrine of Sin (Overview)":
"BEFORE THE LAW (Genesis)
Before the Dispensation of The Law, people didn't know SPECIFICALLY what was a sin UNTIL they did it. Then once they had done a SPECIFIC sin, they knew that SPECIFIC action was sinful BEFORE they did it the next time."
In that same post, I presented a parable to illustrate the three different conditions related to sin. Here is an excerpt of that parable dealing only with the condition that existed in Genesis (BEFORE The Law):
"SIN PARABLE
Imagine you are in a completely dark living room. How would you make "progress"? How would you get from one wall to the opposite wall?"
"You would begin walking forward, slowly, until you ran into an object. Then you would adjust and try not to walk into that object again. This is the same as sin before The Law."
"The object is analogous to "sin". You don't know the "sin" until you encounter it...then you work to avoid it in the future. You work according to YOUR understanding and experience...your faith."
This month, we also brought greater Resolution to the Doctrine of Sin by understanding there are First Dimensional, Second Dimensional, and Third Dimensional sins.
Here is the summary from the post titled, "First Dimensional Sin":
"First Dimensional sins are committed as an effect of stimulus from outside the individual."
"We all have First Dimensional sins."
"First Dimensional sins are committed against people and will be resolved through Justice according to the Reward Model."
"First Dimensional sins ought to be resolved by people through confession and repentance, not God."
"All unresolved First Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the First judgment on Judgment Day."
Here is the summary from the post titled, "Second Dimensional Sin":
"Second Dimensional sins are committed in response to the Words and actions of the individual. The stimulus for Second Dimensional sin is First Dimensional sin. The stimulus is from inside the individual."
"We don't have to commit Second Dimensional sins."
"Second Dimensional sins are committed against God and will be resolved through Righteous according to the Salvation Model."
"Second Dimensional sins ought to be resolved NOW by confessing and repenting to God."
"All unresolved Second Dimensional sin will be resolved by God during the Second judgment on Judgment Day."
"God is MUCH MORE focused on Second Dimensional sin than First Dimensional sin."
Applying all of this to verse 8, we see:
-Adam sinned against Eve by not teaching her the Word of God.
-Eve sinned against Adam by offering him the fruit.
-Adam and Eve hiding from God's voice was in response to the First Dimensional sins they had committed against each other.
THE BIBLE vs. MAN-MADE NOVELS
One of the subtle differences with the Bible as literature is how the main Persons were presented. In a novel, we learn about some aspect of the character in the beginning...and we continue to get more and more understanding of the true nature of the character as the story goes on.
In the Bible, when it comes to The Trinity, the best understanding of each Person was obtained upon Their introduction...and then They became more and more abstract as the story went on. For example, how often did God the Father speak throughout the Bible?
He began the Bible speaking to people directly (Adam, Eve, Cain...) and by the time Moses is gone, God the Father is only speaking to people through prophets. In the New Testament, God the Father spoke during Jesus' Baptism and the Transfiguration...and very little is mentioned about God the Father directly.
In the Book of Matthew, Jesus gave a specific explanation of His objective and doctrine during His PREMIERE Teaching (Matthew chapters 5 through 7). This was the clearest explanation of Jesus' doctrine. Everything after that Teaching was more abstract and complex because Jesus adjusted to people.
Notice, The Holy Spirit appeared in The Book of Acts, which was the best description we get and then became more abstract through the rest of the New Testament...as the Holy Spirit adjusted to people.
Consequently, the best understanding of God the Father comes at the beginning of the Bible. As people make more and more poor choices, God the Father adjusted to humans and we see less and less of His Nature directly and more of Him indirectly. That means the following exchange between God and Adam/Eve will give us the clearest understanding of God's Nature and Objectives.
This is a VERY well-known story. However, I have found people don't consciously recall this story correctly. In fact, I've learned our Unaware Brain KNOWS this story accurately. I believe the disconnect between what people consciously SAY about this story and what the Unaware Brain DOES with this story is what is causing some people today to believe the Bible is NOT truth...that it is NOT the Word of God. A lot of pastors and national ministries are lamenting the statistics showing 90% of the teenagers raised in the church don't attend church once they graduate high school...yet these pastors and national ministries don't want to consider the reason may be their inability to teach God's Word accurately and without contradiction.
Realize, a person who sets out to read the Bible AND consciously misinterprets this FIRST STORY of the Bible will VERY LIKELY not be able to finish reading the Bible (let alone Genesis) without the Unaware Brain juicing the person AWAY from reading the Bible!!!!
Think about this: teaching the Bible incorrectly ACTUALLY encourages people to NOT be motivated to read their Bible because their Unaware Brain recognizes the contradictions and Long Term damage!
We have seen people who read "Modeling God" WANT to read their Bible MORE because the Bible makes sense. "Modeling God" is NOT the answer. The Bible is the answer. "Modeling God" is a tool helping people get the answer...people who read "Modeling God" GET the Bible.
These next three verses COMPLETELY determine YOUR view of God.
For the rest of this post, I'm going to ask you to PREDICT what God said. I'm going to ask you to PREDICT the next verse.
If you want to GROW, answer the questions before proceeding with the verse.
So, let's back up...
"8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden."
For their entire life, Adam and Eve openly received from God when God spoke. Now, Adam and Eve HID themselves from God when they heard His Voice.
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?"
-God spoke
-He spoke to Adam
-God asked a Question
Notice, God did NOT judge Adam and Eve. He SPECIFICALLY asked Adam a Question. If your answer was a Statement, then you believe God is focused on judging. If your answer was a Question along the lines of "Why are you hiding?", then you STILL believe God is focused on judging because God would be accusing Adam of hiding.
God asked Adam a Question: "Where art thou?"
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
-Adam spoke
-He spoke to God
-Adam spoke a Statement that followed the First Feedback Loop and Second Feedback Loop Models.
Stimulus: heard God's voice
Connecting Thought: I am naked
Associated Emotion: Afraid
Response: Hid
The First Feedback Loop resulted in a Full Thought: I heard God's voice and became afraid because I was naked.
The Second Feedback Loop resulted in a Response: I hid myself.
We are seeing Adam's Thought Process!
One more verse...
Adam shared his Thought Process.
What is the next verse?
-Who spoke?
-To Whom did They speak?
-What did They speak?
Take a moment to answer each question before proceeding...
THE NEXT VERSE:
"11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
-God spoke
-He spoke to Adam
-He asked TWO Questions.
Most people who claim to know this story answer with God making a Statement to Adam and Eve that judged/condemned them!
God did NOT condemn Adam and Eve EVEN at this point. Most people who tell this story present a God that is focused on judgment and condemnation for First Dimensional sin. However, we have seen this is NOT THE CASE according to the Bible.
God asked THREE Questions!!!!
In fact, did you notice anything strange about these Questions?
God asked Adam: Where art thou?
God asked Adam: Who told thee that thou wast naked?
God asked Adam: Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
We are going to conclude today's post with a Question for you:
WHY did God ask Adam these three Questions?
In order to make this easier, let me share the two most popular answers to this Question:
1. God did NOT know the answers to these Questions.
-God did NOT know where Adam was.
-God did NOT know who told them they were naked.
-God did NOT know if they ate of the tree.
2. God knew, but He wanted Adam to know that He knew in order to judge/condemn him.
Notice, people who believe answer #1 are actually saying, "God is NOT God...He is NOT omniscient...HE doesn't know what has happened."
People who believe answer #2 are actually saying, "God is a Determinist (Calvinist). He is focused on things that are in the past...on things we can't do anything about...because He is NOT the God of the living. He wants us to focus on things in the past that we can't do anything about."
Remember, your Unaware Brain knows the non-contradictory answer.
Your conscious response shows how much incongruity you have when it comes to God's Word...and God's Nature.
Obviously, people who give (or teach) either of these two answers are damaging their brain...and the brains of others.
Tomorrow, we will answer this last Question in a non-contradictory manner...
Next Post
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