I have mentioned Spiritual Warfare a couple of times saying that we are in a very serious spiritual warfare today. I think I need to go further in explaining what I mean by that, and what the nature of that warfare really is.
First, it is a real war. Not with guns and bombs, but with faith and discernment to guide our choices. Second, we are contending with a very real enemy, Satan. Paul writing to the Ephesian Church has talked about marriage and order in the home, but then says very clearly “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12 NKJ)
This is a war against “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Do not discount this! It is very real. It confronts each one of us in a verity of ways. We are not talking about demon possession as we read about in the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles. That still occurs in places, but it is not what I am referring to here. To the Corinthians Paul speaks of the need for forgiveness among brethren and says, “lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”(2 Cor.2:11) Here it is clear that one is dealing with weapons of faith in Christ and the choice to forgive one who has offended us. Unforgiveness is one area of temptation but there are numerous others we’ll examine shortly. We must not be ignorant of the devil’s devises.
This stealth warfare should not be unfamiliar. We are hearing about it all the time in the daily news in another form. There is a constant battle to determine what is fake new and what isn’t. Computer technology and Artificial Intelligence has made it possible to have images of people saying pretty much anything someone want them to say. There is a daily battle to prevent foreign nations from interfering with our current election process. And Yes! Demonic forces can be behind presentations on social media and elsewhere.
There are ideas, opinions, and assumed ways of life that have spread globally in a matter of a few year that were not generally held before. Computers and smart phones abound. This has allowed the spread of ideas world wide and without age limit. We see schools across our nation having to control the use of smart phones even in elementary school. Why, for example, has the problem of gender dysphoria become so prominent recently? This is part of the spiritual warfare we face today.
Again our weapons are faith and spiritual discernment to make the right choices. But these needed to be guided by our Lord. We are mere foot soldiers being guided by our love for Christ Jesus and the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. The continuing verses in Ephesians 6 advise us to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (Vss.10-11) Five of the six items, using Roman army symbolism, are for bodily protection. The only offensive weapon is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”. Remember how Jesus answered Satan during His 40 days in the wilderness. – “It is written.” “It is written.” “It is written.” (Matthew 4)
Holy Scripture is God truth for our discernment in making choices. The Bible is God’s Holy Word revealing God’s will. This is the correct image for each of our lives. Whatever would pull us away from that, or sully that image, is not of God.
None of us fights this battle perfectly. None of us understands clearly all that God desires. We live by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of His atoning sacrifice. But we still have to be aware of “the schemes of the devil” doing all we can to stand against them. Parents also have the responsibility to guide their children in understanding what is of God and what is not. Sometimes this means just saying a firm “No” even though they may not see the reason.
God’s Plan for Mankind
Holy Scripture clearly presents us with both God’s law, and God’s marvelous gospel in the person of His Son, Christ Jesus. Old and New Testament together reveal a way of life God has designed for mankind. This becomes the standard by which we are to govern our lives. I Corinthians 12 gives us a list of the Gifts of Holy Spirit. One of those gifts is called “distinguishing between spirits” or discernment. It is a gift we all need ask our Lord to provide. It is by God’s Spirit that we accept or reject ideas presented to us.
Let’s go back to the beginning in the first three chapters of Genesis for a serious look at a major area of Satan’s temptations, and I’m afraid too many victories in our modern world. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) One Bible teacher has said that if we understand that verse we have much of what we need for the whole rest of Scripture. God is our Creator. The account that follows of the six days of creation is a true account of how all things have come into being. This is contrary to the teaching of evolution which has become standard fare in most schools. Evolution posits millions of years of slow incremental changes to bring about all the creatures we see in today’s world, contrary to the 6 day young earth picture of Genesis 1.
However, there are numerous doctoral and post doctoral researchers today who have shown support for the young earth model. The primary problem for many in accepting a young earth is that it means there was a Creator just as Genesis tells us. Evolution eliminates the necessity of God.
Further, all the animal life on earth, including man, shows an irreducible complexity. Each creature cannot survive if all of its parts are not function in order to support the whole. Even the simplest organisms are complex beyond anything we can imagine. All subsystems must be fulling functioning for the organism to survive. The whole Darwinian theory depends on changes at the cell level which itself is incredibly complex. There is no possibly of this happening by chance. This is documented in detail by scholars and far more than can be outlined here. Evolution is one of those schemes of the devil that has taken a strong hold world wide. This is not the rant of a fundamentalist preacher, and I wouldn’t be writing this paragraph if I didn’t believe it was supported by credible scientific evidence.
We are discussing the biblical pattern of God’s creation against which we are to judge all ideas and teachings. I want to look at the creation of man and woman in Genesis 1 and 2.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)
Let me call attention to several things here. God said let us make man…. This is the first indicator of the Trinity, the one true God in three persons, repeated throughout scripture. This is the beginning of our understanding of One God, not three gods, but manifested in three persons. This unity of persons in one being is important as we shall see.
Made in our image according to our likeness…. We are to bear the very image of Almighty God. This is said of no other earthly creature or heavenly being. Further, mankind is to have dominion over all the rest of God’s creation. In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” There are two genders. They are not mixed. We don’t get to choose which we want. God determines who will bear His image. I know there is a lot of discussion and opposition over this today, but in the beginning it was not so, and we do not have the option of changing it.
“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth”..…(Vs.28) God brought the man and woman together in an image bearing union. This is explained more fully in Genesis chapter 2. God ordained the marital sexual union between the man and the woman. The two are to begin to experience the unity, their oneness, even while being two different individuals. Sin will enter in later but the oneness of the two is to be experienced as similar to the unity of the Triune God. From that blessed union they are to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.
That union will later be called marriage and will be used as an illustration of the union between Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:32) So this relationship between God and man is something very special. There is the one flesh bond between husband and wife which is expanded to show the bond between Christ and His Church. We see this, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, as through a glass dimly. But these human images are given both as a glimpse of God’s desire for His people, and to cause us to hunger for an ever closer relationship with our gracious Lord.
I can testify to this unity or oneness of two people in my own marriage as well as seeing it in the union of couples in our congregation. That union becomes even more visible with age. We no longer have quite the same sexual union, but the bond is even deeper. We are one flesh. We feel the joys and pains of our other half even when it is not our own physical body. The care we give to one another is as if it were our own flesh. Love, itself, has grown deeper.
Chapter 2 is the same account but gives more detail about the creation of humans. “Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”(Gen.2:7) After their disobedience to God, the man is told that he will eventually die and return to the ground from which he was formed.(3:19) But that is getting ahead of the account. “The breath of life” was breathed into man. You and I have been given a spiritual part to our being. We have a human spirit that is able to communicate with God’s Spirit. Paul speaks of this in Romans 8:14-17. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” There is much here that we won’t go into now, but Paul is saying that the spirit of life that God breathed into us is to be led and guided by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God. There is the clear intention on God’s part to walk in a close union with mankind that He has created.
“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:8-9) You have read the whole account before. Eden was a place of beauty beyond description. This was the initial dwelling place God intended for man. We are told that God walked in the garden in the cool of the day.(Genesis 3:8) This, I believe, is a pre-incarnation picture of God the Son. It is the intimate fellowship God intended for men. Man had been given free access to all of the beauty of the Garden with only one prohibition. He must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(Gen.2:17) He was not told why except for the penalty – death. It was a matter of trust in the Creator and at this point he didn’t even know what evil was.
A Quick Summary
There is much more to be said about these first two Genesis chapters, but I have tried to picture a way of life God desires for mankind that He created. We have an account of God’s creation in six days contrary to the teaching of evolution. God’s creation included all the heavenly bodies and all the creatures on earth. Man was created in the image of Almighty God. Created in two genders, a man and a woman. Intended to bond in a one flesh union imaging the undivided union of the three in one Godhead of the Holy Trinity, as well as is shown later in the bond between Christ and the Church. The woman was to be man’s perfect companion, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. (2:23) Through their sexual union they were to be fruitful bringing forth children to fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion of over all the rest of creation. They were naked without shame, in a beautiful and abundant garden, walking in daily communion with God, the Son. They had but one command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Gen.1:31) “And indeed it was very good.”
This then is a picture or model of God’s desire for mankind. The various aspects of this creation account become the standard by which we are called to judge all that comes to us by whatever means. The concepts of creation, the Trinity, two genders, the marital union and so on are supported throughout the Bible. Sin will enter in as we learn in Genesis 3, but we need to keep the picture of this God desired way of life in mind. I will have more to say about our rebellion in Part 2, but for now understand that we are in a very serious spiritual warfare. As God leads, stand firm and witness in your own life to the truth that everything God has made is very good.
We have all failed to live by God’s perfect will. We have inherited sinful nature from the rebellion of our first parents. It is only by God’s grace that we continue to live. But that grace has been given to us in abundance through the death and resurrection of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus, the Christ. In Him alone we have forgiveness, new life, and peace. And indeed this is very good. May you walk in this new life each day.
God’s grace and blessings,
Pastor Irv