Everyone wants to live forever, regardless of what they say. However, the ideal life is without peril, disease, or stress. Hell is eternal but nobofy wants to live for ever under those conditions. So, what will it be like for those of us who are blessed with existence in Paradise in heaven? Let's go back to beginning of time to see what was meant to be:
What theologians call “original sin” is when Adam knowingly disobeyed God, It has been genetic in nature ever since. Adam disobeyed but never abandoned God, and for that reason, Adam was preserved by the Word with a coat of skins, and because of grace so was Eve (Gen 3:21). They received grace rather than damnation because “the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen 3:7).
“Naked” is a play on words; they were physically naked, but they had been exposed to sin and something about their nakedness went from good to evil as the result of the fruit of the tree. Some early writers believed that their flesh before was spiritual and after sin it was carnal, and hence an embarrassment because their sin revealed who they were. That has some merit because before sin the two would be glorious as they had been made in the image of God.
Their flesh had been incorruptible; that is known becasue at regeneration, the resurrection returns its incorruptibility (1 Cor 15:52). The substance of the fleshes of two had changed because Satan had corrupted it. No longer were they Adam’s kind, and hence images of God, but symbiotic — in biology the “interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association” (Oxford University Press 2022).
No longer were Adam and Eve images of God but composites of mankind and Luciferin. Not only did their flesh apparently change visibly but inside as well. Just what was inside that would be markedly different? Their very identities — their God-given DNA had been altered, and as such, they no longer had a divine nature but a sinful nature.
Chromosomes are colorless and biologists stain them, often with the color, purple, to reveal them for observation. Since chromosomes are the vessels that carry DNA, then the very divinity of mankind had changed to natural like the beasts around them.
Adam and Eve looked the same but there were major differences: (1) their flesh began to wither and after 930 years they would essentially wither to death, and (2) the constitution of their flesh went from good to evil; and thereafter, evil they would do like their spiritual “father” the Devil, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do,” (John 8:44), so said Jesus to the Jewish crowd.
When Cain was born, he was more like his father the Devil than Adam (Gen 4:5). Abel was righteous and Cain was selfish. As Jesus had said about the Devil in that same verse, “He was a murderer from the beginning” and so was Cain. Therefore, Cain was like the beasts who would kill each other, and his nature, although like a man and still in the image of God, had the faculties of a raging lion (1 Pet 5:8). Like the lion, Cain would become free range, as his name means “Wanderer.”
Thereafter, “mankind” became a composite of the image of God and the “image” that is called the “Serpent.” However, the Serpent was not the outward image of Lucifer but the inward faculties. Cain looked like Adam since his mother was also an “Adam” but inside Cain was of the Wicked One (1 John 3:12). Since Cain, after the decease of his righteous brother, Abel, “mankind” has been symbiotic — a composite being in the physical image of man but a beast inside. [1]
According to the Genesius Chaldee-Hebrew Lexicon, one of the meanings of the name, Eve, is “Symbiosis;” hence Cain was a symbiotic being — an admixture of two kinds: Adam’s and Lucifer’s, and since he was symbiotic, the two kinds were opposites that were joined together for the good of Lucifer.
The nature of Cain was two-fold: he had the flesh of Adam through his mother and the spirit of Lucifer through his father, the Devil. Mankind’s problem remains that symbiotic nature and add to that is the internal struggle in the germline of two very different beings.
Jesus issued a warning to the apostles, to wit: “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready (or willing), but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38). Therefore, the flesh stands in the way of the readiness of the spirit to obey God to which Paul added, “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3).
If you remember, Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, and therefore, their flesh would be like the flesh of Jesus. The “flesh” of Jesus, before He was born and named “Jesus,” would be some type of flesh that was alien to the world, not that Jesus was an alien, but that He was not of this world, or as Jesus explained it, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world (John 8:23).
Just to explain the pre-incarnate Jesus, consider Kal-El, better known as Superman. On Krypton his flesh was normal to that planet, but on Earth, because it was a weaker environment, Kal-El was a super-person here. He was the same flesh, but the flesh was stronger on Earth. That is not exactly the case for Jesus, but it should be obvious that the creator of the legendary Superman patterned him after Jesus.
Jesus did have form and some type of flesh before he put on flesh like mankind’s… “The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22).
Luke and John the Baptist saw Jesus, as perhaps did many others. They saw Jesus in the flesh of a man, and they saw him in the bodily image of Jesus. Jesus had some type of image that they saw, and it surely was incorruptible flesh, and to be honest, since Jesus was always “Jesus” (John 1), He always had some type of flesh.
Neither could Jesus be contained by the constraints of this world. He walked through the walls of a tomb to reveal it was empty, then soon appeared from “nowhere” into a locked room where eleven apostles saw Him. Jesus still had flesh, but he was “glorified” at his decease (John 7:39).
Jesus was made sin (2 Cor 5:21) for us so that he could experience temptation. That He was made sin, means that Jesus was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Jesus had some form of righteous flesh before he was born of Mary, and being born of a woman, his likeness was like hers. She had been sexually pure, but as scripture says, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Mary was born, not immaculate, but with sinful flesh because she was a sinner as well. Even Mary was not glorious, and her flesh was as tainted as Cain’s, David’s, and even Judas’s.
Glorified flesh is the flesh of pre-incarnate Jesus, and it was not carnal flesh at all. Jesus was the Image of His Father, so He did not come short of the glory of God. His DNA would be from the mitochondrial chromosomes of Mary and the Divine Impulse from God, which I wrote in my earlier book, [2] was pure YY-chromosomes.
Jesus pre-existed in glorious flesh that was without sin, So that He could be tempted, He took on sin in the form of human flesh. His supra-human flesh was impervious to the world, so to die, God put onto Himself corruptible flesh which could sin but would not; could die but would not; and could overcome the world at the instant of death but did not right then!
On the other hand, the flesh of the rest of mankind was weak, thanks to original sin. Sin is inherited and is genetic. It is in our flesh and because of that, all come short of the glorious flesh of the risen Savior!
Jesus did not die. He only shed the temporary corruptible flesh, and before He went to His Father in Heaven, mankind could not touch it because He would soon be in the Presence of Glory. When Jesus arose, it was away from sin into another realm where his flesh would be discarded, and glorified flesh restored to Him.
We are like Jesus when Jesus was here. We were His “Kryptonite” so to speak. His coat of skin was of the same fabric as ours, and so weak that it could never save Jesus from death!
When Jesus said that our flesh was weak, He knew of what He spoke because Satan had tempted Him in much the same manner as he had Adam. Adam failed… Jesus did not! Even with weak flesh, Jesus overcame the world. On the other hand, even with glorious flesh, Satan overcame Adam. It was the stain of sin in the flesh of Adam that made it so weak. Satan imbued some message into the chromosomes of Cain to make Eve’s germline iniquitous (depraved).
Because Cain is of the Wicked One, and because sin is genetic, never forgetting their aprons of fig leaves, it is apparent that the “Serpent” in Lucifer had his way with Eve and imbued her genes with sin. That Eve is the mother of all living, and that Cain has her mitochondrial DNA, and none from Adam, that life is so hard for all “mankind” because it is in the genes!
Why is not sinning so hard? Because everyone is of the Wicked One through Cain. We are the “tares” of the wicked ones of which Jesus spoke. Why is Jesus so graceful, even with Christians continuing in sin? Because He was tempted and His temporary flesh was like our flesh.
What would Satan want from us? To remember sin and its pleasures, just as with Lot’s wife who turned back and looked at the “good times” in sin. Lucifer would want us to believe that we are still sinners, and we are, but we forget that we are sinners saved by grace and not by obedience. If it was not for grace, everyone would be damned because we all deserve death.
I often think, I’m not good enough to go to heaven! That is an accurate perception; none are good enough. To God it is as filthy rags (Isa 64:6). God knows that I am not good enough and I know it! However, Satan wants us to think that salvation is merited because we are good, knowing full-well the hardness of our hearts.
For those who think a Good God would not send us to hell because of the good that we have done, we are in bondage to the thoughts of Satan. He is the archetype of us all, crying out from another realm to do his will, and his will we will do!
That “Serpent” that was in Lucifer; well, he is in all of us as well. How can we even sleep knowing that there is a nature within that is out to get us? It is knowing that Jesus has already defeated the Serpent in our genetic makeup, and He did that when Satan in Judas was hanged from a tree and made impotent. As God told Adam about the Serpent, on his belly he shall go (Gen 3:14), and sure enough, Judas with Satan in him fell from his tree, “Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18). Just as God said in the beginning, on his belly the Serpent would go!
The nature of Satan died on Good Friday. It was “good” because no longer are Christians bound by sin. It is knowing in advance that the beast within is tamed and someday, those in Christ have the seed planted, and their flesh will be glorified as well. Think of Satan as already dead because those in Christ are preserved from him and their evil genes have the stain removed. Jesus removed the “stain” of sin. The chromosomes are transparent because the stain has been removed when the genes of the Serpent were removed from the face of the Earth.
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As a postscript, it would be nice to know the supernature of Adam when he was created glorious in the image of God, and since regeneration is a return to that condition, what the substance of glorified Christians might be.
First off, Adam was made in the image of God, and because Eve was of Adam, she too was the engenderment of God. Those born again are literally engendered from above like Adam and the beginning of that is at conversion— whenever a person is persuaded that Jesus is God in all His substances.
Just what is the substances of God? The Creator Mind, the Flesh Jesus, and the Power of His Spirit. God was never one without the others, except when God died, in that His three substances were put asunder for a short time. The Mind of God forsook Jesus, as did the Holy Ghost, at the crucifixion. But at the Resurrection, all three came together again when He went to His Father and became One with Him again.
Like Jesus, Adam had the same three substances and like Jesus, Satan separated His mind from God, and God removed his Spirit, leaving the flesh of Adam standing there naked, in that respect, as well with bare naked flesh. What God had joined together, Lucifer had put asunder, so the creature Adam had a depraved mind, a corrupted flesh, and an emptied soul imbued by sin as God no longer resided in Him, but by grace on the outside as the “Comforter,” so to speak (with coats of the skins of lambs sacrificed by God on their behalf). The “Adams family” wore death and would never forget that they too would die.
Everybody ever born is like sinful Adam — having a depraved mind, an evil spirit, and pleasure-seeking flesh. Oh, one more thing — flesh that has been corrupted… the number of the Beast is in his identity, called “DNA” in modern times.
In other words, as I sit here and type, my chromosomes identify who I am; my archetype is serpentine, and I am of Lucifer. However, because God is good and His virtue endless, God covered my sin with His “coat of many colors” — the Holy Ghost — just as Jacob made one for Joseph (Gen 37:3). I am not white as a lamb but shall be when glorified, and that will do until then!
I still need to change. The seed has been planted and as the adopted son of God, I have the potential of growing into a glorified person at the end of days.
Paul wrote, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). Christians have the same flesh as before; hence their DNA remains corrupted. They are still beasts, like sheep who follow their master. However, they follow until the slaughter, hence “death is gain,” as Paul revealed. The “sheep” are indeed slaughtered but not for the meat nor even the wool, but to become new creatures… no longer “sheep” but glorious ones like the angels. No longer followers of Jesus by adoption, glorification is full sons of God, and as such glorification is remade in the image of God who we know as Jesus.
Jesus is not a created being. He is God in all His three substances. In the beginning, God walked in the Garden and audibly spoke to Adam and Eve and revealed His plans for them. Adam and Eve saw, heard, and understood Jesus. Because He walked in the Garden, Jesus was a “Creature” of some sort and appeared naturally in the Garden. John the apostle identified Jesus as the Creature who Existed in the Garden from the beginning; the one whose image Adam and Eve were created. Their model was a perfect being without a flaw with a Divine Will, and a Divine Impulse to breath life just as the Holy Spirit did by fire in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 1).
Since God ambulated, he had legs. When the Ten Commandments were written by the “Finger” of God, it was the appendage of Jesus who wrote them. When Moses was forbidden to see the Face of God, the Face of Jesus was concealed until the appropriate time (Moses finally saw the Face of God at the Transfiguration and it was the Face of Jesus!)
Jacob wrestled with the “man” Jesus (Gen 32:24). The man “blessed” Jacob, changed his name to “Israel,” and Jacob identified the man, “I have seen God face to face” (Gen 32:30). Jesus not only walked the Earth all those years, but he wrestled with men, and by grace, let men win just for recognizing the Face of God!
Much later, King Nebuchadnezzar saw his people put three men in fiery furnace, one hotter than Hell, as they say. Looking into the heat, he said, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Dan 3:25). “Like” therein is dema in the Hebrew… “to be like” or to “correspond to” the Son of God (BLB 2021). Jesus was not just a follower of God to be God but that was Jesus, the God, in the fiery furnace doing things His name connotates — “Yahweh saves.” The king saw Jesus as God, saving four of his peculiar creatures. They were the sons of God, as they followed Jesus. My bet is that Jesus was in the fiery furnace, withstanding its flames, before they followed Him in!
The point herein is that pre-incarnate Jesus, Jesus before he put on human flesh, had supernatural flesh that could do all things and overcome the world. He was a Divine Being who had peculiar flesh, and the flesh of Jacob’s line were endowed with the peculiar flesh when Jacob wrestled with God, won, and merited favor, and he was blessed. It should be clear that Jesus is always God in the flesh or in any other form that God wants to be.
On Mount Sinai, Jesus was the Burning
Bush. You should recognize that from Pentecost centuries later:
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:2-4)
Jesus returned as a fire just as He appeared to Moses on the Holy Mountain. And what did He do? He put the Comforter on those who followed Him there. On top of that, he gave them His Mind to understand who He is.
On many occasions, God came as either a fire by night or a cloud by day. Those manifestations were Jesus. The Hebrews who followed Moses perished in the wilderness, but the few who followed the cloud and the fire, followed Jesus and as such were “sons of God”
Sometimes the Jews prayed to their Invisible God. Hence, Jesus could transfigure from one flesh to another. He could not be seen but God remained real. His Flesh for heaven was in bodily form but it was invisible, as related before. He was never constrained by physical things.
Often in scripture, Jesus is called
“The Angel of God.” A great example of that is with Gideon:
20 The Angel of God said unto him, “Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. (Jud 6:20-21)
Therein, Jesus as “The Angel of God” was in bodily form whose hand held a staff and He spoke, as messengers (angels) were wont to do. Then the Angel, Jesus, performed a miracle — He overcame time and immediately consumed flesh and cakes by the Fire of God. His “Message” was fire. He showed them that Jesus could destroy the flesh as well as save it!
Then “The Angel of the Lord” departed out of sight. He was translated from the earthy realm to heaven immediately. Jesus was translated from one world to the next just as He would after the crucifixion. The point herein is that Jesus could and did “overcome the world” just as Jesus said to the disciples, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
The best is to come: Just as Jesus was resurrected at the sound of the trumpet, those in Christ — will follow Him — “the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor 15:52).
With that said, the flesh of Jesus never died. Our flesh died on the Cross because it was our flesh that He put on to overcome our flesh. Jesus always had incorruptible flesh but the coat of many colors that He put on, was our colors, not His. He put on all the flesh of mankind — fleshes of many colors!
After Jesus overcame the world, He gave up corruptible flesh and was resurrected in the glorious flesh that was His own. Those who follow Jesus will be engendered from above at the sound of the trumpet. All those who are sons of God will change from adopted sons to true sons of God, following Him all the Way to Paradise, and overcoming the world as He had before.
When the trump sounds, those in Christ, covered by His Comforter, will be re-genned and made glorious. What will Christians be like? “As the angels of God in heaven” (Mat 22:30). We will be like The Angel of God, Jesus! We will be incorruptible, transfigurable, translatable, and last, but not least, immortal!
(picture credit:Belefnet)
[1] I have given evidence in my books that Cain was of the Wicked One and Eve and Abel of God and Eve. Eve was the mother of all living as scripture says, but for Adam that was not written about him as the father of all living.
[2] On the Origin of Man and the Universe
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