CHAPTER THREE
THE TRUTH
Firstly, nowhere in the Old or New Testament does it actually state that Adam was a singular person! In fact a verse in 1 Corinthians 15:45 states the opposite.
1Co:15:45: And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
In this verse Paul is alluding to Christianity as the ‘Last Adam’ and by insinuation we can assume therefore that Judaism is the ‘First Adam’. Adam certainly was Jewish there is no question about that but was he plural? That is, not one person but many people?
The name Adam will provide another clue. The name ‘Adam’ means ‘of the ground’ and although this meaning does not appear to tell us much at first glance other than to reflect on the creation story, Jesus gives us a different perspective.
Jesus spoke in parables, riddles, mysteries that would seem at first a bit odd considering the important message He carried but Jesus had something to hide, knowledge He did not want the world to hear at that time. He had secrets. He said;
M't:13:11: He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
M'r:4:11: And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
This mystery was laid down at the very beginning of the Jewish religion and we see it written into the story of Adam and Eve.
1Co:2:7: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
Eph:3:4: Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
Eph:3:9: And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Such references as these to the mystery of god can be found in many places in the New Testament as Jesus taught His disciples. But the mystery is no mystery at all and the secret is open for all to witness that it is in plain sight, the truth of which has been lost to earlier generations but it is made known to us in our time.
The New Testament is a book of the spirit. It talks of the spirit which dwells in us and it uses a type of spiritual jargon to get across its meaning as we shall soon learn. It was this spiritual way of thinking that Jesus taught to His disciples. So using this insight let us consider Adam, who he was really. In order to do this we will start with a parable Jesus taught to us of the sower. He said the kingdom of god was like a sower who went to sow some seed. This parable is found in three of the four gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke.
M't:13:3: And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
M'r:4:3: Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Lu:8:5: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
The meaning of the parable of the sower as Jesus explains it is this. The sower is the Son of Man (Jesus); the seed is the Word of God (The Bible); the field are the people in whose hearts the word is sown (The Population of the world otherwise known as the field of God which is the ground wherein the seed is sown).
It is beautiful in its simplicity. God’s FIELD or GROUND is MANKIND in whose hearts the WORD of GOD is sown by the Son of Man. This is very easy to understand. Now we must apply it to Adam. God’s field or ground as mankind.
Repeating that verse in Corinthians we see that this beautiful statement reminds us as to what Adam really is.
1Co:15:45: And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
If the last Adam was Christianity as Paul indicates then the first Adam must be Judaism. In other words the first Adam was not one person but instead was a whole society of Jews just as the last Adam is not one Christian but is indeed a whole society of Christians.
So now we are able to look at ADAM and his creation in a fresh new light using the spiritual code of metaphor and imagery to guide us.
LORD God had not caused it to rain (preaching) upon the earth (humankind), and there was not a man to till the ground (sow the word in Gods Field or mankind).
Ge:2:6: But there went up a mist (evangelising) from the earth (humankind), and watered( preaching or evangelising) the whole face of the ground.
Ge:2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground (the population where the Word was sown), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (due to the Baptism).
The Lord God formed MAN from the dust of the GROUND (god’s field). This is saying that God’s ground is mankind (learned above) and MAN (e.g. ADAM which means ‘of the ground’) was formed or taken from the dust (or a small portion) of that population. This was achieved by a “watering” of the ground. A “watering” refers to teaching or spreading the word of God throughout mankind. A BAPTISM or Evangelising would be considered such a “watering” because water represents the spirit of life, just as rain is often seen as preaching;
Ho:10:12: Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.
Am:5:24: But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Therefore ADAM was not one man but was in fact a SOCIETY separated from the main population of mankind by this Baptism (watering) or rain (preaching) through holding a new belief in God. This society consisted of both male and female persons and this explains why in chapter one of Genesis the creation of man is given both genders.
Ge:1:26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
“Ge:1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
This happens way before the chapter two accounts of the creation of Adam and it is a totally separate creation.
Jesus tells us through the parable of the sower that Gods field is humankind. It is this field or humankind that Adam was made from by a ‘watering’ or baptism or evangelising. Adam constitutes the first group of Jews or the beginning of Israel (Ruling with God), male and female.
Corinthians is plainly stating that the First Adam (who were Jews) were made a living soul as it states in Genesis and that the Second Adam (who were Christians) were made a quickening spirit. If these two Adam’s are referring to a populace rather than a single person, what then are they referring to? In Genesis Chapter 5 we see the confirmation of this.
Ge:5:1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
Ge:5:2: Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Even in this statement above from Genesis Chapter 5:2 the plural form was used to describe Adam as male and female (and called their name Adam) so that we know without mistake that Adam is not one singular man but is instead a community, male and female, called Hebrews or Israel (ruling with God). The creation of Eve (not a singular person either but instead the “Mother of all Living”) is therefore quite different from that which is taught by traditional schools of theology. Eve is not a singular woman.
The creation of Mankind is mentioned in chapter one of Genesis whereas the creation of Adam is found early in Genesis Chapter 2 long before any mention of EVE. In fact the creation of Eve has to wait until the naming of all the creatures of the earth by Adam is complete, only then does God see fit to give man a ‘help meet’.
LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Ge:2:6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
Ge:2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Ge:2:8: And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Ge:2:9: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Ge:2:10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
Ge:2:11: The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
Ge:2:12: And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
Ge:2:13: And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
Ge:2:14: And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
Ge:2:15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Ge:2:16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Ge:2:17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Ge:2:18: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Ge:2:19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Ge:2:20: And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Ge:2:21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Ge:2:22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Ge:2:23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Ge:2:24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
We see deep in Genesis 2:23 that Adam said “this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” which is interesting because Jesus likened Himself to flesh. In fact He said that He was the flesh of the Lord.
Joh:6:51: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
And in another place we read;
Joh:1:14: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Here we see that the word ‘flesh’ is given to mean the ‘word’ or ‘Bible’ which was made into ‘flesh’. An interesting side note is that the scriptures were written on velum which is goat skin or ‘flesh’. Even so Jesus tells us that He is the flesh of God. We know that ‘flesh’ refers to doctrine because of the following verses;
M't:16:6: Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
M't:16:11: How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?
M't:16:12: Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
So we learn that bread means flesh and flesh means doctrine. We see therefore in Adam and Eve that Eve was made into Adams flesh.
Ge:2:23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Eve therefore represents Adam’s ‘flesh’ or doctrine just as Jesus was our ‘flesh’ and our doctrine and further to this is the fact that she was taken out of man (Adam).
All this is saying is that Adam was a population separated from mankind by his belief (made a living soul). This belief was written down and became the doctrine (flesh) of Adam. Eve became his wife and the two became one flesh (doctrine).
This is the truth. Eve was taken out of man. The doctrine was created by Adam (Israel or Ruling with God). All cultures on earth have created their own religions and doctrines by themselves. This is the truth that the Bible confesses.
This truth is simple, logical and pertinent and does not in any way hinder nor offend the view of evolution put forward by Darwin or any other scientific approach. Neither is it offended by science. There is no offence when the truth is accepted.
This is all very good and poetic but what about the fall of man in Genesis 3?
Ge:3:2: And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Ge:3:3: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Ge:3:4: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Ge:3:5: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
For a starter, serpents can’t talk. It is preposterous to think that they can, so we see immediately that spiritual jargon is in use here.
Secondly we learn that god tells a lie in this encounter. God said that;
“Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
The serpent however said that they wouldn’t die but would become as gods knowing good and evil. As we read the story we soon discover that they did in fact eat the fruit but they did not die as God had threatened; instead they did become as gods knowing good and evil according to the serpent.
Ge:3:22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
So god actually lied but wait there’s more. The death of Adam and Eve was a spiritual death not a physical death in which case God also does not lie. Can we show this?
The clue to understanding this is the fact that Adam and Eve knew their nakedness after eating the fruit.
Ge:3:7: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
However; remember that man was made in the image of god in the first place.
Ge:1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Ge:5:1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
To be naked before god is to become an atheist. To have no belief at all and to not believe in god is atheism. To be made as gods themselves means that they had no ruler over them. God has no ruler over Him, and Habakkuk states that;
Hab:1:14: And (god) makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
So having no ruler over them implies having no god over them as well. This also accounts for the question;
Ge:3:11: 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?
Asking this question ‘who told thee that thou wast naked’, is a strange question to ask unless they had no ruler over them.
We also see that they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons. This represents writing stories into doctrine in order to ‘clothe’ their spiritual nakedness.
As far as clothing is concerned we recall the parable of the flowers which is just the opposite of being naked;
Lu:12:27: Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Lu:12:28: If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Our homework now then is to research nakedness. Of course there is nowhere in the Bible that says nakedness refers to atheism or loss of god. Nevertheless we can draw an opinion from a number of instances in the Bible. The first offence is found in Genesis 9:22 when Noah was naked.
Ge:9:20: And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
Ge:9:21: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
Ge:9:22: And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
Ge:9:23: And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
Ge:9:24: And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
Ge:9:25: And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Ge:9:26: And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
Of course this story deflects the meaning of nakedness through Noah cursing Canaan. It raises the question why did Noah curse Canaan for something Ham had done. This is a question which is never reasonably answered. Nevertheless being naked is to be unclothed hence Shem and Japheth walked backwards with a cloak in order to cover Noahs nakedness.
We see the cloak or veil is something referred to frequently in association with heaven. The veil of heaven forms the mystery of god. The veil of the temple was designed to hide away the holy things;
Heb:9:3: And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;
Heb:10:20: By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
2Co:3:13: And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
2Co:3:14: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
We look to other occasions of nakedness in the Bible and find in Exodus
Ex:20:25: And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
Ex:20:26: Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
While we wonder what this nakedness means we think that Revelation 3:18 is similar in its message;
Re:3:18: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Or yet wonder why Paul was fishing in the nude
Joh:21:7: Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.
Again we see the need to cover the nakedness.
2Co:5:1: For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co:5:2: For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2Co:5:3: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
Returning to the Garden of Eden we find Adam (Jews) were naked after eating of the fruit of good and evil. We learn in Genesis 2:25 that they were naked but were not ashamed before eating of the said fruit.
Ge:2:25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
It is only after they eat the fruit of good and evil do they feel shame and hence attempt to cover this nakedness.
Ge:3:7: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Ge:3:8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
Ge:3:9: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Ge:3:10: And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Ge:3:11: 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?
Eating this forbidden fruit was the cause of their nakedness after which they could no longer see god but could only hear His voice. Following this is the strange question “who told thee that thou wast naked?” Considering that they were made as gods from eating the fruit they were equal with god and had no ruler over them, they saw no ruler or god and so they made aprons (stories) by which they could clothe this spiritual nakedness. An interesting point to make here is that in Genesis 1 man is made in the image of God in the first place.
Ge:1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Is this image of man as ‘god’s image’ the same as being as gods after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
All this is only possible so long as we read it in the spirit of truthfulness. By using the metaphoric code as Jesus taught us. This makes it possible to see the truth of Cain and Abel as well disclosed in the next chapter.