Biblical Theology,  Biblical Nature of Man, Death, and Resurrection

By  Dr. Isabelo S. Alcordo, Ph.D.   (In Service to the Lay People of God)
 

I.  The Nature of God

The Bible assumed the existence of God. The Bible simply begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1).  Deu 6:4-6 declares: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” In Mk 12:29-31, Jesus said: “The most important one (commandment) is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
  
God, in His Oneness and being infinite, is unseeable, unnameable, and unknowable. He is revealed in 1 Ti 6:15-16 as: “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever.”

Yet, God declares that He is not beyond “knowing and understanding” by His human creatures. This He declares in Jer 9:23-24: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.’”

Obviously, it is impossible for the finite eyes to see and finite minds of angels and men to perceive, to know, and to understand that which is Infinite such as the One God. Thus, the necessity that God  reveals Himself through some “finite” or “defined” or “recognizable” forms and means.

II. The One God, the Trinity, and His Interaction with His Creations

It is only in His acts of creation in spirit and in the spiritual world, in man and in his material world, and in history that the One God reveals Himself through God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - the Holy Trinity - each being well-defined and having the essence and the fullness of the One God or the Godhead and all being one in purpose and in will.

God the Father has His well-defined form for angels always behold His face in heaven: Mt 18:10: “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

Just as God the Father is being seen by angels in heaven, so must also God the Son or the Christ have His pre-incarnation form distinguishable from that of the Father and the Holy Spirit. In His incarnation, God the Son assumed the form of the man JESUS.  In Heb 10:5-7, Christ was shown to have accepted a human body: “Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, 'Here I am — it is written about me in the scroll — I have come to do your will, O God.’”

Mt 1:16-21 traces the lineage of the man JESUS and reported the circumstances surrounding His birth: 17 “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.” 18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: “. . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him (Joseph) in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’”

After the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of the Christ, now fully-named and forever in the form of man, the very form of one of His creations, JESUS, God the Son, the Christ was revealed in His glory and splendor in Rev 1:12-18: “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone "like a son of man," dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.’”

In Acts 4:12, it is declared that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

In Php 2:9-11, it is written: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God Himself has also His defined form as indicated by the report by the Father and the Son in Genesis (Gen 1:1-2): “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Thus, the One God, who is unseeable, unnameable, and unknowable, has revealed Himself in His acts of creations in spirit, in man, and in history, through God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - the HOLY TRINITY.

There is nothing in the spiritual world and in the world of matter and energy that were not created by the One God through the workings of the TRINITY -  the Three Persons of the Godhead - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each having the essence and the fullness of the One God or Godhead, and each performing different roles to achieve the Will and the Purpose of the Godhead.


 III. Creation Had Its Beginning in the Mind and by  the Word of God

Gen 1:1-31: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning — the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning — the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning — the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day.

Ge 2:1-3: 2 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Thus, by The WORD of God, the world and everything therein were created in the MIND of God. Jn 1:1-5: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.


IV. The Nature of the Material-Energy Universe and the Human Mind
        
The universe was created for man and man for the universe. There is a mutual-coupling between the workings of the universe and the workings of the human mind through pure reasons or logic. This coupling is revealed in God’s mandate to man to “subdue the earth,” which is to know, to understand, and to harness the natural resources, laws, and forces embedded in the universe for the well-being of humankind, of the fauna and the flora, and the earth and its atmosphere as a whole (Gen 1 & 2).


 V.  Biologically, Man and Animals with the Impersonal Breath of Life Are One in Kind

The concept of man and woman was first formed in the mind of God when God said (Gen 1:27), “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, . . .” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. But Gen 2:7 reported the actual creation of humankind: “7 . . . the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

In the same manner, as Ge 2:19-20 reported, were the animals formed:  19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

[Ge 1:29-30: 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.”]

[Ge 6:17-18: 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.]

[Ge 7:15-16: 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.]

[Ge 7:22-23: 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.]

Woman, however, appeared to have been made differently being made from the rib of man. There is all the reasons to believe that God also breathed the breath of life on her form. (Ge 2:18-25): 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,'for she was taken out of man.” 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Thus, humankind was no different from the animals insofar as having that “impersonal breath of life” which is also called “the impersonal spirit of life” or simply “spirit or life” which is in the blood, God’s withdrawal of which would turn mankind and all animals into the dust of the ground.

Thus, Job 34:14-15: 14 “If it were his (God’s) intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, 15 all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust.”  Lev 17:11: For the life of a creature is in the blood.)


 VI. The Inner Nature of Man at His Creation Before His Fall from God’s Grace

As God declared, it is only man, of all those which have the breath of life, who was “created in the image of God, in His likeness.”  Since it is only the human mind that has the potential ability to perceive, to know, to understand God and to harness the resources, laws, and forces of the material universe, whose Creator is also God, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that what was created as an image of God in man was the image of the Mind of God, which mirrors the divine intellect and emotions, in the physical man. That is, the mind of man, however limited it may be in its ability to comprehend the fullness of God and of God’s creations, is a reflection, an image, of the Mind of God. This is the one that makes man different from the animals.

That human mind, as an image of his Creator, is properly called the “soul or the personalized breath” of God in man that guides the evolution of the brain. This makes the soul the spiritual seat of the intellect and the repository of is memories, a requisite for intellect whose interaction with the human brain produces thoughts - both random and highly organized- while the  body expresses his/her animal nature.

The soul also served as a “bridge between the spirit world and the world of matter.” Man, as animal, through the soul in its purity at creation, enabled man to see and communicate with God and the spirit world, making man alive in that world of spirits; similarly, God, who is Spirit, through the soul, become alive to man and to the material universe. Thus, we may say that initially, man was dual - body and soul - truly a living being in both worlds.


VII.  Man’s Coveting to Be Like God Ended in Death of Humankind, the Birth of the Human Spirit in Man, and the Promise of a Redeemer

Man at his creation, like all the animals, was not imbued with eternal life. The body of man that gives physical form to the soul was mortal and subject to decay. Without the human form, the soul, at the decay of the human body, dissipates into disembodied mist of intellect and memories and the impersonal life-breath or simply “life or spirit” returns to God (Ecc 12:7).  But the promise of man gaining eternal life in God’s plan and time was shown by the presence of the Tree of Life.
 
Gen 2:7-9: 8 stated: “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden was the tree of life.”

Also in the garden was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which could put to the test man’s loyalty and obedience to the words of his Creator. God in Gen 2:16-17 told the man and the woman: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say ‘you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so”" 11 And he said, 11 “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

In such manner did God promise to send Someone Who will crush Satan's head but whose heel Satan will also strike. This is God's promise of a Redeemer!

16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The fall of man from God’s grace must have had a tremendous impact or imprint not only in the  physical nature of man - subjecting him to an impending and certain death - but also to his inner (spiritual) nature. Such an imprint must be related to man’s wrongful desire “to be like God.” This could only be the birth of what we all recognize as the “human spirit.”  The precursor of the human spirit could only have been the “cloud of covetous thoughts and desires to be like God,” projected by Satan to the woman’s and to th man’s brains, which God allowed to be formed in man as a mark of his disobedience. Such a human spirit must embody the very cause of man’s fall from grace: ENVY and COVETOUSNESS:

Thus, Zec 12:1-2 declares: “The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him, declares: . . .”

Also, as Jam 4:5-6 says, “5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?” (N.V.). The literal translations has: “. . . the spirit that dwells in us lust to envy?”

Some Bible versions and commentaries believed that the “spirit” is the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit has never been associated with the word “lust.” This spirit in James 4:5-6 could only be the “spirit of man” or the unredeemed “human spirit.”

Indeed, at the fall of man from God’s grace, man had not only become like God “knowing good and evil.”  Like God who is Triune - Son, Holy Spirit, Father - man has also become triune: body-soul-spiritl, with the soul encased in the human spirit, like the marrow inside the bone, both being the spiritual component of man, and both encased in a physical body.

Heb 4:12-13. 12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

1 Th 5:23-24. 23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

The clarity that un-fallen man was able to perceive and hear God through the soul became muddled as the human spirit inserted itself between the body (brain) and the soul. The dislocation of the soul from its seat in the human body increased the power of this new spirit to receive “Satanic messages and to transmit the same to the brain as thoughts” that incite the body to evil sensations and  emotions. These evil thoughts, sensations, and emotions then mutually reinforce one another, as they do today, until these were eventually acted out by the body to relieve the pressure on it. It was this rebellious spirit of man titillated by Satan with envious thoughts that generated hatred in Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, against his younger brother Abel that led Cain to murder Abel (Gen 4:2-8).

After so many generations, mankind’s memories in his soul and in his brain of his once closeness and direct access too God were forgotten except for some ambiguous need to appease something or someone that led him to worship nature and false gods.

With Satan having full access to the human spirit, evil flourished on the face of the earth forcing God to destroy human kind and everything which have the breath of life in a worldwide flood except for Noah, has sons, and their wives whom God used to replenish the earth with humankind (Gen 7:8-24).


VIII. God’s Covenant with Man After the Flood and God’s Law

After the flood, God gave this mandate to Noah and his family: Ge 9:1-11: "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

4 "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.

6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man,by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God  has God made man.” 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you — the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you — every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

VIX. Death of Man Before Christ, His Resurrection, Ascension, and His Parousia (To be continued)

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