Evidences of Eternal Life - Part 1 — Paris Reidhead

The Purpose of Man’s Creation

Now, this morning I want to begin a series that I think is going to take some variations from what we did last week. However, I will begin there because I think it is extremely important to understand why God made man and why he made him exactly as he made him.

I have two scriptures that I consider are anchor scriptures. The first is found in Ephesians, the fourth chapter, where the apostle says that he, Christ, gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Literally, for the perfecting of the saints into the work of the ministry, unto the edifying or building up of the body of Christ.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a mature man, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And the second scripture is given to us in Romans 8, 28, 29.

We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

His purpose is to make us like Christ. Years ago, as a student for a time, a temporary student at the University of Minnesota, I was on a bench eating my lunch on a pleasant spring day and reading my New Testament.

A young man came up and sat down on the other end of the bench and started to read his textbook. From time to time, I noticed that he looked over at my strange little black book and I could see that he was wanting to ask a question.

And so to make it a little easier, I said, by the way, what are you reading? And he told me what text it was. And I then proceeded to say, this is, as he asked, this is the New Testament. I'm doing some devotional reading.

And we began to talk. And he asked a question. About that time, word had come out that Hitler was trying to give the ultimate solution to the Jewish problem by the furnace at Belsen and elsewhere. And so he was quite appalled by this.

And I recall his question being something like this. If God knew the kind of a being man was going to be, the kind of things he was going to do, the kind of sins he was going to commit, why did God ever make man in the first place?

Why did he make man if he knew that he was going to be this kind of a monster? Well, that was a very good question. And even though I had finished Bible school, I really wasn't prepared to answer it properly.

I hadn't given enough thought to it. I hadn't prayed about it. I gave him the best answer that I could. But you can be sure that that question hung with me and I did a lot of work on it. As I continued to ponder it and think about it, why did God make man in the first place?

And only incidentally if he knew he would sin. But why did he make man? Well, the only answer I could find had to lie in the character of God. What kind of a being is God? And if we couldn't find an answer in his character, I suppose there wouldn't be one found anywhere.

So I began to write out just words that summarized the attributes of God. And particularly the ones where they were identified by the Lord Jesus Christ or clear statements. And so, of course, the head of the list was, God is love.

And then the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I had therefore, and then he said, I am the light of the world. So I had four key attributes. The first of which was love. Well, I dealt with that and thought about that and worked on that.

And I became satisfied in my own mind that the statement, God is love, is the basic answer to the question, why God made man. You see, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God, our triune God, is love.

And therefore, the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Spirit, would not be as an object of love. Truly the Father loved the Son, and the Son the Father, and the Father and the Son the Spirit, but they're one God.

God is one, and it is the mystery of the Trinity. Now this triune God is love. And so in a sense, the Father, the Eternal Father, would be incomplete without an object for his love. God is love, and love is incomplete without an object.

Now it's a law of life and common sense that we can only love that which is like us. I remember years ago seeing a ridiculous cartoon. It showed a lady who wore her glasses on the end of a stick and held them up over her eyes, a lorgnette I suppose you'd call it.

And she had under her left arm a little small dog. I don't know what it was, a poodle or something. Nice little dog, nothing wrong with the dog, I'm after the lady. And the balloon above or the quotations below said, Oh how I love my poodacums.

Well I was almost embarrassed to read it, much less to repeat it. But here is an intelligent woman, obviously intelligent enough to wear glasses on the end of a stick. And she's holding this dog and she's saying, Oh how I love my dog.

And it seemed so absurd to me to think that a person could feel it possible to love a dog. And then I thought how we use that word. Have you ever heard anybody say we love our new house? We love our new car.

Have you ever heard anyone say, Oh I just love that shade of blue. Where I come from we hear something like, I love southern fried chicken. Well, all of these misuses of the word love. How can you love an inanimate object, a car, a house, a car, a plate of chicken.

How can, it's impossible. You see, we can only love that which is like us. We can only love that which is capable of understanding our love, of enjoying our love, and returning our love. Well now in the light of this you can understand that when God is to make a creature that's to be the object of his love, it's imperative, it's imperative that that creature should be like himself.

Now God had made other beings before he made man. He made the cherubim. He made the seraphim. And I don't really know what the difference between them are, various orders of angels. But I know this, however they are made, they are not said to be made in the image and likeness of God.

Nor does it anywhere say that God loves the angelic beings. The only being that is said to be made in God's image and God's likeness is man. And man is the only being that the scripture says that God loves.

I'm asserting then that the reason why God made man, and made him as he made him, was so that he would have someone like himself. As father he would have children. As bridegroom he would have a bride.

As father he would want to reveal to his children who he is and all he is, and what he's doing and why he's doing it, so that they might share with him what father is there that isn't happy when his children indicate an interest in the family business.

And as bridegroom he wanted a bride to whom he could reveal himself and share all that he is, who would love him and be loved in return and participate in all that he is doing. And so I'm asserting as a foundational concept that God made man to meet the need of his heart for a beloved, someone he could love, who would enjoy and need that love, be incomplete without that love, and could in turn love God in such a way as to satisfy the ancient longing in God's heart.

The Image of God: Intellect, Emotion, and Choice

Now, with that in mind, we have to go to the next question. Why did God make man so that he could sin? Well, let's go back before we come to the specific answer to that and see wherein God made man in his image.

What are characteristics of God that would have to be true of man if man is to be like him? First, he would have to think. He'd have to have intellect, the ability to think. And therefore, he would have imagination.

You see, thinking can either be in contemplation of what one knows or in consideration of what might be. The one is meditation, and the other is imagination. And both meditation, contemplation, and imagination are aspects of thinking.

And therefore, if he made man in his image and likeness, he would have to be a thinking being. Well, God feels. God loves. And therefore, man would have to be an emotional being. He would have to have the capacity to feel and to understand emotion.

He would have to have the ability to love. God loves, and he would have to be able to love God in return. So he is now defined as a thinking, feeling being. But in addition to that, he has to have the capacity and the power to choose because God has the power of choice.

And God ever and always has chosen that which is going to be to the greatest good and blessing and highest fulfillment of himself in the entire universe. But he chooses. He has the power to choose. So choice, therefore, is indispensable.

Man is a thinking, feeling, willing, or choosing being. He has mental capacity, emotional capacity, and volitional capacity. Now this has to be unrestricted. It can't be limited. If it's limited, then man is not going to be man.

He's going to be something else. Let's suppose for a moment that God made man in such a way that man had no option or no choice but to love God. Let's suppose that God put such blinders on his mind that he couldn't see anything else, the one way of approaching it.

Or that God hypnotized man so that he controlled his will, so that man had to love him. I've often used this illustration. Years ago, when our children were very small, I was engaged in missionary deputation work.

And I would be away for four or five weeks at a time, having one missionary conference after another. And I became very lonely for my wife and my children. I wanted to be with them. Now suppose after five weeks stint away, I come back, and the only way I can get my children to express any affection or any feeling for me is to bring them up in front of me and one by one hypnotize them.

Until my mind controls theirs. And they stand there like zombies, fully under my control. And I say, walk up to me. And they walk up to me. Put out your arms. And they put out their arms. Put them around my neck.

And they put your lips on my cheek. Kiss me. And they do it all mechanically as if just a machine. Do you think that such would satisfy the longing in the heart of a father who is lonely for his children?

Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Never would satisfy his need. And if God had made man a machine to love him, it wouldn't have meant any more to God than it would mean to a lonely father. It wouldn't have any meaning at all.

No, God had to make man capable of saying, no, I don't love you. So that when he said yes, that yes would satisfy the heart of God. So he had to make man capable of saying no. Now, in the light of that, then, we see and ask another question.

Lucifer, Sin, and the Fall of Creation

Of all the planets in the world, all of the millions of stars, planets, constellations, whatever there's out there, when they tell me what's out there, it sort of just staggers my mind. I can't grasp it.

But when you look up on a clear night, there it is. It's there. And we don't have the powerful telescopes here where I am. I've never looked through a powerful telescope. But they say they're out there.

All right. Why in the world did God ever pick out Earth as the place where he was going to put man? Especially since at some time in the past, God had selected Earth to be the devil's island penitentiary in space.

You see, at some point in time and space, Lucifer, the most brilliant of all the angels God created, the one to whom he gave the greatest endowment of beauty and intelligence and power, would serve as a prime minister over all of the angels.

While we're talking about all, let's get a little idea of what all is. Daniel tells us that there are a million angels that stand as servants before God, and there are a hundred million angels that are waiting for assignments from God, that are waiting to be given some task.

Well, that's quite a few. Those are the ones that are still faithful to the Lord. Now, he had created Lucifer and gave to him this intelligence, and we learn a little bit about what Lucifer did. We learn that he had intelligence, and he had some emotion, some kind, and he also had the power to choose.

In the use of his intelligence, he says, you know, if I were God, I wouldn't do things the way God's doing them. But then there came a time when imagination gave way to decision, and we are told that Lucifer said, I will set my throne above the throne of the Most High.

Now, when he did that, when he made that decision, obviously, that is the time when sin became an actuality. Now, let me explain why it could have occurred then. We've already established that we've selected four attributes.

God is love, God is light, God is life, and God is truth. Now, here is a being who says he's going to set his throne above the throne of the Most High. If he's an intelligent being, he knows that he has to have greater attributes than God has.

But if he's an intelligent being, he knows what you and I know. That is that every thesis has its antithesis, or every positive has its negative, or, if you will, every front has its back. And if you see what looks to be a front and you run around behind it, and it doesn't have a back, you didn't see a front, you saw an illusion of a front, whether it's a hand or whatever.

Because if there is to be an idea, there has to be an opposite idea, a thesis, an antithesis. And so, if God is love, the very opposite does exist or can exist. What's the opposite? Hate. If God is light, the opposite can exist or does exist.

And what is the opposite of light? Darkness. If God is truth, the opposite can exist, which is a lie. If God is life, the opposite can exist, must have existence somewhere, be capable of it, and that is death.

And so here is a being who says, I'll put my throne above the throne of the Most High. Now, to do this, he has to have sense enough to know that his attributes, which is his power and strength, in his judgment at least, are greater, more powerful than those of God.

And so he, we are told, is the author of hate. That's his character. He's the prince of darkness. He's the father of lies. And he's the bringer of death. These four attributes now are those that Satan has taken to put his throne above the throne of the Most High.

Well, there's a battle in heaven. They're not satisfied. There's a battle going on. And the forces of God overcome, not finally, but decisively, that battle. The war isn't over, but the battle is won.

And in Isaiah we are told that the Lord Jesus said, I saw Satan cast out of heaven. Well, cast from heaven where? And I personally believe, it's my own metaphysics and it's not a test of fellowship, that that's what happened in Genesis 1 -2.

In Genesis 1 -1 it says the earth was made out of nothing. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And in Genesis 1 -2 it says that the earth became without form and void. And darkness covered the face of the deep.

Well, I think that's when the God of this world was sent out to Devil's Island in space. It's like the French had an island out there in the Caribbean where they sent their prisoners. So God sent his ancient defeated foe.

And that foe was consigned to and confined to a planet called Earth. And because he is the God of darkness, the earth was without form and void, no life. And darkness covered the face of the deep. Now, the time comes when God is going to make man.

Question? Why did he ever pick out earth as a place to put man? Well, that's where he'd sent Satan. That's where Lucifer was. That's where all the angels that had fallen with Lucifer were. Why didn't he go out somewhere in space and find a nice clean planet and fit that up and let old Lucifer stay down there?

And his beloved could be out there where he wouldn't have this problem. Well, I guess that's the same thing that one would say that when marriage is over, the husband has to put out the eyes, blind the eyes of his bride so she'll never look on another man.

And that's the only way he could keep her content to stay with him. And when you suggest that God go out into the universe and find another empty planet and fit it up for man, you're saying that his beloved was so unfaithful that he saw an alternative.

He couldn't do anything about it. So God did right at the outset. That he came down and he recreated what we have in Genesis 1, 4, and thereafter is the recreation of the earth. He said, light be. And he established the light bearer of the sun and then the moon by night so that even in the darkness when darkness was there, the reflection of the sun would prove to those that were there that the sun was still shining.

It was still light. Light be. And then he recreated it and put all that is in it there and wonderfully, wonderfully prepared it for this being that he was to make. Then said the triune God let us make man in our image and in our likeness.

Human Appetites and God’s Good Design

And he formed him from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul. Now what did he give to this being that he made in his image and likeness that could think and feel and will?

What did he give? What did he put into him? Well, he put into him appetites, urges, if you wish. Call them drives. Call them propensities. I don't care what you call them. But I call them appetites because that's what they were.

First he gave to man an appetite for food because he provided the food man was going to need but he just built into his nervous system a mechanism that would tell man every few hours, hey, put some more in.

This is how you live. Don't get too busy or forget to put some fuel in the tank. Why did he give an appetite for food? So that man's life could be sustained. Then he gave an appetite for status because man had the task assigned to him by God to govern God's creation.

Care for the garden. He had to take charge. So he built into him an appetite to take charge. And then he gave to him an appetite for pleasure because he wanted this being to be happy. The ability to hear sounds that would be pleasing.

To see colors and sights and forms that would be pleasing. And then I often will say, and he even gave us the watermelon. Have you ever thought much about a watermelon? You don't need it. No indispensable vitamins or minerals.

But isn't it beautiful to look at? Isn't the color exquisite? And the odor so pleasant and the taste so satisfying? It was just a sweet little thing that God did saying, here kids, have fun. Enjoy already.

That was what he did. And he gave us a watermelon. And many, many other things weren't essential for life. But because he gave us an appetite for pleasure, he gave us the capacity to satisfy it. He gave us an appetite for knowledge because we learn in sequence.

Go to school, they tell us two and two makes four. And then you go back the next day and they throw you into a tizzy because they try to make you believe that two and three makes five. And then they keep doing that for years and years thereafter.

Because you have to learn one thing at a time. So he gave us an appetite for knowledge. Gave us curiosity. Of course, it takes only about six years in most public schools to kill that. But up until the time children go to school, they have this intense desire to know.

It seems to take long in school before they lose that, I'm afraid, in so many cases. But still, he gave us a tremendous appetite to know. And then he gave us an appetite for sex. Because by this means, this beloved of his was going to be increased and become all that he had intended and planned.

So he looked at all that he'd made, the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, the animals of the forest, the grasses, everything that he had made, and man with all of his appetites. And what did he say?

It is good. And don't you ever, ever get the idea that the appetites as they came from God are bad. Appetites were part of the very fabric of our being. Now, with the appetites, God gave the proper means of their being satisfied.

Everyone. Now, I'll have to change this scenario just a little. Into this garden comes this ancient foe. Now, think. If God was able, after Adam and Eve sinned, to put an angel there with a flaming sword to keep them out of the garden, don't you think if he wanted to, he could have sent that angel three days or a few days earlier to keep the serpent out of the garden?

He kept Adam and Eve out. Why did he keep the serpent out? Well, it's going back to the same thing. No, he permitted, he told his beloved, this one he'd made in his image and likeness, to whom he'd revealed himself, he told them this, you can eat of all the fruit of the garden, except that one tree.

And you can't eat of that, for the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die. So the enemy comes in. Now, what does the enemy do? The enemy tempts Mother Eve. What is temptation? Temptation is the proposition presented to the intellect to satisfy a good appetite in a bad way.

Yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of it lest you die? He didn't say that. He said, the day thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. Surely die. And so he tempts them. And he says, look at how beautiful this is to the eye.

Appetite for pleasure. And it tastes so sweet. Appetite for food. And when you eat of this, you'll be like God. Appetite for status. Now they were like God. They were made in God's image and likeness.

Mother Eve listened. And Father Adam heard it too. And Mother Eve made a decision. She had the mind to imagine, the emotion to desire, and the will to choose. And she chose. And she ate. And now she turns and she gives the fruit to Adam.

That's why she turned and gave it to him. That's why he was right there. Don't think he was off having a business lunch somewhere downtown. No, he was right there when this took place. And he ate. Because he had an option.

If he didn't eat, he'd stay with God. And he only saw God a little while in the evening. And if he did eat, he could stay with Eve. And he'd gotten addicted to her in just a few days. And he had her all the time.

So rather than have God for a few minutes at night or her all day, he just said, that's what I'm going to do. So he ate too. But it was a choice. It was a choice. And when they ate, when they disobeyed God, they died.

The Consequences of the Fall

Just as God said they would die. First, they died legally. By that rebellion against God, for such it was, they forfeited all claim upon God's protecting care. From that time on, God had no responsibility for them.

Have you ever seen an ad in the paper saying, having left my bed and board, I am no longer responsible for the debts and obligations of so and so. Well, having disobeyed God, God is no longer responsible for the care and the protection of Adam and Eve.

They died legally. The only thing they can claim from God from that point on is this. He's going to have to be just in his judgment of me. Well, a lot of comfort they're going to get out of that, I can tell you.

But that's the only claim, justice and judgment. Secondly, they died spiritually. That is, there was something happened in them that broke their receiving set to know God. Have you ever gone to put on the television set and put it on and nothing worked?

You wanted the news or to find out the weather or something else and you turned on the set and somebody said, I don't hear anything. No, you don't. The set's dead. Now, I know what to do in that case.

You hit it on the side and then you try again. And if it doesn't work when you hit it, why, then you know it's dead. Because sometimes it works because it just jars the little filaments together and it carries on for a little while.

But when the set is dead, it doesn't mean necessarily that all of the parts and pieces in there rusted down into a couple of tablespoons full of rust. They're all there. Looking at it, it looks the same.

What's happened? There's a disconnection somewhere, a broken connection. And so when man died spiritually, his receiving set to know God was disconnected. It wasn't annihilated. Death always means separation.

You see, on Mars Hill, when Paul was talking to the Areopagites there, he said, God is not far from every one of us, for in him we live and we move and we have our being. In other words, we all live in the very presence of God.

That's a little hard for us to believe, that God was just as geographically close to Adolf Hitler as he was to Ries Howells, the intercessor, who prayed and God honored and gave such great victories in answer to prayer for his fasting and praying.

But that's what the Word tells us. In him we live and move and have our being. You see, we live in three atmospheres. The first atmosphere is air. And we have a receiving set for air. It's called our lungs.

We have access to it by our nose and our mouth. The only way we can get air is that way. And then we have another atmosphere. I'm familiar with it. You're familiar with it. It's electronic sound. If all the electronic sound in this room now were to be separated and brought into hearing, when you came back tomorrow morning, we'd have to have shelving up and down throughout this building with hundreds of radios on it for long wave and short wave and very high frequency and ultra-high frequency.

Oh, my, the amount of electronic sound that surrounds us, like an ocean. We have to have a receiving set, a radio, a TV set, short wave, long wave, whatever it may be. But there's a third atmosphere. And that third atmosphere is God.

And He's just as close as the air, but He's not the air. And He's just as close as the electronic sound, but He's not the electronic sound. He is God. And in Him we live and move and have our being. He's gloriously revealed in heaven where the angels worship Him.

But He is the omnipresent God. And so man died spiritually. That part of man that knows the things of a man is the spirit of man that is in him. And when sin came, that ability to know God, that capacity to know God was interrupted, was broken, if you wish, died, separated so that it didn't function anymore.

And the fourth thing that happened as a result of sin was that man began to die physically. God so made man that he seemed to be capable of indefinite, continuous life. Those first patriarchs, 700 years, 800 years, 900 years, not to be wondered at.

God put into our systems the power to repair and replace. And we're told that every short period, every cell in our body is replaced by a new cell. I suppose some of them, like the enamel on the teeth, are a little slower.

But other than that, I see it happening on my hands. Skin is falling off. It's continuous going on. Apparently God intended man to live indefinitely. But he found there was great sin, and so he set a bounds.

And he said 120 years after the flood. And then that was even too long. So he set another bounds, and he said 70, perhaps 80. But that's an insult to the creator. If a builder built houses, and every 10 or 15 years his houses fell down, you wouldn't think much of that builder, would you?

Well, God made man for indefinite prolongation of life. But because he sinned, and death is passed upon all men for that all have sinned. These were the consequences of it. But there was another effect of all of this.

God had turned over the governorship of his creation to man. And by his disobedience, and by his sin, man turned the governorship of the world over to Lucifer. Now Lucifer is becoming, is the God of this recreated world.

He couldn't create anything. He had no power. When he reigned here, the earth was without form and void. But God created. God created, and Adam and Eve then by their sin turned the governorship of the world over to the ancient foe, ancient arch enemy.

And he became known as the God of this world. And now all of a sudden, all of these angels that fell with Lucifer have jobs to do. They are put in charge of areas. There's principalities and powers, and the rulers of darkness and wicked spirits.

And a whole hierarchy now has gone out since Adam turned the governorship of the world over to Lucifer. And he governs it, and he controls it. And he owns it. Now into that garden, that night, after this terrible, tragic revolt against God by the first pair, the Lord Jesus, that is God in his pre-incarnate glory, God the Son, for the Jehovah of the Old Testament we understand to be the Jesus of the new, came into the garden.

And after all, things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. He was the person that God had that created. So into the garden he came and find this one made in the image and likeness of God.

And he calls, Adam, where art thou? And I see Adam and Eve that have gone in where the bushes are the thickest and the branches and leaves drop the furthest. They're crawled in underneath. And I can hear Adam whisper and say, Shh, if we're quiet, he may not find.

Hiding from God, trying to escape his eyes. And he prevails. Adam, where art thou? And Adam is found and discovered and comes out. And then he said, What is this that thou hast done? Well, we made these fig leaves.

Well, why? We found out. How told you you were naked? Well, we ate of the fruit that you told us not to eat of. But you know how he said it? Now, remember what the God of this world is. He's hate. Now, look what's happened in Adam's heart one afternoon.

The woman thou gavest me made me eat. Isn't that awful? In other words, Adam is saying, If you've got to kill somebody, kill her. She made me eat, which wasn't true at all. Nobody made him eat. He chose.

But he's trying to excuse himself. Won't take responsibility. And already hate has come full grown into the family of men. Well, the Lord Jesus now sheds the first blood that shed, that we know of in the recreated earth.

And it says,. And he took a lamb, and he made coats of skin. Coats of skin. And tied them around Adam, and tied them around Mother Eve. And thereby he pointed a finger down across the centuries to the day when John the Baptist would see him and cry out, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

But nothing was the same. They were driven out of the garden. An angel was put there with a flaming sword. And the two boys that were born to them at that time, though they had other children subsequently, one Cain, one Abel.

Sacrifice and the Promise of Redemption

Cain obviously interested in the family. Gardener, taking the fruits, the vegetables, preparing them. And taking, when God called for an offering, he did the logical, sensible thing. And he brought his carrots and radishes.

I kind of see the kind of thing that you have at the county fair when they bring the vegetables in and make these lovely designs with the beautiful, colorful vegetables. And that was Cain's offering to the Lord.

I think Abel, of the two, was probably the biggest rascal. I just got the feeling that Abel wasn't, he just, he figured that he needed, look, if the Lord God made coats of skins for Mom and Dad, I better, I just better do something here to cover my problems.

And so I see Abel going out and taking a firstling of the flock and bringing it in and putting up an altar and slaying this. Saying thereby, I need blood to cover my parents' head, to have coats of skins to cover them.

And the only offering I can bring is the offering of the lamb to cover, atone for my sin. But there again, you see God accepting the sacrifice, pointing the finger down. When all the lambs of all the sacrifices of all the centuries are fulfilled, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is lifted up between heaven and earth on a cross and fulfills what John said of Him, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.