In theory, the most intelligent should believe in God the most. However, that is often not the case. Rather than knowledge revealing the truth; knowledge creates a “scotoma” wherein truth is still there, but the even most intelligent are blind to it. Scripture addresses that issue:
KEY VERSE: Ezekiel the prophet wrote about Christ hundreds of years before Jesus came onto the scene, “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house” (Ezek 12:2)
The “son of man” in that case was
not Jesus, the “Son of Man” (Mat 8:20), but Ezekiel himself as the gens (ben)
of Adam. Ezekiel had the genetics of the first male man, “Adam”
and as such, Ezekiel apparently had senses beyond the ordinary.
What could Adam do that few could do? Before sin, Adam had extrasensory perception:
Upon sinning and being cast out of the Garden Paradise onto the Earth Adam and Eve found that they were lesser beings than in the Garden, “And because at that time they were filled with the grace of a bright nature. and they had not hearts turned towards earthly things” (1 A & E II:4).
There were no objective things (the Serpent
was Lucifer, an elohim) in the Garden that would obscure their view of both
God and the spiritual realm; hence, the things of the Earth are scotomas
to truth. Things within the visible world which get into our way and block our
view of the other realm.
Adam and his mate, before sin,
had nothing to interfere with their numerous senses. They could see and hear
beyond the capacity of even the most sensory animals. They had dominion over
the other creatures (Gen 1:26) because they were a fragment of God, as the Hebrew
word rada implies. Their capabilities before sin were supranatural.
Because of their sin, the sensory perceptions of Adam and Eve were limited, as God said:
Of your own free will have you transgressed through your desire for divinity, greatness, and an exalted state, such as I have; so that I deprived you of the bright nature in which you then were, and I made you come out of the garden to this land, rough and full of trouble. (1 A & E VI:5)
The Earth, according to the supposed
sacred Word of God dulled the senses of mankind. The Earth was their huge
spherical scotoma between themselves and the realm of heaven.
The characteristic of scotomas is that they avert the attention from real things that exist; they remain there, but the viewers are blind to reality because something distracts their attentions.
On a personal note, I witnessed an auto accident while in the prime of my life when my senses should have been optimum. I saw the car that was wrecked but there was another car between me and the wreck. I saw the action around the wreck but missed the object that should have been foremost in my sight. I had a “scatoma” — the dynamics of the wreck made me blind to the huge car that was nearest me. It had become invisible because I was distracted by other activity.
My point is that the things of
the Earth are a distraction, so that people do not see other real things beyond
Earth.
In the beginning, both the male and female of Adam’s kind were extraordinary… glorious if you prefer; they could sense things while in the Garden that they would not be capable of on the Earth, to wit:
And the eyes of them both (the man and the woman) were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the Voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the Garden. (Gen 3:7-8)
After sin, although they remained
in the Garden, their senses were dulled. They saw the nakedness of each other,
and that blocked their view of God. Before, they had been naked and not ashamed
(Gen 2:25). “Ashamed” is only one translation; they were not yet “confounded”
(confused)
God was still there it is known for
before that time they could see Him, although the Image of God was a phantom
Image (selem).
After sin, they were confounded and confused. Their own pudenda got in the Way of seeing God and to correct that poor vision, they covered their scotomas with the leaves from a fig tree. They thought that by covering their distractions that they could see God again, but rather, they could only detect God by His movement revealed by things in the Garden. They could hear God in the sense of motion (walking) but they were dull to the Image of God that they could see before!
Then Adam wept and said, "O God, when we dwelt in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we do not see as we were used to do; nay, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us." (1 A & E VIII:1)
The two could even see the angels (elohim), so they could see God (Elohim). God had been with them in full view (as Immanuel, called “Jesus”). They could see Jesus before their bright natures were lost. Yes, Jesus existed from the beginning as the Word or Voice (John 1). Before, they could see the Holy Ghost of Jesus, and now they could not. They knew that He was there by His actions (Virtue — Dynamos in the Greek), but they could no longer see the Image of Him even with their eyes wide open!
Then God the Lord said unto Adam, "When thou wast under subjection to Me, thou hadst a bright nature within thee, and for that reason couldst thou see things afar off. But after thy transgression thy bright nature was withdrawn from thee; and it was not left to thee to see things afar off, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish." (1 A & E VIII:2)
No longer could they see God, not because they were blind, but because they were distracted by the things of the visible world. The gens of mankind were changed; no longer were their natures bright but they became distracted. However, they still knew it was God that moved the grass and pounded the Earth, so they were worth saving. Although they could no longer see God; they understood He was there by His Dynamic, just as we should know that God is real because of His creative Dynamic:
For the invisible things of Him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal Power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Rom 1:20)
Adam and Eve, even after sin
while in the Garden, in a sense, saw God by His Dynamics. They could no
longer see His Spiritual Being, but they could detect God by His actions. So,
it is today — we know that God is real because of the motions of the world (the
planets, suns, and such in the cosmos)
Now back to the key verse: God called
Ezekiel, “son of man.” God had changed the nature of Ezekiel who thereafter
could see God. Ezekiel saw God as Jesus and his words were written to reveal
Jesus to the Jews who were blind to Jesus being God.
That Ezekiel was of the gens of
Adam meant that he had the bright nature and bright eyes of the first man while
they were in a glorious condition!
Ezekiel was given the eyes of glorious Adam so that he too could see God. The world was no longer a scatoma to Ezekiel for he was not distracted by the things of the world. With the world removed from his mind, Ezekiel saw God as the “Son of Man” so subsequently, because Ezekiel had the bright nature of Adam, he could see the “last Adam” — Jesus.
So it is written, “The
first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit.” (1 Cor 15:45)
Yes, Adam even with his deficient
nature, still knew that it was Jesus to whom he spoke (The Voice) by the
movement of His Spirit.
Then the walking Spirit that the
two Adams detected, put flesh upon their naked bodies, “Unto Adam also and to
his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21).
Adam and his wife had not been
naked in the sense that their fleshes were showing, but that God could see the
corrupted and confused nature of them. God had grace upon them, so He put human
fleshes much like the beasts wore to make them safe in a cruel world.
Noah wore his own “coat of skin” because he was unusual even in the womb, sort of like Adam was when he was naked, to wit:
The Book of Enoch provides a more elaborate description of
Noah's birth, suggesting he was a unique individual even from the moment of his
arrival.
It describes Noah's
body as "white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose" and his
hair as "white as wool."
The text also says that
when he opened his eyes, he illuminated the entire house like the sun, and that
he spoke to the Lord of Righteousness shortly after birth.
Lamech, Noah's father, was initially afraid and confused by Noah's appearance and abilities, believing he might be a child of the angels of heaven rather than a human. (AI Overview)
Noah was born with both a bright
nature and bright eyes. He had the gens of Adam in the same
manner as Ezekiel. Because of his unusual appearance, Noah found grace (Gen
6:8); that grace was a bright nature from the womb, so apparently to make him seem
“normal” like other men, God put onto him the Garment of Adam.
Noah was born like the angels (elohim)
and in the very Image of God. He was the second Adam, not the quickening Spirit
of God, but the superhuman man that God used to do His work. In other words,
Noah was glorified, and he too was the “son of man” long before Ezekiel and
Christ.
Neither Noah nor Ezekiel were messiahs,
but they were subsequent “Adams” born in the Image of God but not God.
Remember the key verse saying, “which
have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not.” Ezekiel
had not rebelled… he was of the genetics of the sinless Adam. Unlike the
normative, Ezekiel could see and hear things that rebellious mankind could not
see. He could see the Messiah in the quickening Spirit of the Invisible God by
the things that He does. Ezekiel never let the world cloud his view of God and
he understood that the Invisible God was the Dynamic (Word or Voice) of the
soon to come Immanuel, God with us. The world was not scotopic to him because
he saw through the cloud and saw Jesus.
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