TWISTED

 Twisted is thought of as “deviant,” but twisting requires the input of energy to go from one state to another. For a pretzel, twisting transforms a straight portion of dough into a crooked shape, thus changing how it looks and what it is.

From a spiritual perspective, twisting transforms one substance into another, from wrong to right. For instance, material substance alone was not the finished product, and God transformed one “shape” unto another:

²⁷ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. ²⁸ And God blessed them… Gen 1:27-28)

 How did God ‘bless” them? He “adored” them ( (BLB 2021). Originally, they were not adorned, but after God made them, he did adorn them with something! The question is What was the thing with which they were adorned? Seed (Gen 1:28b) — to cause to be fruitful (ibid).

Adam was formed in an image then endowed with human seed to multiply to increase God’s kind. Implied therein is that Adam was made of the same stock as God, had the attributes of God, and was endowed with the seeds of God.

A seed “is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. A seed is a part of the process of reproduction” (Wikipedia 2001-2022). Seed is thought of as embryonic herbs, but it applies to the animal kingdom as well.

As scriptures implies, there are two gens of human seeds: male and female (verse 27 above). Inside the gametes (those seeds) are the human genome, consisting of the identities of the male and female respectively, that are encoded in their chromosomes in a compound of carbon called “DNA.”

Scientists, in the definition above, refer reproduction as a process. With that background, the generation of Adam was a process followed by a similar process for Eve, excepting that they were of different genders. They were two different but compatible gens who could reproduce.

In Rome, the gens were of the patrilineal germline, and in biology, “the gens are a distinguishable group of related organisms” (Merriam-Webster 2021). Therefore, Adam and Eve were the family group and were organically related as “one flesh” (Gen 2:24).

Since they were images of God; Adam, Eve, and God were one flesh. Thus, the organism was just as glorious as God. That implies that since God is glorious, then they were glorious as well, and they were not made “very good” (Gen 1:28b) but were literally made in splendor (Gen 1:31).

God created all things (Acts 17:24). Creators generate things from nothing. However, God is not a “Thing” but Existence itself! Crediting God as “Creator” is trusting that He genned all things in the beginning. That He did; He genned Adam with His own Identity and Adam passed along the Identity of God unto Eve.

God gave Adam a “twist” as he genned him, and Eve passed along the “twist” to Eve. Why “twists”? God provided light then divided the light from darkness (Gen 1:4). God twisted light from the darkness in the process of time and did so each time of each process. That repeated process was done six times until it all came to equilibrium when God finally rested when the systematic process was completed.

“God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night” (Gen 1:5). “Day” therein is “yom — to be hot” and “night” therein is “layil — “a twist” (BLB 2021), obviously away from the hot. Hence, the generation of mankind was a process in time and is validated by God Himself, “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord” (Gen 4:3).

What kind of fruit did Cain bring that was so disgusting to the LORD GOD? Cain perhaps planted his own seed in the ground! That may sound disgusting but that would be the “fruit” of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve did not necessarily eat of the tree but consumed its fruit. (Gen 3:6) Was that “fruit” the seed of the Wicked One? The apostle John thought so: We are to love one another, “Not as Cain, who was of that Wicked One, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous” (1 John 3:12).

As it turned out, the fruit that Eve consumed was surely by carnal knowledge and Cain was the seed that the “Serpent” planted in Eve that would be sown into the ground outside the Garden; not that Cain was seeded in the ground but he grew in the Earth outside the protective shield of the Garden.

Something is often missed in scripture — for the Jews, it was blasphemous for any but the Jews to enter the inner parts of the Temple, and only a righteous priest could enter the Holy of Holies. Well, the Garden of Eden was God’s original “Temple” and the Tree of Life was the “Holy of Holies” and the canopy of trees were the “tabernacles” that God provided. As both trees were in the “midst of the Garden” (Gen 2:9), both trees were God’s, and both were holy!

The ”Serpent” defiled the “Temple” as it would be defiled so many times thereafter. Lucifer cast his serpentine seed on the ground, so to speak, and Cain was the product of miscegenation.

Cain brought his “fruit” to God. Apparently, because it was disrespectful, Cain must have sown his own seed to Lucifer, and onto the ground. On the other hand, Abel brought the firstfruits of his flock, indubitably lambs, and gave it directly to God (Gen 4:4).

It seems that Cain and Abel reproduced much differently and were not of the same gens (family). They were different than each other and each more like his parent — Cain of the Wicked One, and Abel of the Divine One, as scripture implies with the cognomen “Righteous Abel” (Mat 23:25).

The inheritance by primogeniture ended right there; no longer would the first-genned be the heir but the second, and in his absence, a subsequently genned male, as with Seth who replaced Abel (Gen 4:5). Seth was Abel’s replacement, and he was of the gens of Abel. Perhaps Seth, like Abel, was the son of God of which was written in the days of Noah (Gen 6:2): “’God,’ said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel” (Gen 4:25). In the Hebrew, the word is sit where it is translated “appointed” means “be set upon” (ibid). It appears that both Abel and Seth were generated in the same manner as Jesus would be when the LORD GOD came upon Mary in Spirit.

God generated both Abel and Seth in His Image and from the side of Eve just as he had Eve from the side of Adam. That process seems to be how reproduction was meant to be. If man was right, then God would generate, and display His own genetic identity in His sons and daughters.

Cain may have copulated to bear his fruit, and that is why it was so disgusting to God! Worse yet, is if he planted it in the ground without even knowing a woman.

Now back to the process of generation: The “twisting” that God did in the process of time was conversion of darkness to light. He twisted the “light of life” (‘or) from darkness (death; hosek). God twisted mankind from obscurity (‘or) to a “living soul” (Gen 2:7).

Ironically, the generation of mankind comes from the same process as regeneration of mankind: Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, ‘Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’” (Mat 18:3).

Conversion is a process in time, and not instantaneous. Conversion in that passage comes from the Greek word, strepho— “to twist” (ibid). Sinners must be twisted from darkness unto Light. Speaking of Himself, Jesus said, “…the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give Light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:78-79).

Conversion is much like the creation (the “generation”) in that it too is a process of twisting from darkness to Light. In the end of the overall process, Adam was generated along with the world. Likewise, conversion is the long process from the planting of the “seed” in sinners, enduring the world to the end (Mat 10:22), and the “harvest” of living souls at the rapture as Jesus comes to thresh out the fruit from the “good grain” from the “chaff.”

That Matthew 18:3 is so much like Genesis 1:4 is not coincidental! Why would regeneration be any different than generation? Why would “born again (John 3:7) — “engendering from above” (ibid) — be any different that God engendering Adam from above?

With that explained, “born again” is not technically accurate and neither is “saved.” Since the former means engendered from God, and the latter after enduring the world, “conversion” is so much a better a word to initiate the process of becoming a living soul!

Only Calvinists would be “saved” because of the “preservation of the saints” doctrine. Indeed, God does preserve the saints but as any co-packer knows, the seal can be broken easily from the inside if it is preserved without eliminating all the impurities within. As all have sinned, all our preserved with some degree of iniquity, and a life of sin can disturb the seal and abort the spiritual “child.”

When Jesus comes, what is it He does? He gens again by taking the dust from the ground, forming it in His Image, then again breathes life unto that waiting soul, just as in the beginning.

The problem with bad doctrine is that they “recreate” the creation, just as the “Serpent” replicated it in the beginning. Just as Lucifer endowed mankind with new genes, so do Calvinist theologians. We are to let the processes in time endure the time; and there are no shortcuts to salvation for all must endure the world to the end!