Dear Laurie, I noted with interest your post on
5/10/12 and wanted to send you a small excerpt from my
new book ‘Seek First The Kingdom’. I’d be glad to
send you a copy via email if you’d like to have
it. The following is an excerpt from page one,
chapter three entitled ‘Salvation and the Broken
Foundation’.
“No in-depth examination of Salvation would be
complete without first reviewing the “good news” of the
gospel that Jesus won for us at the cross.
Let’s begin ‘in the garden of Eden’. Adam
was created complete.
That is, he had a fully functioning body, soul and spirit.
He had fellowship with God and life was good!
However, God laid out a clear instruction for Adam
warning that he would die if he ate from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil; “but from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it
you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). Despite
this warning, Adam disobeyed God and ate from the
tree. [Please note – the
word ‘day’ in this verse is the Hebrew
word ‘bayom’ and means “a
point of time” or “a moment”.]
The Bible says that when God created man that,
“He breathed into his nostrils and man
became a living soul”
(Gen.2:7 KJV). By this we know that the natural
life exists because of the soul. Therefore, a body
absent the soul is without life. We can therefore
conclude that Adam would have died physically
(on that day) had his soul perished. But,
he lived a long life of 930 years (Gen. 5:5). From
this we know that it could not have been Adam’s soul that
died. So what happened? How did Adam die?
It was Adam’s spirit,
his ‘pipeline’ to God’s divine nature that perished when
he ate from the forbidden tree. Adam lost
‘God-consciousness’ and absent the influence of God’s
divine nature he eventually became corrupt. Adam fell from the lofty
perch of ‘God’ consciousness into a fallen state
of ‘self’ consciousness.
His corrupt soul
took control of his life! As a result, everyone
born since Adam inherited his fallen,
spiritual condition. He also lost his God-given
authority and dominion because of his
disobedience. In effect, he gave up his birthright
to Satan. Sadly, this willful act of disobedience
resulted in the ruination of the world.
Those who are, as yet, unsaved are functioning
as dichotomous beings (body and soul
only) as was the case of Adam in his fallen
condition. As in Adam, the spirit is
dead to God because of trespasses and sin. But, once man
is born again, the indwelling Holy Spirit restores
access to God by recreating his spirit
(see Romans 8:10 & John 3:
6, 7). God-consciousness is restored and he is now
capable of functioning in Adam’s original state as a complete
man; body, soul and spirit. He truly is a
new creature in Christ, unlike any other on earth.”