[0:00] We began a study last week. I told you at the onset that it's a deeper study. It's going to cover a lot of material, a lot of scripture. It's a large body of truth that we're going to be working through.
[0:13] And if you could picture a river, a very massive and large river, as you travel upstream and you go further upstream, there's other rivers that maybe merge into it.
[0:24] And as you go further, there's tributaries that merge and we're trying not to go up and chase any of these other waters. But there's so many things that kind of spill into what it is we're studying.
[0:36] There literally are so much. We're going to cover some things. I even mentioned a few last week, but some that come up have to do with the angels calling them the sons of God. We'll have to chase a little bit of that down maybe, but we're not going to run every reference on everything that comes up.
[0:51] Some of it, you either have to know it or be familiar with it, but we're trying to get to the headwaters. We're trying to get all the way to the beginning of what this study is about.
[1:02] So last Sunday, we started off by just laying some groundwork. God is a spirit. God is a spiritual being. He's invisible. Three times the Bible uses that word to describe God, invisible.
[1:16] He is a person, and as a person, he has a shape and he has a form. And we saw in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus Christ was in the form of God, and he thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
[1:30] In John's gospel, he said that the word was made, or before that, he said that the word was with God, and that the word was God, and that that word, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dwells in the bosom of the Father.
[1:44] And he then hath declared him when he was born of a woman and came to earth and revealed God to man. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, albeit in a physical form, a human form, the seed of Abraham form.
[2:00] Now, that is not the form of God, literally. That is not the equal to God manifestation. That is a human form, one that could hunger and be thirsty, but God never sleeps.
[2:15] And so, I think you understand that part of it pretty clearly. Look in Luke chapter 3. Here's a reference to the baptism of Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit descending.
[2:27] When John was baptizing him, he brought him up out of the water, or he came up out of the water. Notice in verse number 21 of Luke chapter 3. Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus, also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove upon him.
[2:49] The other Gospels, if you put them all together, the words, the phrases kind of shift through. In some cases, it says, he descended like a dove. But this is the only time it says, like, in a bodily shape.
[3:03] Everywhere else, it just says, descended like a dove. I believe that statement, that adding the dove to it is just descriptive of the descent, of the soft, peaceful descent.
[3:14] He cannot liken it to a helicopter hovering overhead. Instead, he's going to liken it to something of the natural world, and the Bible likens it here to a dove in all these places. All the pictures that you see of Jesus' baptism has this little white bird sitting on his shoulder, or hanging above his head, or something.
[3:32] And I don't believe at all that's what was visible there for John, or whoever. I guess it was John that saw it. The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape. And I would argue that that bodily shape was the form of God.
[3:46] It was the spiritual being that God is, but coming down in the shape of a body. And nobody else would see it, but John there, that he might know who it is, that was the Lamb of God, manifest Israel, and so forth.
[4:01] God has a bodily shape. He has a form, at least. He can manifest himself in other ways, but that just makes it a little more complicated. But staying on target here, there's more things to God's being.
[4:15] He also has glory. A very popular word associated with God is glory. He is clothed in light, as we read from Psalm 104 last week. A burning brightness.
[4:27] A burning brightness that if it's unrestrained, it could lighten the entire universe. If it's unrestrained, it could also dissolve the entire universe. This is the glory of God.
[4:37] And when he that sat on the throne, when his face is unveiled or revealed, the heavens and the earth fled away, and it was found no place for them.
[4:48] Peter describes that the elements are going to be melted with a fervent heat. And so God has a glory about him. And there's other references. When Jesus Christ comes back, and that describes in 2 Thessalonians 2, the man of sin.
[5:03] And that when that man of sin is revealed, the Bible says that Jesus Christ will consume him with the spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming. The Son of Man returns, Matthew 24, Matthew 25.
[5:16] And in this case, he's coming with his holy angel. But there it says, with the brightness of his coming. So the Son of God, the Word that was with God in the beginning, that dwells in the bosom of the Father, that dwells in the light, 1 Timothy 6, dwells in the light that no man can approach unto.
[5:34] This is Jesus Christ as the Son, as the eternal Word, dwelling with the Father. But he can come forth from that dwelling. And he has.
[5:45] When Ezekiel had a vision of God on the throne, he sees what he described as the appearance of the likeness of a man upon the throne. He even said what appeared to be the likeness of a throne.
[5:56] It's like he wasn't sure what he was seeing, if it was physical or not. But what he saw looked like a throne, and it looked like a man sitting upon it. This is the Son of God. This is the image of the invisible God.
[6:11] And this is where we ended last Sunday, looking at a few verses. There was three of them. 2 Corinthians 4, Colossians 1, and then Hebrews chapter 1. All three called Jesus Christ the image of the invisible God, or the image of God.
[6:27] Now, let's go back to Hebrews 1, because we're going to pick it up there and move forward with this thought about the image of God. And for now, just focusing on the Son of God.
[6:41] Hebrews chapter 1. I'll begin at the beginning again.
[6:54] Verse 1. The Bible here describes Jesus Christ.
[7:10] The Bible here describes Jesus Christ in several ways.
[7:26] One of them being the Creator in verse 2. Another being the brightness of His glory in verse 3. And then the one we're focusing in on is the express image of His person.
[7:39] The express. That's an important word. The exact image of the person of God. God who is an invisible God. A spirit. So if you can see the Son, you're seeing the exact image or form of God who is a spirit.
[7:57] Now, I'm not talking about Him as a man, the Son of Man. I'm talking about Him as God in eternity, before Calvary, before Bethlehem, before creation. When He was with God and in the form of God and was equal with God.
[8:12] He is the express image of an invisible person. So what is exactly an image? An image is a visual likeness to something else.
[8:25] It's something that can be seen. It's likened to something else. It's a look-alike, if you want to call it that. The Old Testament's filled with images, idols that were worshipped.
[8:36] They were carved. They were graven. They were molten of metal. And then they were placed. They were fashioned to look like something else. And then they worshipped that image or that idol.
[8:47] It's very popular around the world, but it was forbidden in Israel. In Exodus chapter 20, the second commandment, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or the likeness of anything.
[9:00] Notice those two words go together. We'll see it plenty times. Or the likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. So no statues, no replicas of any created beings were permitted, whether they were under the water or on land or up there in the heavens above.
[9:19] No images. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Just discussing quickly what an image is exactly. Because Jesus is the image, or the Son of God rather, is the image of the invisible God.
[9:34] Deuteronomy chapter 4. And I'm going to read a portion here of this passage I want to get, just to get the context. It's Mount Sinai.
[9:46] Moses talking to another generation about what happened to their parents and an experience that their parents saw. And some of them, even as young children, saw this themselves. In Deuteronomy 4, verse 10, And especially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.
[10:18] And ye came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire under the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire. Notice now, Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice.
[10:37] And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments, and he wrote them upon two tables of stones. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land, whether you go over to possess it.
[10:49] Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves. For ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in horror about in the midst of the fire. Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image.
[11:03] The similitude of any figure. The likeness of male or female. Verse 17, of beast. Or winged fowl. Verse 18, the likeness of anything that creepeth upon the ground.
[11:15] Fish that is in the waters beneath. Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, moon, and stars, even the host of heaven should be driven to worship them and serve them. So no images.
[11:26] God purposely did not allow you to see his image, because you are not going to graven or shape any image that you would then be tempted to fall down and worship as an idol.
[11:41] Look a little bit later in verse number 23. Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of anything which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee, says it again in verse 25.
[11:59] So this is God's, you know, very jealous of his worship, but notice clearly they're not allowed to make a graven image, and if they would have been permitted to see something, a similitude of God, the likeness, his image, then they would have in fact found a way to make one and worship that, and call it an aid to worship, as some do today.
[12:25] The image is fashioned after the likeness of the real thing. If they in fact made an image, it would be fashioned after what they saw. All the heathen nations that surrounded Israel, including the Canaanites that dwelt in the land, they were worshiping images of their own gods, of a variety of other things.
[12:46] It was just commonplace. Remember when the Philistines got a hold of the Ark of God, and things were happening bad to them, they sent it back, and they made images of mice, and they made images of emrods, as the Bible says, and sent back the Ark.
[13:00] They made images, the likeness of. Nebuchadnezzar set up an enormous golden image, and he called for a great worship ceremony. That was an image that was set up for them to worship.
[13:13] So an image is the likeness of something else. In this case of the Son of God that we're discussing, the image of the invisible God, he is the image of something that is, or someone rather, that is unseen.
[13:24] Someone that is invisible. He's the, we say this, he's the spitting image of his father, saying that he looks just like his dad. And in the case of the Son of God, not to be disrespectful at all, he is the image of his father.
[13:39] He is the image of the invisible father. So I hope that's starting to make sense to you. You can grab the terms, and grab what the Bible's teaching about the father, about the son. The son is the visible image of the invisible father, and in that image, in that person, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily, in a form, in a body.
[14:05] So the Son of God is a visible form, and a body. So that's the image of God when it relates to the Son of God. But now come back to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1.
[14:22] And now we're going to land on something that a lot of that was building toward.
[14:41] Adam is the first man created by God. Here in Genesis chapter 1, and a description of it in chapter 2, he is not a spiritual being, not like God.
[14:53] He's a physical being. He was made of the dust of the ground. In chapter 2 and verse 7, it says that Adam was formed. Form. He had a form. He was formed of the dust of the ground.
[15:06] We can imagine being formed of the dust of the ground that Adam had some red, brown, the color of dirt, looked to him when God formed him in the garden.
[15:16] Many suggest that he was formed of clay, which is a type of dirt. And if so, well, clay, as we know it, clay exists in a variety of colors. I saw a video about blue clay last night.
[15:30] It's out of nowhere. And I don't think Adam was blue. Who knows? Dr. Ruckman teaches something about that. That's a little over my head. But anyway, it's uncertain the exact color of Adam.
[15:44] But what is certain? Well, what's certain is when God formed Adam of the dust of the ground. Let's take a notice of the pattern that he used to design this creature, this new being after.
[15:56] Chapter 1 and verse 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
[16:08] So, God created man in his own image.
[16:19] His, singular now, in his own image, in the image of God, created he him. Male and female created he them. When God formed Adam of the dust of the ground, he had a design already to go after, a pattern, a form to make him.
[16:38] He made him after the image of God. Now, very likely, you've been taught, I've been taught this. When anybody discusses this mention of, of chapter 20, chapter 1 verse 26.
[16:52] Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So, God created man in his own image, in his own, in the image of God, created he him. Most, if not every Bible teacher I've ever met, leaps from here, into the teaching, that man is made a tri-part, or a triune being, of spirit, soul, and body.
[17:14] And that is true. God did create man, body, soul, and spirit. That's Bible, that's easy. But every time I hear Genesis 1 taught, after our likeness, in our image, because he uses the plural pronoun, there's the Trinity, our God in the Trinity, speaking within himself, let us make man after our image, after our likeness, automatically, this gets transferred into a teaching, that God is saying, all right, let's make man, and I'm going to make him one part for you, and one part for me, and one part for you, just like us, dwelling together as a Trinity, that's how we're going to make him.
[17:54] And that's where, so then the teaching is fun, because it goes in the body, soul, spirit. Everybody knows about that, that's a good teaching, it's a good thing to study and learn, the three parts of man. Because God's a Trinity, the assumption is that, that's what he meant, when he said, let us make man in our image.
[18:14] But that's a leap, that's taking a big leap, from what we've already studied, in the Bible. Because the Bible describes, very plainly, three very clear times, that Jesus Christ, is the image of God.
[18:28] He is the image, of the invisible God. He is the express image, of his person. And when God said, let us make man, exactly, let us make man, in our image, after our likeness, the Holy Spirit, doesn't have that, quote unquote, image.
[18:49] The Father is a spirit, doesn't have that, quote unquote, image. He has a form. But the image, is only one thing. And it's the Son, who is in the form of God.
[19:00] But he is the express image, of his person, according to the scriptures. when God said, after our image, I believe, there was only one thing, that he meant.
[19:16] And that is, to pattern man's form, or man's shape, after God's form. The image is not three parts. The image, is the visual likeness, of the form of God.
[19:30] Fashioned, this time, from the dust, of the ground. And so, in chapter 2, in verse 7, and the Lord God, formed man, of the dust, of the ground.
[19:42] Look at chapter 5, Genesis chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. This is the book, of the generations, of Adam, in the day, that God created man.
[19:57] In the likeness, of God, made he him. Male, and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name, Adam, in the day, that they, when they were, created.
[20:08] The likeness, of God, the image, of God. And there's one more phrase, that I'll bring to this, come to James chapter 3. Scripture with Scripture, and it always matches.
[20:21] Come to James chapter 3, all the way to the back. Hebrews, James, 1 Peter. It is true, that God made man, a living soul, and that living soul, dwells in a tabernacle, in a body, and that, that body, has a spirit.
[20:51] You'll notice, before we get to chapter 3, James 2, 26, says, for as the body, without the spirit, is dead. And so, it is true, that all three parts, God placed, in the man.
[21:05] But, when God refers, to the image, that's something visual, not something structural, like components. That's just, and here James says it, as we, we're going to see a word, that is going to connect you, right back to what we read, in Deuteronomy.
[21:20] Look at James chapter 3, in verse number 9, he's giving, a speech about the tongue, and he says, therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made, after the similitude, of God.
[21:39] I'm not talking about, body, soul, spirit, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that's not the comment at all, it's the similitude, the lookalike, the likeness, the appearance, the image.
[21:52] Jesus Christ, is the image, of the invisible God. Adam, was made, in the image, of the invisible God, or in the image, of God.
[22:04] I hope that, part is not too much, of a stretch for you, it's just, putting Bible with Bible. When God created Adam, in his own image, and likeness, out of the dust, he made him a living soul, inside a body of dust.
[22:19] Now, we're going to stop here, and this is, the only thing, I really wanted to get across today, was this thing, that Adam, is the image of God, that's, that's what that phrase means, we're going to go further, with that, and try to anyway.
[22:34] I have a question, for you. Do you suppose, that when God, created Adam, that he was naked? You do suppose that, because, when they sinned, and they were, they were naked, and they were unashamed, and when they sinned, they knew that they were naked.
[22:57] Remember that, we read that God clothes himself, with something like a garment, he clothes himself with light, he covers himself with light, as with a garment.
[23:09] It's not a garment, it's light, it's glory. Do you suppose, that, the exterior of Adam, was his skin, or was he clothed, in some way, not with clothing, but, did his skin, have some shine, or did his being, have some shine, before sin, before death, in paradise, in the garden of Eden, in the actual manner, that God formed him, and created him, and he was made a living soul.
[23:43] Now this is where, I'm going to go into some things later, but I'm going to say, and confess, I'm not sure I understand, the fullness, of this, but I'm going to suggest some things, because, what God intends, for his, for you and I, is to give us that glory, is, is that the glory, that we would, that we would be manifested, that we would be predestinated, oh my goodness, Romans chapter 8, he says, after talking about, the glory of God, and man, having glorified bodies, and be glorified together, he says, that he is conformed, that we are, predestinated to be conformed, to the image, of his son, and that is a glorified being, and so now my question is, when he formed man in the garden, as a being, in the image of God, was it just strictly, the shape of dust, or did that have something, because as we'll study next week,
[24:45] Adam lost something, he absolutely lost something, in the garden, and I don't know what that was, I'm wondering if he lost some glory, and if so, and I'll build a little bit, of a case for this, but I'll also put a big fat, question mark on it, because I don't know, wasn't there, if so, he's going to get it back, God made a way, to get it back, and that's the kind of the, the gist of this whole study, some of it is a little speculative, I admit that clearly, but a lot of it's Bible, and a lot of it's truth, and for now, at least we got this, that when God made Adam, he made him, if they're the image of God, you know what that is now, he's not just talking about, making him a three-part being, although that is true, but that is not the statement, the statement is, he's making him, after his own personal image, the form of, what is the invisible God, okay, so we'll stop with that, some of you guys, I could use your help, and we'll get some tables, and chairs set up here, in a few minutes, and then come back, at the top of the hour,