The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 1 – 14
You’ve seen that God loves us and wants us to learn to love others just like He loves us. But… what’s really the point of that? I mean, did God create Adam and Eve just to tell them what to do? What is God trying to accomplish here? What IS God’s plan for mankind? Every true doctrine can be understood by simply asking the obvious question: What does the Golden Rule require God to do? Everything God has ever done, or ever will do, is an application of that principle, the highest law of all. So what must God want for us?
Does sin make us happy? Jeremiah 2:19, Proverbs 5:22. Therefore, since God would not want to be unhappy, the law requires Him to help us avoid unhappiness. That means we must learn not to sin, for there is no other way to find happiness (Proverbs 29:18), and since God’s correction is always meant to teach us how to do that, it explains why His correction should make us happy (Job 5:17). Would God want to sit on a cloud and flatter someone for eternity? Really? Then it’s impossible that such idle toadying is what He has in mind for us. But what does God like to do? Revelation 4:11. God created all things because He wanted to, and He enjoyed creating the universe and all of us.
Judging by the Golden Rule, God would have to provide some constructive, productive future for us – since that is what He Himself would want! A future that allows infinite possibilities and unlimited growth, since that is what He Himself has (Mark 10:27), which is exactly what He promised us (Mark 9:23). So using the Golden Rule, we know something about what God’s plan for us must be. Unfortunately, all versions of heaven and the afterlife taught today, although pleasant, quite frankly sound… boring. But let’s see if the Bible can offer us something better, something you’ve never heard before!
TWO ASPECTS OF CREATION
To understand the plan of God, we have to go back to the beginning, back to Genesis 1:26. Read it carefully. God said “let us make man in our image AND in our likeness”. Did you notice that God said He was going to create man to be like Him in TWO ways? God didn’t just say “let us make man like us”. God described two separate, distinct WAYS in which man was to be like Him! Now after all these lessons about internal and external, physical and spiritual, you should immediately understand that this is just one more pattern to merge together. Like the law, all of these patterns exist in two layers (internal and external) and two sides (positive and negative); and this scripture tells you that even the creation of mankind follows this pattern, for God said “let us make man like us externally AND let us make man like us internally!”
God’s plan was plainly stated in the beginning! But until you understand the facets of the law, it’s hard to see it! He was going to give man a physical form resembling God’s own… and ALSO to give man a nature that resembled God’s own! External and internal! He was to be made in the image of God – for God used Himself as a pattern when creating Adam’s physical body! But He was also to be made in the likeness of God – made according to the pattern of God in the internal sense! Man was to learn to ACT like God! These are two very different types of creation – an external creation and an INTERNAL creation!
Were both finished on that day? Genesis 1:27. God made man in His image, and that part was completed… but it does not say man was made in His likeness on that day! Why? Because He’s still working on it!
THE IMAGE OF GOD
The laws are designed to show us how to act and how to think. Why? 2 Corinthians 7:1. The goal of those laws is show us how to cleanse our flesh and our spirit – outside and inside – so that we can “perfect holiness”. But what does that really mean? Ephesians 4:12-16. The perfecting of the saints must continue until we all “become mature, until we measure up to Christ, who is the standard” (GWV). Think about what that means. The law was given to help us perfect our holiness until we measure up to the standard Christ set!
That’s shocking to most people, but that’s exactly what the Bible says. Remember: God’s goal was to make mankind act like He does! If we do not measure up to that standard, then God failed! Christ set the mark we are to aim for, the mark of someone who would never hurt His neighbor; in fact, someone who would go BEYOND the minimal negative law and give His life for them! And does He expect any less of us? 1 John 4:9-11, Ephesians 5:2.
As you’ve seen, this is not an impossible or unreasonable goal. It is impossible to go back and un-break laws, yes (1 John 1:8-10). And you might be committing any number of sins now, that you are not aware of. But do those count? Roman 5:13. Does God overlook sins of ignorance? Acts 17:30. But once you are aware of the sin, you must stop committing it, and learn from that mistake and avoid breaking that law in the future. What did God expect of Abraham? Genesis 17:1. Why would God ask Abraham to be perfect if it was impossible? Was Paul perfect, in regards to his obedience to the law? Philippians 3:6.
Remember, no one is saved by the law. No one recovers from liver failure by simply stopping drinking. But will a hospital give a liver transplant to someone who won’t stop drinking? So why should Jesus give you a soul transplant if you haven’t stopped destroying the one you have by sinning? This is a lot to swallow, but as always, once you know what to look for, it’s exactly what the Bible said in plain English, all along: 2 Corinthians 3:18 (Williams) And all of us, with faces uncovered, because we continue to reflect like mirrors the splendor of the Lord, are being transformed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another, since it comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
One degree at a time, one law mastered at a time, we are being transformed into the likeness of God! When we have achieved a true mirror image of the appearance and nature of God, the second half of God’s plan will be finished!
What is God’s nature like? 1 John 4:8. And what is love? Romans 13:8-10. Are we to develop a nature like God? Philippians 2:5-6. Are we to behave ourselves as Christ behaved? 1 John 2:6. And do the things Christ did? John 14:12. Is He in all things a perfect pattern? 1 Peter 2:21. Are we to pattern our very natures after His? 2 Peter 1:4. Think about that promise! We are to SHARE the divine nature! If we share a cookie, it means we ate from the exact same cookie. If we share a nature then we have the exact same nature! Which means if God loves the Golden Rule above all else, and we share in His nature, we must also love that rule above all else!
No longer will we merely LOOK like God, we will have the very divine NATURE of God in us as well! And when that happens, will it be literally impossible for us to sin? 1 John 3:9. No more will we have a nature that wants to please itself above all else; we will have chosen to let that selfish nature die in favor of a better nature!
BUT THAT WAS ONLY TWO SIDES OF THE LAW!
But all this only speaks of our physical external creation, and our physical internal creation. That’s awesome but only part of the story! Because after all that, you’re still physical, and flesh dies! Anything physical consumes life, it sucks it in and destroys it! On the other hand, spiritual beings not only do not die, they have the power to give life to others! John 7:38, John 5:24. Beings who have “life in themselves” have rivers of living water flowing OUT of them, which is a POSITIVE pressure! Giving life, instead of consuming it!
Thus, they are a positive source of life, while flesh is a negative source of life! Thus fleshly is negative, and spiritual is positive. In this context, they are interchangeable. I’ll use the more Biblical terms “fleshly and spiritual” in the rest of this lesson, but understand that these terms fit in the exact same way as the “negative and positive” sides of the law you’ve studied so much already. No matter how great a Christian you are, can you inherit the Kingdom of God as a human? 1 Corinthians 15:50. A physical person cannot inherit spiritual promises! And that’s why there must be a positive, spiritual internal and a positive, spiritual external creation as well!
Why is God doing all this? Why is He patterning not only our appearance, but our very natures after His? Colossians 1:12. And why is He making us “meet” or “fit” to inherit the promises? What are these promises? 1 John 2:25. But there is so much more to it than simply receiving immortality! Did God make every beast, bird, fish, and animal to raise a family and reproduce after its kind? Genesis 1:25. Does the goat reproduce another goat, or does it give birth to a fish?
And doesn’t a baby goat physically resemble the parent? So it is born in the image of its parents! And over time, by their correction and training, it is made to act like they do! So a goat is made in the image and the likeness of its parents. Many Christians have told me that the relationship of a loving dog to its master is an excellent example of our relationship to God. Is that true? Is that as close as we can be to God? What does He say? Galatians 4:6-7 We are not God’s dogs! Not some other species, beloved-but-always unimaginably- different! We are God’s children! More than God’s children, we are God’s heirs! Verse 7.
Does Jesus claim any family relationship to us? John 20:17. Does God claim any family relationship to us? Hebrews 12:5. The Father’s name even expresses that He is our Father! But is He our physical, literal Father? Hebrews 12:9. He is not our physical father, but our spiritual father! That’s a separate type of creation! Have we been born spirit? John 3:6. Will we be spirit in this life? John 3:8. Does that scripture say those who are spirit can be seen or heard? Can those who are “born again”, or “born of spirit” be touched? Luke 24:39. Can we sin? 1 John 3:9. If we can sin, then we are not yet spirit-born!
BEING BORN AGAIN
God is the Father of SPIRITS – not the Father of flesh. We are not yet spirit, for we can be seen and touched, have flesh and bone, and can sin. We have a spirit in us, but our bodies are not constructed of spirit! We were created as part of the Human species. The Human kind. But we were created to resemble God, and we are offered a tremendous opportunity – to be reborn into the God-kind! Romans 8:29. So that as we now are part of the Human species, we will become a part of the God species – this requires a spiritual creation!
The physical creation will be completed when we both look and act like God. The problem is, even though we learn to act just like God we cannot be His literal children! (John 3:3-5). Why? Because He is the Father of spirits, and not of flesh! So the only solution is for US to become spirits as well, and JOIN our Father! And so when Jesus says we will be born again “of the spirit” (John 3:6), He means that we will literally be born again with a body made of SPIRIT!
Last time, we were born with a body made of mostly water, just like our human father. In the same way, we must be given a NEW body made of spirit like the body of our God-Father! Philippians 3:21, Colossians 3:4. We will have been born made of water and born AGAIN made of spirit (John 3:6). (Note: John 3:6 has multiple layers of meaning, all of them true. Here, we’re focusing on the two parts of creation. Elsewhere, we will discuss the more commonly-understood subject of this verse, baptism.) But we don’t have a spirit body yet! 2 Corinthians 1:22. We have only a down-payment, the EARNEST of that spirit – just a little bit of it. Just as a fertilized human egg has only a tiny molecule of the breath of life, only a fraction of what it will have when it is born!
Nicodemus observed that being born again would require re-entering a womb. He missed the point, of course; but he wasn’t wrong! Birth requires a womb! Paul says that spiritual Jerusalem – a symbol of the true church – is “mother of us all” (Galatians 4:26). So the church is our symbolic mother, and God is the Father.
And when God gives to us, at baptism, the first touch of His spirit, we are conceived, and that begins the life of a God-fetus – as with a human fetus, there are only a few spiritual “cells” at first! (Galatians 4:19). And for as long as we are made of flesh, we are simply an embryo of the God-species!
At first, that embryo – a new Christian – bears little resemblance to its Father, but as we grow in grace and knowledge, until we are mature in the faith, the God-fetus looks more and more like God, until the world should see God in us! (1 Peter 2:12, Matthew 5:14-16). But the transition between fetus and baby is a violent and traumatic one, for human and spirit alike. The human baby must leave the mother, and ceases to receive her warmth and nutrition; and for a few moments, it neither receives air from her bloodstream, nor is it breathing on its own.
If something doesn’t breathe, it’s dead (James 2:26). So in a manner of speaking the human baby must die before it can live. The old life must end, with no guarantee of the new one beginning. If asked, it probably would not choose to leave comfort for uncertainty – no matter the promise of what might lay outside. Likewise, can we inherit a spirit body without dying first? 1 Corinthians 15:36, 42-54. That long passage describes, in reasonably plain language, the difference between the physical creation and the spiritual creation. We must live our lives in this womb, growing more and more like God, until that moment of crisis when we must pass through the womb and into the REAL world!
Jesus entered into a tomb in the belly of the Earth (Matthew 12:40) – a womb, of sorts – on His way between walking this Earth and returning to heaven to sit on His Father’s throne. Likewise we must be buried before we can receive a new spirit body! Only when we have that body will we be BORN again – not into the human kind, but into the GOD kind – to be a member of the Family of God!
There are four steps in the process of becoming like God: to resemble God, but made of mostly water; to act like God, while made of water; then to resemble God but made of spirit; then to be made to act like God while made of spirit! (Hebrews 12:23).
A human embryo knows nothing of how to be a human at first; not how to breathe, how to eat, how to open its eyes. This information is encoded into its instinct – no one is quite sure how – over the process of its gestation. Thus, it learns to physically act like its parents. Yet, surely a human baby is not born knowing everything his parents know. So over the course of the next 20 years, it is trained to spiritually act like its parents. Likewise, a spiritual fetus must learn the most basic tenets of being a member of the God-kind – breathing, seeing, hearing, and so on – in this life, simply to prepare it for breathing on its own after birth!
But just like a human baby, the God-baby will be born weak and helpless, just barely able to cope with survival in this shocking new world. Yet that baby is just as undeniably on its way to becoming a full-grown being just like its parent!
Jesus considered this to be basic, obvious stuff that was self-evident and was shocked that “a teacher in Israel” did not know these things! (John 3:9-12). Yet who today knows what you’ve just read? Who teaches it? Jesus expected us to take these “earthly things” and learn about the heavenly things from them! Why else do you suppose the Bible uses terms like “born” and “children” so often in the Bible to refer to us?? We have been conceived today and are growing into mature-fetuses, preparing to be born into the Kingdom of God! Romans 8:16-23.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
As always, now that you know what to look for, this is exactly what the Bible said, quite plainly, if you’d only have listened: 1 John 3:1-3 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the SONS OF GOD: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
Most people dismiss these kinds of scriptures as metaphor and allegory, but it can’t all be metaphor and allegory! Rejecting the idea that we will be JUST LIKE GOD – obedient to, but just like God in every way… rejecting that requires rejecting scriptures on practically EVERY PAGE of the Bible! Can you grasp the enormity of that awesome promise?? To be a GOD, JUST LIKE GOD IS! No possible truth could be more shocking, or more astounding, than this promise of Almighty God! Not to push God off of His throne, as Satan wanted to do, but to be INVITED to be WITH Him, under Him, obedient to Him but LIKE HIM! As a member of His family, a beloved son in whom He is well pleased!
Philippians 2:5-6 Let THIS mind BE IN YOU, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it NOT ROBBERY TO BE EQUAL WITH GOD: Christ was in the FORM, the very IMAGE of God! Just like you and me! And He had accepted the spirit of God, humbled Himself under the commands of God, and MADE HIS HEART into the LIKENESS of GOD! And He KNEW that meant He was conceived as a member of the God KIND, just as you are if you have obeyed God and fulfilled His conditions!
And Paul was inspired to tell YOU to have THAT MIND in YOU! To act as He acted, and be a person who doesn’t think it is ROBBERY to be EQUAL with GOD! John 10:34-35 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture CANNOT BE BROKEN; He called them GODS to whom the Word of God CAME! Because the Word of God CHANGES the heart (Hebrews 4:12), and undertakes the process of making your nature over into the very LIKENESS OF GOD!
The Jews tried to stone Him for saying that (John 10:33), and saying this might get you stoned in some places today! Why, when it’s exactly what the Bible says? We, the SONS OF GOD, shall be LIKE Him, sharing in the divine nature! God’s purpose on this Earth, the REASON you were born, the reason for ALL THIS is that GOD WANTS A FAMILY! (Ephesians 3:15). And He wants YOU to be a part of it! God is building for Himself a tremendous family, adopting children out of the human kind and making them a part of the God-KIND!! So that YOU can be a member of the Family of God!
Acts 17:28-29 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also HIS OFFSPRING. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God… WE are the OFFSPRING – the very CHILDREN of God! We are God’s way of procreating, His way of filling the universe with a family that is HIS, that thinks like Him and ACTS like Him! This is God’s plan for YOU!
Surely nothing could be more shocking, more thrilling, or more awe-inspiring than these simple words! Jesus went through this same process of being born as a man, living, obeying, dying, and finally being resurrected as a new being – finally being BORN AGAIN OF THE SPIRIT, and He did this as an EXAMPLE to us! An example, so that we would have a pattern to follow, knowing that He is the FIRST of MANY to come! The Eldest Brother in the Family of God! The Bible says that Jesus was “the firstborn AMONG MANY BRETHREN” (Romans 8:29). MANY brothers and sisters of Jesus, sons of the Father, full-fledged spirit members of the Family of God are to come, and YOU may be one of them! You, yes, YOU have been offered a chance by God to be one of those brothers and sisters of Jesus, literal children of Almighty God, heir to immortality and adopted into the SPECIES of God, partake of the nature of God, free from the corruption of your present nature! God help you to understand this glorious truth!
For more lessons enrol in the Comprehensive Bible Study Course by Nathanial Burson The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.