RULING AND REIGNING WITH GOD

Part 7

 

September 11, 2020

 

We are going to dive right in and pick up where we left off a week ago. We were talking about Adam and Eve’s partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Let’s recap a few lines from the end of last week’s discussion.

 

Adam's face is filled with puzzlement as he hears the serpent say to Eve, "You shall not surely die. For the Lord knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Thoughts race through his mind.

 

What does being gods have to do with anything? We have fellowship and intimate friendship with the Lord God, our Creator, even now. We have been given dominion over the earth, and over every creature that walks upon the earth. There has been nothing withheld from us. Do we need something that He has not given us? We have been created in the likeness and image of the Lord God. Are we not "as God" even now? Hmmmm.............what is good? For that matter, what is evil?

 

As these thoughts have filled him, Adam has looked off into the distance, somewhat oblivious to Eve's gaze at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Logic dictates that they obey the voice of the Lord in this matter. He has said, "Of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat; for in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die." Adam is not really sure what that means since death is an unknown quantity, and they have never seen death, having been created with such regenerative powers as to virtually live forever, but a termination or cessation of their relationship with the Lord God seems certain if they partake. That must be what death is all about.

 

Adam comes to with a start as he now realizes that Eve has reached up and taken a piece of this ripe, red, delicious-looking fruit off the tree and is taking a bite.

 

Oh, no! Eve, what have you done?

 

Eve's lips pucker somewhat with the bittersweet taste, and a smile now stretches across her face. There is no dawning of knowledge, yet -- just an awareness that the fruit is tasty. She hands it now to Adam.

 

A sinking feeling fills the pit of Adam's stomach. The words spoken by their best friend, God, ring in his ears. "In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die."

 

Oh, Eve! What have you done? If you are separated from God, you will be separated from me. If you are separated from me, you will have no one to protect and watch over you. I will be lonely and incomplete again. You will be lonely and incomplete in the same measure that I once knew. I will not -- I cannot permit you to know that kind of agony.

 

And Adam reaches to take the fruit from his beloved, Eve, to the utter horror and surprise of the serpent. He will partake of it, and in so doing, redeem her from the separation from him which would otherwise surely come. Though Eve will know death, it will not be the kind of death which would have come had she been ripped from his fellowship, companionship and protection. Adam will gladly take the death to himself, and in so doing, prevent the serpent from having her to his exclusive domain.

 

You can see the astonishment on the serpent's visage. He had hoped to have the woman for himself. They would become one -- or so he had thought -- and he would have his revenge against the Lord. He would have what the Lord did not have -- a counterpart, an other self, a co-equal to fulfill his onoma.

 

Such arrogance! Such pride! This picture of brazenness takes us back to what we saw in Haman. Haman was the perfect specimen of Lucifer -- the serpent, Satan -- as he sought to accomplish precisely the same thing with the destruction of Esther and her people, and gain the throne by the overthrow of Xerxes (Ahasuerus).

 

And again it has come to naught. Oh, the serpent will have Adam and Eve under his dominion. Though they will still be One, they will be his slaves, and he will have prevented the Lord from having His Bride........or so he thinks. His efforts to have a bride for himself will not cease.

 

He will change his approach many times in the ages to come. He will greatly fear the human race, even though they are under his dominion. He will seek in every possible way to prevent them from ever seeing the heart and purposes of the Lord to have for Himself a counterpart.

 

His approaches will become more and more camouflaged as he strives to gain the heart of a people. He will become even more crafty. And in the end, it will still come to naught.

 

Adam's act will condemn them both to removal from the Garden, and separation from the Lord God, and the intimate relationship they have known with Him. Outside the Garden and beyond this place, this portal where eternity has ruled, a time clock will begin ticking. Adam and Eve will begin to feel -- albeit slowly, at first -- the effects of aging. The clock will tick for nine hundred and thirty years for Adam and Eve, and they will die, as surely as the Lord had warned them. They will die "in the day they ate thereof."

 

Just as they were created on the "sixth day," where "a day with the Lord is as a thousand years," and dwelled with the Lord through the sixth and seventh days, they will die before the end of the eighth day, some nine hundred thirty years following their departure from the Garden. If measured within the framework of time as we have known time, their lives would stretch from their exiting of the Garden to the day when David erected his tabernacle. No human beings -- ever -- will dwell on the face of the earth for a span of time to equal that of Adam and Eve -- unless it be us........but we will not speculate on that!

 

An extraordinary thing will have happened, however. Adam's act of participating with Eve and eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will have thwarted the Serpent's plan. He thought he was going to rob Adam of Eve, and in so doing, prevent the Plan of the Lord God from going forth in the earth. True, the Serpent did now have Adam and Eve living under his dominion -- so to speak -- but the Plan of the Lord God was even more surely established in the earth.

 

Adam has demonstrated the onomaof the Lord. He chose to die for his beloved Eve rather than allow her to be forever separated from him, and imprisoned to the abuses of the serpent, whose true colors became evident as he spoke his lies and opposition to the expressed word and warning of the Lord.

 

He would go down in history as "the first Adam," having redeemed his bride from destruction, separation, and imprisonment.

 

Yes, they and their descendants born outside the Garden would be subject to the wiles, the torments, the treachery of the serpent, who would henceforth be called, Satan. Yes, they would now have to "work for a living" by tilling the ground instead of watching it simply spring forth spontaneously as it had in the Garden. Yes, they would know disease and sickness, labor and hardship.

 

They would see their descendants fight among themselves and kill one another. They would live to see such evil come upon the earth as could scarcely be imagined. They would see the true effects of eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as death reigned in the earth. They would know that although they had been given the Tree of Knowledge -- along with the Tree of Life in the Garden -- and the freedom to choose whether to partake or to heed the warnings of the Lord God, it was their choices which had separated them from Him.

 

Yet, in the midst of it all, hope and a promise would spring forth in their beings, for in the midst of their removal from the Garden of Eden, the Lord had spoken. As the Serpent was transformed from a creature of beauty and loveliness into a hated snake who would be forever condemned to crawl on his belly in the dust of the earth, trodden over and despised of the human race, God had spoken,

 

"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; and it shall overwhelm and crush your head, and you shall snap at and attempt to bruise his heel."

 

Thus was there promised to Eve -- and to Adam -- the coming of a descendant who would turn the tables on the serpent -- one who would crush him and destroy his power over the human race. That One would come in the likeness of Adam, who redeemed his bride from destruction.

 

That One would redeem His Bride from destruction, and finally -- once and for all -- finish the power of the Serpent in the earth.

 

Watching Adam this day as he departs the Garden with Eve, we cannot help but be overwhelmed with the picture of our Bridegroom. It is also a strange paradox. Adam was created, formed, molded, shaped in the exact likeness and image of our Bridegroom. Yet He, Jesus Christ, came into the earth as the seed of Adam and Eve, created, molded, shaped in the image of Adam. By another paradox, He was not the seed of Adam, but the seed of Eve. True, He came of a woman, but he was implanted in the woman -- not by man, but by the Holy Spirit with whom He was already One. Thus he came as "the second Adam."

 

A cycle has been completed. Adam was not born of a woman -- he was created, molded, formed under pressure by the hand of the Lord God, and had the breath of life breathed into him by the Lord. Eve came from Adam, having been drawn from his side -- not having been born of a woman.

 

Though Jesus was born of a woman, He was not of the seed of Adam, nor was He in any way a genetic descendant. The life which was in Him was the breath of the Spirit, sent by the Father -- with whom He was One in the beginning. In the same manner that Eve came from Adam's side, we have come from Jesus' side. Eve came from Adam's side, created after the flesh to be his counterpart. We came from Jesus' side, created, drawn, molded, and shaped under pressure -- after the Spirit -- to become His counterpart -- after the Spirit.

 

Adam has the heart of the Lord for his bride, Eve. He understood what the Lord had experienced in being without a counterpart. He knew what it was to be incomplete. At the same time, there was no way he could countenance seeing Eve taken into captivity. She was his counterpart -- his other self.

 

Rather than save his own life and allow Eve to suffer separation from him and perpetual bondage to the serpent, he has chosen to sacrifice his everlasting life here in the Garden and his place of unity and fellowship with the Lord God. He could not more clearly demonstrate the onoma of our Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, who left his place of unity and fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit as He came to redeem us from our place of perpetual separation and bondage to the serpent.

 

In another extraordinary paradox we see that Jesus, because He was and is God -- in leaving his place of unity and fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit to enter the human race as the promised seed of Eve -- and Adam -- in order to redeem His Bride, succeeded in only solidifying that relationship even more. Just as Adam left his throne in the Garden, Jesus left his throne in the heavenlies -- but He was sent to fulfill the original mission of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, established before time began.

 

All of this -- every event which we have seen -- was foreknown and foreordained before the first words were spoken, "Let there be light!"

 

Again, the now familiar portal into eternity quickly opens before us and around us. Again we are engulfed in the ever-present sense of our Lord and Bridegroom. As Adam and Eve fade from our view, along with the Garden, we are gripped with an awe as we consider the meticulous care that our Adam used in preparing for us, the infinite detail He went to in preparing the circumstances of our development and growth, and the deep love He demonstrated as He set the stage to have for Himself an overcoming Bride.

 

Eve is very much the picture of us. And yet, though she was clearly Adam's exact and precise counterpart, she was a bride after the flesh. When faced with the temptation to have "the knowledge of good," and the "knowledge of evil," she succumbed.

 

We, likewise, have been faced with the same temptation, but have overcome -- choosing rather the Tree of Life and an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, our Adam. Because we have overcome, we are a part of this corporate company known as "The Bride of Christ."

 

Do you see what cost Adam and Eve the Throne? Do you see beyond the actual events which unfolded to the principle which is revealed by the Lord?

 

Though Adam willingly gave himself for Eve, he nevertheless traded Truth for "knowledge." Enticed by the lure of the "Knowledge of Good and Evil," and forgetting that they had something in their relationship with the Lord far greater than "knowledge" -- namely, "revelation" --

 

Eve succumbed to a lie. It is a lie which has been the pervasive undercurrent in all of society from that day forth. Consider the events which followed immediately after Adam and Eve partook of that fruit.

 

Genesis 3:7-11 NASB"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loin coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' And he said, 'I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.' And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?'"

 

How come after all these years of walking with the Lord and enjoying the intimacy of their fellowship and union with Him, they just now discovered that they were naked? Hmmmm.......

 

Would you believe that they weren't naked before? Oh yes, Genesis 2:25 says, "And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed," but the word used in this instance in the Hebrew text is: arom (pronounced, aw-rohm). It means: to be nude (in the physical sense), to be without clothing or garments of cloth. It is a different word, however, which occurs in Genesis 3:7-11. In this instance, the word in the Hebrew text is: erom(pronounced, ey-rome). While it has the same root as the previous word, its application differs in that it is used primarily in the case of having been stripped; having one's covering removed.

 

The significance of this is seen in the fact that not once during the period of all those years in fellowship with the Lord did they ever see themselves as naked. True, they had no clothes on, but they were not naked. They were clothed in Truth! They were clothed in Righteousness.

 

They were clothed in the glory of the Lord. And they enjoyed a relationship of love with Jesus, their Creator.

 

And in that place of being clothed, they ruled! They functioned in unquestioned authority.

 

A funny thing happened when they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were stripped. And of course, we know they had no clothes to be removed. But they were stripped, nonetheless. They were stripped of Truth. They were stripped of Righteousness. They were stripped of the glory of the Lord. And their intimate relationship with the Lord was history.

 

Now, they were naked!

 

Interesting, isn't it? Now Adam and Eve had the very thing the sages of this world strive for. Now they possessed that quantifiable knowledge men and women the world over seek for in their colleges, universities and seminaries -- ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth! Adam and Eve had given up Truth in exchange for knowledge. When they got that knowledge, it robbed them of the throne. It stole their crown. It exchanged the Truth for a lie.

 

And it left them naked! It left them defenseless against that old Serpent, Satan, who took them into slavery and bondage.

 

Have to leave it here for today. If I seem to have taken a detour in today’s discussion, bear with me. I’m just continuing with some foundations. See you next week!

 

In case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:30AM Pacific. That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#. We are now making these gatherings available on video usingZOOM. If you wish to participate by video on ZOOM, our login ID is 835-926-513. If you miss the live voice-onlycall, you can dial (712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in later. The video call, of course, is not recorded – not yet, anyway.

 

Blessings on you!

 

Regner

 

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76502

Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com

 

All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted –provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available . Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.

If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word, “Subscribe” in the subject line. To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject line.

 

CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit: http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.