A BLESSING IN DISGUISE — WHAT IF GOD IN HIS INFINITE LOVE

AND WISDOM…

In His Desire To make man so he could choose to love Him and others of his own free will, created a plan that most interpret to be a curse, but was actually a blessing in disguise that would make this possible? Think about it. Could it be that this is actually what happened when Adam ate the fruit he was instructed not to because if he did it would lead to his death? Because surely when one looks closely at the Genesis account it can not be missed that the deck was stacked in favor of Adam eating the fruit. He was created with free will and dominion and placed into a world where “the most subtle of all the beasts of the field” was allowed by God to talk him and his wife, who had no knowledge of good and evil from which to determine right and wrong choices, into eating the fruit. While the fruit he ate was “good for food”, “pleasant to look at”, and “good to make one wise”. What reason could there be for him not to eat since it couldn’t have been understood by him that it was wrong? None! Other than it was planned this way from before the foundation of the world. 

I will try to illustrate this for you by asking you this question. Has there ever been a time when you were on your way somewhere and something happened that either made that impossible or postponed it that really upset you at the time? Something like a flat tire or something forgotten that you had to turn around to go back to get? Using up precious time that you thought you didn’t have? And at the time you thought it was a bad thing that just made things more difficult for you. But, afterward when you discovered that had you been able to keep going you would have been in the middle of a catastrophic event, you discover that the problem that stopped you from going, the thing that made you so angry or frustrated at the time, was really a blessing in disguise. Because it saved you from something much worse. This is why death came to all men when Adam became “as one of us to know good and evil”. To deliver them from something much worse. Really? Yes, really. But, what could be worse than death you might ask. Staying in the garden, that’s what. As you may learn as we go forward in this study. 

We are told by Paul in 1Cor.15:45,46 that Adam was natural and not spiritual when he was made. Paul says “the first Adam was not spiritual but natural” when God made him. And we are told by Jesus in John3:1-8 that only those who are born of the Spirit can see the kingdom of God. And in John4:24 Jesus said that there is only one way way for us to worship God. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth. But, to worship in spirit one must be a spiritual being, right? So the question we should be asking from our Bible is not how man can be restored to what Adam was. It should be how would Adam and the rest of mankind ever be able to “see the kingdom of God” or “worship God in spirit and in truth” if he remained in the garden the natural man that God made him when he was placed there? 

This is why God devised a plan that Peter says was from before the foundation of the world that included this “blessing in disguise”. A blessing that over time would provide mankind with the choice to either remain natural so that he would never really being able to know the love of God or the true fellowship that only a spiritual being can have. Or to be made the spiritual man he needed to be to see the kingdom of God and have the loving and intimate fellowship with his Creator for which God made him. In the manifold wisdom of God we see how God actually laid this plan out and shows it to us by using the meaning of the names in the genealogy from the lineage from Adam through Noah to reveal it. 

Here’s what these names mean. 

Hebrew —–English

Adam ——- Man

Seth ———Appointed

Enosh ——–Mortal

Kenan ——–Sorrow

Mahalalel —-The Blessed God

Jared ——–Shall come down

Enoch ——–Teaching

Methuselah —His death shall bring

Lamech ——-The Despairing

Noah ———-Rest, or comfort.

That’s pretty remarkable isn’t it? Because when these words are put together in a sentence this is what we find,

Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest and comfort.

Here we see the gospel, God’s love story, hidden within a genealogy in Genesis! The gospel, the good news, that God had planned from before the foundation of the world. A gospel that included man’s death as a blessing in disguise and Jesus’ resurrection from that death. Why? So that man could become the spiritual being that God wanted him to be by his own choosing. By choosing to be made a spiritual being of his own free will in response to the love that God showed for him. A man that could now be justly held accountable for this choice because through this process he would be equipped with all that is necessary to make a choice of consequence. Free will that he had from the beginning. The knowledge of good and evil he gained from eating the fruit. And the law that would come to Israel who were a people God chose to bring the savior through. Not because God likes to condemn people for being bad. He doesn’t take any pleasure in that. But, because He wants us to choose to love him just as He chooses to loves us by making us fully equipped for such a choice. With the final result being that we are made one with Him as Jesus prayed we would be in John17:20-23 saying,

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Because real love does not make a robot that must love you. Real love gives and equips it’s creation to choose for itself. 

Consequence because as Jesus said “to whom much is given much is required”. And to give man what he needed to make a choice of consequence in God’s plan he chose to do this over time so that as God revealed more and more of Himself men would come to know Him. And knowing Him man would know they can trust Him. And by trusting Him men would know what a relationship with Him would be like. 

Why do you think Paul told us that where there is no law there is no transgression in Rom.4:15? Adding that sin from Adam to Moses was not imputed because there was no law before Moses in Rom.5:13,14. And that only they who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God in Rom.8:14. Why did Jesus provide the information we needed so we could choose to be a child of God by the spirit birth in John3:1-8? Because these and the rest of the scriptures are instructions for becoming a child of God who inherits His kingdom. 

So we see this is why these things were necessary. Because otherwise God’s plan for man that Peter said in 1Peter1:20 had been planned from the beginning, from before the foundation of the world, would not have come to pass. This means that instead of death being a penalty or a curse as so many have falsely believed, which is why we never see even once the prophets and apostles teach that death that passed from Adam was a curse, it was actually a blessing in disguise. 

Because the blessing is that our choice to love God in return for the love He has shown to man down through the ages now carries with it the consequences only an informed choice can. That is a blessing, not a curse. Because with that choice comes either eternal life with Him in heaven because of a personal relationship with Him. Which is God’s will for all men only made possible because of a life of learning obedience through the suffering that comes from living in these mortal bodies as Jesus did. Or a natural life in the garden without ever experiencing the love and intimacy with the God who made us that He always intended. This is why those things were written down for our admonition as the scripture says in 1Cor.10:11. So we could see over and over again what God’s love in action for His creation, which is the definition of grace, looks like.

And now that Jesus has come we do not need to fear death as those who do not know Him do. Because now we know what the purpose of death was. So that men, now equipped with all that is needed to make a choice of consequence, and with the knowledge of who God really is through experiencing God’s love for us, may choose of our own free will to love God in return. A loving and intimate relationship with God that is the righteousness unto eternal life God has promised to those who love Him. 

And we need no longer fear death because we know where we are going after death. To a beautiful place where God is that has no death or sorrow or pain. A place we have chosen of our own free will by believing and receiving the love that God has shown to us in Christ Jesus. A love that casts out fear. A love that is limitless whose only condition for it’s eternal benefit to us is that we receive it for the gift that it is. 

This is what it means that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. The suffering that comes not only from being human as all men are and Adam was when God made him. But, a human just as Adam and all men are who is also under death’s power. Suffering that means that we lose our life in this life as Jesus did so that we gain life everlasting. 

Jesus knew that physical death was not the end. Because of Him it is simply a transition from this mortal life into immortal life with the Father in heaven. A life of love, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. Because no longer will we deal with mortality. And no longer will we deal with death and it’s effects upon our mortal body. We will be immortal and eternally spiritual. Knowing even as we are known as Paul says in 1Cor.13:12. Abiding in the love of God which is greater than all the faith and hope that we live by while we are still in these mortal bodies. A love that makes us one with Him because as Paul said in 1Cor.13:13,

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Will you trust in this love? Will you trust in God’s plan for you? Will you trust in Jesus and His resurrection? If you will then you can have the eternal life that Jesus came to provide you with. An immortal life where there is the promise of no more pain or sorrow or death after you receive the new body that He has prepared for you. If you believe in Him then pray with me now.

Dear Jesus, thank you for loving me. Thank you for joining with me in my mortality so that I could join with you in your immortality. I trust in you and your resurrection for eternal life. Help me to live for you now. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer with me then welcome to God’s eternal family! Now as you read God’s word the Bible believe what it plainly says. And come here often to hear the word of God preached so that you can grow in your new life in Christ. 

See you there or in the air!
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