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The time frame covered in the entirety of the Bible is……eternity! From Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, to Revelation 22:21, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. What begins with an impersonal (it seems) creation, ends with God pouring out His grace upon man through Jesus Christ for all eternity.
Man is destined to explore and dominate more and more of the entire universe for all eternity. But before this can happen, man needed to confirm and establish his God-given power and authority. He was to prove in practice his God-given superiority over all other creations of God. In this he stumbled. Because he did, God has needed to bring man through several different stages, or epochs of time; different administrations, until the truth of his God-designed dominance is both restored and established for all time.
This is and always has been designed to be accomplished through His Anointed One…Christ! Jesus of Nazareth is that very Christ.
Ephesians 3:11 According to the purpose of the ages (epochs) which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord;
In all, there are eight (8) different administrations of God which are spoken of and described in the Bible. We’ll take a look at each one of them over the next several weeks, including and especially the one which we are a part of today. Thus we will not only learn the Godly truth of today, but we will also see how this time period of today differs from all others.
These epochs, or administrations, are marked out by the different methods God employed in dealing with man, and by the different agreements God had with man….the different rules or laws by which man was required by God to live, for man’s own benefit.
Today, we’ll look at the first one, of which there are eight in total. The names I use to title each administration are not as important as the truth of the reality of each.
Admin #1 – The Original Paradise …… Length of time – ??
God decides to make man in His very own image (spirit). He gives him dominion over every other living thing, and places His physical creation under subjection to His made-Godlike man.
Genesis 1:26-28 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 creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.
In the previous study, Truth vs. Reality we go into more detail regarding “the truth of God” regarding man. Everything that God made was very good. Everything. This is very important to remember as we progress through the Bible.
Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
In this Administration of of the Original Paradise, God dealt with man by speaking directly to him. He had made His very own spirit (holy spirit) an integral part of man’s makeup; thus was He able to communicate His will, His thoughts, His very nature to man on a moment by moment basis. No big deal…..!! “Hey God, what do you think about this? What about this? And this?” This was how man was able to do such incredible things, such as name all the animals.
Genesis 2:19, 20a 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 of it. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;
God desired man to live in a veritable garden. All of life, for His man-creation which was made in His very own image, was destined to be a delight. All things required were to be simply provided by God in abundance. Hungry? Grab an apple off a tree. Or a banana. Or a bunch of grapes. Go exploring. Name a few more animals. The weather’s so perfect you don’t even need clothing.
Genesis 2:8, 9a And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;
Genesis 2:15, 16 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat:
This dress it and keep it was not an odious thing. Not a hardship. It was given to man to take what God had provided freely and to shape it according to his own desire. To experiment with, adapt and shape it as he saw fit. Imagine grapes growing on the ground, with all the fruit going bad quickly, rotting on the ground. Now see those grapes growing on a trellis or arbor. Large, succulent fruit, hanging, just waiting to be plucked and eaten. Yum! This is the type of God-given thing man was programmed for, regarding God’s creation. Work with it. Dress it, keep it, shape it.
But there was a single no-no, in this Original Paradise. A single thing man was to stay away from.
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
See the studies What was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? and Who put the Tree in the Garden? This tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not an actual tree. No it wasn’t. And God was not the one responsible for it either. Satan was. There was a very good reason for God telling man not to eat of the fruit of that “tree.” It was because man was designed to depend upon and be resourced by God. When man walked away from that dependence, He walked away from the life and abundance of God that was within him. He walked away from his Godly nature. He literally died ….. to God and to eternal life.
To sum up this administration of the Original Paradise, God made man in His own, spiritual, image. Man was blessed by God to be simply a keeper and dresser of the garden in Eden. All man’s needs were supplied by God. The only thing required by God was that man continue to depend upon Him in his day by day living.
Well, you know what happened. Man walked away from that dependence upon God, being tricked by Satan into desiring and taking unto himself that very thing which was harmful to him…..independence from God. He died to God, to eternal life. So death entered the world, and Satan’s reign as the god of this world began. So ends the first administration of God, the Original Paradise.
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Other related Studies:
Satan’s Justification
The God of Death – Part 1
The God of Death – Part 2
