Published: November 21, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 14 | Scripture: Genesis 1:27-28; Psalm 8; Romans 5:12-21
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Right Way help us to read your word better each time guide us into all truth as you have promised and keep us from E from error we pray we
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do pray that the fellowship would be edifying and that you would be pleased with our gathering for we ask this in Jesus name
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amen well at the risk of not finishing Before Christmas I did want to ask if anybody had any questions I did that as Abe was taking a bite so I
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was well then we'll we'll press on um my goal is to finish up on the 19th be 14 weeks uh of actual lesson notes but we will have been about 16 weeks with the class but we're
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continuing on with the idea now of um the creation of man in the image of God as a as a motif uh that then uh goes through
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scripture and of course as everything else culminates in the son of man the Son of God Jesus Christ but I do want to step back uh as we we
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establish um the the framework the foundation of the creation narrative as it pertains to man and talk again about the idea of creation as
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Temple um this this concept has appeared chronically in both Jewish and Christian theology the idea
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that God's creation in Genesis is that of a temple uh normally it's done from from a backwards perspective as readers of the Bible
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reading the U the pattern and the the ornamentation of the Tabernacle especially realized that the
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ornamentation including the cherubim woven into the veil that goes across the holy of holies is itself an image of creation and there's a there there are
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images of the created things in the Tabernacle weavings and and uh and decorations so um the idea of the Tabernacle as a remembrance of creation
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is then you go back to um creation itself and and the first reading doesn't really sound like he's building a temple in fact Genesis 1 I'm I'm not sure you
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would come away with that conclusion reading the account of Creation in Genesis 1 but when you get to Genesis 2 once again it's it's not it's not the
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terminology of a temple or a tent a tabernacle um but you do have two things that um that tie together the idea of
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the created the created Garden as the first temple and then there's something there are two things that are explicit in the passage and then there's something beyond that
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that's somewhat implicit so okay so
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Genesis 2 okay um the the first clue is as we've mentioned this before the phrase tend and
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not not exactly yeah I've seen it before um it's it's kind of like the passage where it always bothered me that Samuel ministered in the temple but there's a
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passage in first Chronicles in the genealogy where you find out that Samuel was a levite okay and I can never remember what the passage is um but I can get that because it's well referenced in the um uh Genesis
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commentaries and and then books on the Tabernacle talk about this phrase tend and keep being you the same phrase used uh for the levitical priests the ironic
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priests within the Tabernacle and I do think it is Leviticus um but it might also be Exodus I'm not
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tend and keep I I don't think there I could be wrong but I think there are several such references between the two and again again the these would not
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constitute quotations they might not even constitute Illusions and they they might only constitute somewhat loud echoes the using the same but when when it's simply
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a word to serve or to tend that's not nearly as strong as a couplet uh that that's used in the Tabernacle but then again I think you you go with the
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imagery of the Tabernacle and see that um that the idea of creation but the the idea of the Tabernacle and the idea of creation are are both uh very integrated
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so you have this tend and keep and then this is this is going back into Genesis 1 but you have the the
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image placed within so Genesis 1 verse 26 we have let us make man in our image but then in Genesis 2 we read that God
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formed the garden and he placed man in it um which again some Scholars think that that's a contradictory account from
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Genesis 1 I don't think that it is um I think both of them are somewhat poetic in in their form mostly Genesis one in its parallelism but I think Genesis 2 is
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actually preparing us for it it's it's um it's expanding on the creation of man in the image of God and preparing us for Genesis 3 not only the naming of the
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trees the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil but also the the very position of man in the garden his responsibility as a vice
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Regent and furthermore which we'll talk about in a few weeks the implied intention implied by the four rivers
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that flow out of Eden that Humanity was to expand beyond the garden and carry the knowledge of God as
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as well as the rule of God over the entire Earth man will end up doing that but not the way it was intended
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they will end up end up expanding of course they're they're not just expanding they're cast out of the garden because of their sin but Genesis 2 sets the stage uh for it sets the backdrop
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for the failure of Genesis 3 and we we'll get into that but again as I've said before Genesis 1 2 and 3 are are really programmatic for the rest of
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scripture um and I I want to talk about that uh as we talk about the creation of man but then um the last two weeks Lord willing will be talking about the the
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whole concept of life and death as themselves motifs in scripture so we we have these two clues that are explicit
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they're they're in there these are words that are used image used tend and keep used in the uh in the um text as well as that image is placed within the garden
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okay we also had the retrospective view of the Tabernacle with so much creation imagery woven into it and and and um integrated into the design of the Tabernacle
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but implied is also the very definition of a temple or a tabernacle okay so these These are more explicit these two
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but we have a third we can say this one's implied and that is the
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purpose well the purpose of a temple or a tabernacle is where the god meets with his devotes that that is the the the heaven Earth interface or The God man interface
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especially in the ancient world that was the meaning of the temple was the the point or the
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man and we see this with the Tabernacle and with the temple in Jerusalem with the shikina coming in uh we also see it in the prophetic word concerning um The Glory leaving but also then coming back
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to to the temple uh we see the the the messenger of the Covenant coming to his Temple uh the latter Glory of this house will be greater than the former the
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whole idea of a temple is that this is where God and man have uh communion and we know that before the
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fall that God walked in the
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garden again it's it's implied but it definitely appears that there was there was uninterrupted communication between God and Adam there there's certainly no
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apparent um Veil between them you know as as God is speaking to Adam and telling him about the garden and giving him the prohibition against the or the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil
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and and all of the things that that aren't written that God undoubtedly told Adam there's no indication that there was any mediator um certainly there was no priest and it doesn't appear that
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there was any um as Mark was talking about on Sunday that that it was dreams and Visions uh it just reads very naturally that God communicated with
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Adam without any um form of of interference or or um obstacle that's that's what happened
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with God and Moses in the Tabernacle that that kind of of of communion now this has a lot this is fraught with a tremendous amount of
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meaning for the body of Christ the true Temple um but that that's going to that's actually going to be hopefully the second session when we when need look more at the covenantal Arc of of
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the different um uh the Tabernacle starting with the Tabernacle although I think it it again it all starts here that what we talk about when we talk about the Covenant with Israel the call
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of Abraham is not a new trajectory it doesn't restart and and abgate what God has already laid out in Genesis 1 2 and 3 in fact it expands on
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it it also um focuses it upon one people out of all the nations so um we'll get to that Lord willing next time we we take up this topic so the idea then that
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I want to talk about tonight is is this this one right here well let me ask does anybody disagree um with the concept of creation
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Temple no it's for God and in that Temple is God's image the the image in a temple is of
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god true so why do you why do you why is there an image if the God is already there that that's a good point um I think I I can't be sure of this the question goes to what would the relationship have been if Adam had not
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sinned now God very well knew and it was very much incorporated into his eternal plan that that Adam would fall but the the purpose of of I can't
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say why God did it one way and not the other I can only say this is what God did the very purpose of creation was to manifest God I should
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say a very purpose of creation was to manifest god with physicality okay God is spirit and has
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no form so that that's a very good point we're going to um we're going to talk about that tonight that really U Segways very well into the point of my lesson but let's let's consider this for a
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moment you know we say God walked in the garden how's garden how's that okay now again Scholars tend to and and I tend to agree I although I would
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never be dogmatic but merely to say that that when we read of a physical appearance of the Divine being in the old Testament that is probably a
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christophany okay um but we cannot say that God in the chronology of the Old Testament possessed a physical
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body can we well also when did he when did he possess a physical body at the Incarnation right so if if
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we say that you know when we see these anthropomorphisms of the scripture where God is given some physicality in the text we have to be careful how we read
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that because we can't give God human physicality before the Incarnation is that
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fair so and that does not deny the appearance of God in the garden I'm not denying that and I'm not denying the appearance of God to Abraham before Sodom and gomorah were the angel of the Lord okay I'm not not denying the
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appearances the I'm just saying that those theologically and also biblically theologically those theologically those appearances could not be true human
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form because that has not yet come it's like saying when when John says the Holy Spirit had not yet been given does that means the holy spirit's not in any of the history of of redemption no he's
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there okay he's not been given in a particular Manner and and so you have that the issue of God
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physicality and when we look at this concept we we start with the principle that God is spirit and that's something that God himself establishes right so I'm we're not we're not being philosophical here we're simply saying
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what God has said about himself as the prohibition against making images of God is that you you went up in the mountain and you heard a voice but you saw no
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form so God is Spirit and the the meaning of that within the context of Exodus 20 is that
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he is without form and I'm going to say without physical form although that is
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physicality so we we then go to creation and for whatever reason God In His Infinite Wisdom chose and I think to go beyond that statement is to go beyond that which is
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written God chose to manifest EST his glory physically creation is a
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physical entity okay so creation as I said several several weeks ago creation itself is an act of creation of Revelation do we all agree on that that
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it is an act of Revelation which means it has a purpose and that is to reveal the nature of God but the nature of God is Spirit not physicality it so why did
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God choose to manifest his nature through physicality I'm not sure I
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know that's where we're headed yes that is the that is The Logical syllogism I'm trying to establish here but the premise I I need to establish the premise first and the premise sits wholly within the will of God there was nothing that
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necessitated God revealing himself physically but he did okay so I'm not going to try to explain that that's just what all of our As Romans 1 tells us all
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of us know that creation itself testifies to God okay so he and but that's not really an answer because we are also part of that creation we are
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part of that physicality but it does work the way Aaron just mentioned so the second thing is it is
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himself via and I'm not going to say in physical form I'm just going to say via physicality creation okay
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now notice what all of this including Genesis leaves Genesis leaves out and that is the creation and the existence of the Angels okay that's not part of the
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historical uh Revelation that is given to us in Genesis at no point in Genesis do we hear and God said let there be angels and in fact both Genesis um the
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appearance of Satan in in chapter 3 but but also the mention in Hebrews 2 or one I'm Hebrews 1 of the angels as Ministers of fire that sent to do his will in fact
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pretty much every passage that the very few passages that talk about angels establish them as beings that have been independent of and antecedent to
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Creation everybody okay with that Angels came before creation we have no reason to think otherwise I should say it that way we have no reason to think that Angels were either created during creation week
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which I don't think they were because Satan again was already established as uh as the uh most cunning and in fact I think the war in heaven and the and the casting out of Satan obviously Satan's
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Rebellion has already taken place so we have an entire uh um ontological segment of the universe for which we have no origin we
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have no have no cosmology but they are also Spiritual Beings who can take on the form of physicality right and yet we know when
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we read those passages that these are not truly humans the these are not physical in the manner of creation so God has already at some point in time
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and we don't know that angels are bound by time frankly time is established by the celestial objects that God the physicality uh of the universe and
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that's why philosophers speak of time as the fourth dimension the time and space are actually and to some extent Einstein's theory of relativity has
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given a scientific language to this philosophical concept that time and space are integr integrally related well we can say as Christians don't have to have fuzzy hair you know we could we
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could say well yeah God created when he created light and he created day and night he created time which means he's not Timeless he's
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not an unending time he Timeless time doesn't even doesn't even impact God and we can I think by extension say the same of the Angels okay so thinking of that makes
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one's brain hurt but what we do know is that when we read Genesis 1:1 we read of the decision of God and even that's not a good way of saying it but
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we read of the Eternal purpose of God to manifest himself via physicality and having done that that's where the image comes in that he has now
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created sentient beings whose perception of his nature will be through again Romans 1 will be through the perception of the
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physicality of his created world and universe right exactly and their Thanksgiving expressed that's that was their main
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fault wasn't it that they failed to give thanks um but we we're not I mean we're we're a hybrid we're a spiritual
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physical being and we do have some spiritual perception but our predominant means of epistemology is physical our senses now
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some philosophers have said that's our only Aristotle said that Emanuel Kant said that that our only means of knowledge is through our senses and that's just foolishness because there
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are such things as premonition intuition um there there are obviously um in in the human in the human makeup there there is a spiritual but we were
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primarily created as God's physical image within his physical Revelation creation does that help answer your
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yeah that's not on as side that's that's the main line but I mean even
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abity right that was that that was and and some people say well that was after the resurrection as if that made a change of
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his physicality um but he also walked on water right and again I don't think he did that I don't personally personally I don't think he did that in the power of
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the Son of God in the power of His deity I think he did it in the Regency of his being the son of man the same power that calmed the wind in the storm okay um and
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and that does all go back to Adam in Genesis and so we're heading in that very Direction the the physicality of Jesus Christ is um the the culmination
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of the physicality of Adam but I would go further and say it's also the Prototype
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YP Christ is the Prototype of Adam okay that Christ is actually the Prototype of the physicality of Adam having decided again this is the established premise having decided to
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reveal himself via physicality and if we don't establish that and accept it then logically nothing follows we're
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always is asking well why this why that well there's a point at which we can only say because God we certainly can't say that there was any necessity or obligation on God's
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part to create any need on God's part to create we may find in that day that we do something we do read in Colossians
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and that and that is that is this this is this is a this is a um what's the word um this escaping me conjecture this is a conjecture based on Paul talking
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about how the gospel will redown to the glory of God's grace but also when Paul mentions for example in 1 Corinthians um 11 where he
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talks about for the sake of the angels and do you not know that you will judge Angels speaking humanly because God does not
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think through things and make decisions like we do when we speak of God deciding something we have to remember that we're speaking humanly of a Divine being who doesn't have
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doesn't have sequential you know he doesn't weigh the options okay so just what that's a caveat but speaking humanly we might say that the creation
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of the physical world is in response to the rebellion of the spiritual one that through the physical world God
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will manifest both his Holiness in judgment but also in Mercy to the glory of his grace so that even the demons will
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will how do you say this give Glory um now we do have some indication that the demons are aware that God is doing something even the demons believe and
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tremble okay um and we know that Satan is aware that God is doing something but we also know that he didn't get it right so we have to kind of when we when we
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have these questions we can't solve them and we shouldn't try but it might help to remember that there there is a little bit bigger bit bigger picture that is included the powers and
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principalities that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6 you know that there's a there's a realm of the Unseen that is just as real as the realm of the seen
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our stage is the realm of physicality okay that the realm of the Unseen the realm of the spirit is not our realm but this is our realm so having
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Chosen and I again I'm only bringing that as a conjecture as to why possibly God might have decided using these words very cautiously to
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create physicality was to manifest his glory his Holiness but primarily the glory of his grace his grace through a physical manifestation of his
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being that being that would purposely and eventually how do I put this I'll put it the way Paul put it all the fullness of
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deity dwelt in bodily form the intention being not just a walking in the garden with man but a union between God and man
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something that was not possible with the Angelic host okay so this is where we're headed and I think it's a lot deeper than just anthropology or a polemic against
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evolutionism so having established that God is chosen to reveal himself via physicality the uh the
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conclusion then is that
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follows God did not intend for the shikina to be visible in the Tabernacle throughout its history and it wasn't God did not intend for the shikina to be visible in the Temple's history and it wasn't he intended for his people at all
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times to walk not by sight but by faith God did I do not think God intended to walk with Adam in the garden
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throughout time I think that Adam himself was the image of God within the physicality of the created the created world and that at some
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point God's visible image would have ceased to be seen now I can't prove that okay I'm only I'm only reading back from the fact
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that the shikina did not stay in either the temple or the I'm sorry either the Tabernacle or the temple and I'm reading backwards to say that it it probably would not have stayed perpetually as
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human race uh propagated and expanded now it may very well have stayed in Eden and it very very well may be and
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and this is how the Rabin commentaries on the temple do read it as as as well as the Tabernacle that Eden is parallel to the holy of holies
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so that as man did and you read this kind of in the prophets too of Isaiah you know all the nations going up to Jerusalem there's there seems to be always be this center point at which everything comes to meet with God so it
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may be again pure conjecture because God it did not happen this way because God did not intend it to happen this way but had Adam not sinned and yet Adam and Eve
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obeyed God and they were fruitful and multiplied and they subdued the Earth perhaps God would have continued to be present in the
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garden okay now just this is this is a little bit of an orderve of of a future lesson and that is again the four rivers the four rivers
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have little obvious meaning in the narrative okay except that the river of Eden the which is the River of
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Life out of Eden it branches into four rivers they themselves appear to be the extension of
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extension of Eden does that make sense right right right but then they Branch
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into the four rivers listed one of which is still named the same today the Euphrates um and it is quite possible and i' I've taught this in my Milton
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classes um and we'll talk about this more in a couple weeks but um you know four of the major civil or the major civilizations of the ancient near East
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did grow up around four rivers the Tigers in Euphrates the Nile and the indis okay so now there there's a we can't we can't be dogmatic because a
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flood intervened between The Narrative of Genesis 2 and and the growth of these these other civilizations but we do know that that civilizations have always grown up around
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Rivers they don't grow up in the desert man needs fresh water both for his plants and for his own body so uh we we'll get into that a little bit later but the what I'm trying to say is that
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that the physical image placed in the temple is a very very important part of our understanding Genesis 1 ver 26 let
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us make man in our image okay and I think that that um even that terminology
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is significant up to that point all of the acts of God began with Let There Let There be but we make a transition in verse 26
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and I think it's a very significant one we go from Let There be to let us
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yes and I think that the the lot more to it is the um is the subject matter of Psalm 8 okay so again I don't I don't think that I'm trying to add to
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to the image what isn't defensible from scripture but again Psalm 8 is really the it's where you know where we are um when I consider the heavens the work of
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thy fingers the moon and the stars which thou Hast ordained now we we really should pause and think about that because if we do think that the
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image of God is because man or in man is because he's more special or somehow Superior we need to stop and think what insignificant specs we really
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are that that's what the psalmist is doing here when I consider you he could go on and on you know when I consider the roaring lion
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who could have me for lunch when I consider the oceans that could swallow me in a moment you know when I consider the the the storms and and when I consider the works of your hands what is
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man that the implied answer is what he's nothing right in and of himself he's nothing which actually speaks what
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perhaps the most profound lie to the theory of theory of evolution because man has not evolved into a highly adaptable survivable
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creature and in fact if it weren't for the grace of God we wouldn't survive we're not fast enough we're not strong enough we're not furry enough so if we
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didn't get eaten we'd freeze we're not waterproof I mean this seriously we don't have gills there's there's a whole bunch of things wrong with us from a standpoint of
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standpoint of survivability there are a lot of other animals that we might say are better adapted to survive than the human being so oh okay well then the created the
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image of God means we have a rational brain that's what and that's really a very popular especially among reformed is that we are rational others will say that we are creative that we're we're
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able to create okay um and maybe these are aspects of it but they don't come out of the text Genesis text Genesis 1:26 in fact the text itself does not
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even give a definition of the image of God it merely gives a function that we're going to talk about briefly tonight it doesn't really say it what about man constitutes the imod de
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the scripture doesn't say at least not I don't think it really even implies but that doesn't stop us from trying to surmise what does that mean so no I don't think it is
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superiority I do think it is responsibility and in order for man to survive after
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the flood God put the fear of man into the hearts of the animals does that make sense I me that was an that was an act of
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Grace okay because the there um uh you know the the the the there were eight human beings and I am sure that some of those
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animals that came off the ark once they got off they rever reverted to the corrupt form of being carnivores but he put the fear of animals and so even even deadly animals
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tend to stay away from Human civilization lions for example don't typically Bears the same way you know there has to be something that drives them into a human Civilization now if
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you're out in the woods you're on the Bear's plate but you know generally speaking they the fear of man is still within the animal psyche and again
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that's an act of common Grace because man is is not um he's not a superior a superior physical creature I it you
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think about um if you if you look up the longest living longest living organisms you find out that evolution is a farce there are
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microorganisms that have that are estimated to have lived 50,000 years there are trees that have lived upwards of 10,000 years what do we
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get 70 or if by strength 80 turtles live longer than that I mean think about it you know yeah so what is evolution all
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about well it's all about survivability and passing things on but we're actually getting we're not living longer now scientists are determining the the absolute maximum age is like 140 that's
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what not that anybody's lived that but just looking at the various organs and tissues and whatnot they said okay if everything goes right you might make it to 140 okay you're you know General
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Sherman what is that tree the Sequoia Redwood is is estimated to be 10,000 years old or 6,000 years old so um something isn't right in the way we're
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thinking about it is what I'm getting at and yet we also know there's another kind of ancillary little Echo that comes back from Paul where he's where he's
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somewhat complaining to God about a thorn in the flesh about a particular physical weakness and he says what he says my strength is Manifest or his
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strength is Manifest in my weakness weakness that's again going back to Psalm 8 what is man that you should take notice of him and yet you've created him lower than the Angels again there's the
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chronological priority of the Angelic host but you have given him to rule over the works of your hands to rule over creatures that are themselves physically
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more powerful than any man okay so the the the standard answers for the meaning of the amod de I've always I've always
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found them to be lacking I found them to be tendentious that we we want to somehow highlight the rational capacity of man so what do we say well that's the mark of the amod day we want to look at
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the creativity and music and art and architecture and say oh that's God is Creator man is creative um these might be merely characteristics of the Amo day
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but I do not think they're the essence of it by any means I think the the the two things that define the imod day and
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we're going to jump a little bit ahead in in my outline but the two things so we look at that
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image here is everybody anybody have any more questions about the idea of a physical image of God within the Temple of creation
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okay well as but as you said earlier it is logical once you've accepted this if you've accepted the physicality of God's revelation self-revelation in creation and if you accept the concept of the
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creation as Temple which is where God is going to manifest himself then it's not a stretch to read let us make man in our IM in our
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icon and then Place him in the garden that that that that terminology sounds like what you would have if certainly if you were living in the ancient world you would simply have
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the image of the god being brought into the finished Temple and he is the physical repr now there's a big difference in all of the temples of the ancient world the image was
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inanimate but this one isn't this one's living and he's living with the responsibility that if he fails to do will result in his death so there's a there's a
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difference this is why I do not believe for a moment that that Moses's cosm mology derived from the cosmologies of the ancient world they it did not it is too radically different in its
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components to be said to have borrowed from Babylonia or Egypt or any other ancient culture and this is one of the major ones the image in the temple is a living being and the manner in which he
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is living in Genesis 2 is also very critically important and I I should put that over here um man is created as a physical image of
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God upon the creation but his very creation incorporates the Earth over which he is to rule he is made his physicality comes from the dust
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of the Earth right so in that respect he's not unlike the idols of the pagan gods who were made out of wood or of stone right okay
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they were made out of but what do they not have life and so Genesis 2:7 is also crucial here that this image is not just
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an inanimate object that cannot hear see or speak but the very Breath of God has animated him and he's a living soul and
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nephesh okay and and that is again that is so totally unlike any ancient cosmology that there cannot be any relationship between the two too you
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might say that they're all false but you can't say that the biblical account derived from the Babylonian okay you can't say that
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there's any connection logical connection between the anuma Elish and Genesis 1 there's there's none okay literarily and theologically there's no
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connection at all so that that's just a dead end and yet it's a very popular dead end among Old Testament Scholars
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right right it's almost like a I hate to say this like a voodoo doll um what happened to Adam we know from Romans 5 that what happened to Adam redounded through his progeny right
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whatever happened to Adam had impact on all his all his offspring okay we'll talk about that a little bit this evening we also know from Romans 8 and elsewhere that what happened to Adam also redounded to all
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of creation okay but and one of the reasons if if you can call it a reason is that man's very formation is both Earthly and
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divine he's the image of God created from the created Earth okay so that's why there's not a let there be
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man everything else had to be and then man is Created from that which was but his life is directly from God that
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formula now all life is from God so we can't we can't go too far and say that that some other uh animating Force um the psalmist talks about the animals
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that when he takes their takes the spirit away they die you know he sustains all life but there is still that special formula in Genesis 2:7 that we don't have on any of the other
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created animate living objects and that is man being created from the dust of the earth I mean the idea the theological idea of man is a
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mudball which which is a colloquial saying about original sin but we weren't a mud ball to begin with we were an icon okay we were an image but a living
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one and that whole idea of being a living one is crucial to understanding just sentences chapter 3 I mentioned last week think of it in terms of Adam
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when God said about the the prohibition of eating from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and he said the day you eat of that tree dying you shall
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die and Adam said what is this death what what is the what is the precedent now I'm not saying he didn't understand but we when we read that
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passage don't we think of of it in terms of something with which we are very familiar without ever stopping to think that the reason we're familiar with it is because Adam ate from the wrong tree
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right there's no familiarity with death that would have been intrinsic in Adam okay now I imagine God explained
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what it was I don't know or maybe he just left it for Adam to find out but but I still think we have to kind of put ourselves um back in that circumstance and realize
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and realize what is this death you speak of I I don't know what that is um and and so there's there's um that's where Genesis 2:7 the garden man
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being put in that Garden all of that is leading up to Genesis 3 it's not it's not just here's the story it all started out good and then we have to have a plot twist Genesis 3 you know that's not what
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it's about it's all very integrated and and so um the IMO day okay we talked about the the classic but I'm going to
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I'm going to give you
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views as to the essence oops getting a little bit French there just aiding My article with the
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noun my um the lessons okay these are the lessons and we will end them on the 19th all right two
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function now that's not uncommon in philosophy in fact Form and Function are really how we rationally Define the essence of anything is are they not what is its form what is its function
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and and so when we talk about Form and Function that as categories that's nothing revolutionary and and even what I'm going to say is is not new with me but I will say that it's there are some
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things that we're going to be looking at in the next few weeks that I have a hard time finding in the available scholarly literature so listen
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carefully um and listen critically because I'm not going to be able to say so and so and so and so Paul and but I do think I can quote Paul a lot more than I can quote um modern Scholars what is the form well
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the form was a physical body okay now I'm going to jump ahead a little bit uh and mainly because I I
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never get through my outline so I don't want to leave this hanging but I want to jump to Hebrews 10 where Paul I'm sorry Paul how did I do that man that's that
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must be like a residual Freudian residual Freudian slip it it does I'm sorry does sound Pauline I just can't accept that he wrote this letter the writer of
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Hebrews one of these days I'll get it and I'll just say Apollos
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verse uh chapter 10 verse 5 therefore when he comes into the world he says sacrifice and offering thou Hast not desired but a body thou Hast prepared for me now if you turn to that
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Psalm um it's it's in your notes but what what is that Psalm Psalm 40 yeah Psalm 40 um your Bible will probably said that you you prepared my
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ears and you wonder well did the writer of Hebrews just um go wild well actually no he's quoting from the septu which which does say a body you
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prepared for me now that is significant because that means that in the second or third Century before Christ the idea of a physical body being prepared for the
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promised one of whatever they may have thought of that promised one was part of their understanding of the biblical prophecies does that does that make
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isn't yes you have pierced my ear or you have dug my ear canal it implies physicality it it does but it it seems to focus more on the auditory whereas obviously the writer of Hebrews and the translators of the Greek just went with
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body certainly physicality is is in both the uh Matic or the Hebrew text as well as the Greek text but when you read that and you go go back to Psalm 40 don't be
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disturbed the the writer just simply quoted from the subagent which says a body but the idea here is um when I came into the world okay the body is being
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prepared for Christ the physicality of the coming one who is himself God involves a body so the physicality of
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the form of man is not by accident but on purpose that ultimately the manifestation of God's glory would be in
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bodily form and that's what Paul says in Colossians okay the fullness of deity dwelt in bodily form so again you will not read this much in the literature
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especially the modern literature you will read it some in the rinic and in the patristic but but for some reason I think again it's kind of a nent or a um
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um a um a pervasive um pervasive um platonism that has entered into Christian thought where we think of the body as the the the prison or the the
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residuum of sin and Corruption you know our body is wasting away and uh our body is weak the flesh is weak um and so we tend to denigrate the idea of a physical
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body but then we read passages that indicate that that physical body was intended that the fullness of deity should dwell in it and if we pull it all
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tie it all together we learn what Paul teaches in Corinthians and that is God intended for that physical de body body to be his Temple and do you not know that you are
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the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within you the shikina glory is in every believer physically and then that body that whole thing ties together
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into the into the resurrection which is the human component of the new creation but physicality is one of the things that is most quickly jettisoned in Christian
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theology whether completely as in gnosticism or gnosticism or practically as in much modern Christian devotionalism and
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devotionalism and pism okay so we we really kind of downplay the whole idea of physicality as being being important um although we you know those of us who are Orthodox would never say that the resurrection
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isn't real physical body we just honestly don't see a purpose for it we just know that's what's God's going to do okay I don't know what I'm going to do with that body because I think I'm going to be floating around on a cloud
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somewhere but uh that physicality actually was actually was intentional that and that comes from the word icon an icon in the ancient world was
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was nothing if it was not physical if in fact the the story is told whether it's apocryphal or not I don't know but the story is told is when pompy came into Jerusalem um and he he went into the
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holy of holies well now that at that point somewhere around 60 BC um the Jews had come back from The Babylon Babylonian exile all of the Furnishings
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of the Holy place and the holy of holies had been taken now they replaced the manora Titus would take that but in the whole there was no Arc of the Covenant in there so apparently he went in behind
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this curtain and there's nothing there and his conclusion was these are weird people the these Jews are weird they worship a non- entity because the word
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icon and then it's it's tupas and other religious terms um that would would take you know the same meaning synonymous it it was essentially physical it was not some concept I mean
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I I understand and agree with what toer says about the essence of idolatry that is thinking thoughts about God that are not worthy of him but you can't take that too far
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idolatry was essentially the worship of an idol and that is a physical as the second you know as the Ten Commandments the second commandment the making of a
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physical image in the place of God but God did that himself and so physicality is actually essential to the concept of Man created
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as an icon of God again you can't establish that essential nature you have to assume it by the very existence of physicality to begin with but then once
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that's there and once God you see that God is determined to reveal himself through the physical world then the icon himself itself has to be physical but
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again that's that's not something that you'll read much if you go in Google or go to the library or buy some books on Amazon on the image of God it'll talk about again the creativity the
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rationality the sensitivity the ability to love the ability to have a relationship with God all these things that are that are components of God's
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of God's grace they're not of the essence of the image Okay so so the form the the form itself is also as it should
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be um anticipatory of the function let's go back I I don't want to summarize this I just want to read
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the Tabernacle did not have icons said oh no they did not have icons there were no there were no images in the Tabernacle in my opinion man was still the only
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icon of God man continues to be the icon but in any other Temple see pompy would have expected something behind that curtain any other Temple that he had
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gone into when he goes into the central part which was a standard archaeological feature and he pulls back the curtain or whatever is there there's something there there's a there's an icon there
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that's the word icon now in in Greek Orthodox and cultic the icon are the pictures okay but they're still physical yeah uh the the meaning the meaning of
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Icon has changed in the modern Christian rendering of it okay but it's it's uh it's still physical it's still representative there's still something
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something there sensually perceptive okay so that's why the image of God is