Broadlands Bible Church
November 9, 2022
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Thesis: The thesis that God's words are for man as he is: a creature of eternity with a body of dust, a functional capacity imparted by a "life giving spirit", and a new identity as "a living soul" is established by the multitude of contexts which follow the pattern of "body, spirit, soul" (not necessarily in that order) throughout God's progressive revelation in the recording of this extensive pattern over the 1600 years (+/-) through verbal and written words.
Introduction: In our studies to date we have dived into the details that give us a description of man as God created him, because our interpretation of His words absolutely depend upon our understanding of the "setting" into which the words fell. Perhaps the best, and classic, illustration of this fact is the absolute contradiction that exists between the way the people who initially received the words misunderstood them and the way the Jesus, through inspired prophets and apostles, corrected that huge misunderstanding.
We saw a brief statement of this "misunderstanding/correction" presented by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:11 last Sunday evening in our Studies in Daniel. In the centuries from the beginning of the writings of Moses until the end of those writings, there was a massive, and progressive, distortion of God's words by the most fundamental of the foundational factors of the "interpretation of words": the overall intention of God in His giving of those words. In one of its briefest statements (the Galatians 3:11 text/context) of this conflict over the "overall purpose of God in speaking to His creation" we see the critical issue: How is the creature of God to be reconciled to his/her Creator in view of the massive infection of men by Sin as given in its first biblical text? In Galatians 3:11 Paul addressed this as a matter of "being justified" by God. In this matter, he set forth the two competing theses: "justification by behaviors generated by The Law" and "justification by the Promise of God believed".
For man, this is the issue and the answers put forth govern how the individual words of God's Word are taken by him. What this means is this: if one's "perspective" of God's purpose for the existence of our Bible is governed by the concept of "righteousness" by means of man's obedience to God's commands, all of the words will be bent to serve that thesis. Alternatively, if one's "perspective" of God's purpose for the existence of our Bible is governed by the concept of "righteousness" by means of God's promise to "impute" righteousness to those who "receive" and "believe" this promise, all of the words will be bent to serve that thesis.
My desire for our study this evening is for us to be able to see just how important it is for our right understanding of God's words to us to be believed within the context of "Promise"/"Faith". I will attempt to make the case by quickly going through several texts that rest upon the thesis that God has spoken to us according to the way we were made in the light of how we were corrupted.
- I. Genesis 3.
- A. This is the record of the devil's attack upon man in order to get man to abandon God's "words to be believed" in favor of "faith in the Great Lie".
- B. This record is given in terms of the way man was created.
- 1. He was created a physical being of dust that would need a constant supply of sustaining food and drink lest he die.
- 2. He was created a functional being of spirit that would provide him the supply of energy that would enable him to take action.
- 3. He was created a living soul that was his crucial identity as a creation that "lived" by a regular participation in the "fellowship" that God provided by His presence with him.
- C. The attack came under the broad thesis of the Great Lie.
- 1. The attack was "frontal": God said you would "die" and I'm telling you that you will not die.
- 2. Then the attack proceeded along the lines of the three aspects of man's creation existence.
- a. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil was to be believed to be "good for food" for the body.
- b. The fruit of this tree was to be viewed as desirable as an approach through the eyes as elements of the "soul".
- c. The fruit of this tree was to be ingested as something that would provide protection from God in view of the claim of the Great Lie in terms of the "spirit" and its need to take the proper and effective actions to counter any deleterious actions by God, the "Actual Enemy" of His creation.
- II. Genesis 12.
- A. The covenant God made with Abram contained "promises" regarding his body and spirit in light of his existence as a "living soul".
- 1. The promises were made against the backdrop of "requirements of faith".
- a. Abram was required to "leave his current land" (which would threaten his body as "land" produces the food necessary for its continuing existence).
- b. Abram was required to "leave his relatives" (which would threaten his existence as a "living soul" because one's security among fallen men was viewed as coming from those who would be loyal protectors).
- c. Abram was required to "leave his father's house" (which would threaten his greatest issue of 'spirit' in that his actions arose from his identity as "the son of somebody").
- 2. The promises were made as fortifications against the elements of the Great Lie.
- a. When God required him to leave his "current land", He promised to show him a "land" that would serve to compensate him for his "loss of land".
- b. When God required him to leave his "relatives", He promised to make of him a great nation.
- c. When God required him to leave his "father's house", He promised to give him a great name that would surpass the identity he had as a "son of somebody".
- B. What we are seeing is how complex the issues are as "a living soul" which possesses a "life-giving spirit" that dwells in "a body of dust" within a creation of, now, extremely dangerous elements.
- III. 1 John 2:16.
- A. This text/context brings "all that is in the world" down to three basic "behavior drivers".
- 1. "Lust" as it proceeds from "the flesh".
- 2. "Lust" as it proceeds from "the eyes".
- 3. "The Pride of Life" as it proceeds from the "intense interest" of man for recognition for what his "spirit" can produce through the body.
- B. This text follows the Genesis 3 and Genesis 12 texts as a "summary" of all that man faces and whether he will face them by his own abilities, or by the Promise of God.
- IV. Matthew 4; Luke 4; the Book of James; the Three-Fold Shepherd thesis of the New Testament; and many other lesser texts which depend upon our getting the point that How We Were Created, combined with What We Face in a fallen creation, are all critical to "faith" in the words of God.
