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GOD'S PURPOSE FOR MARRIAGE
Chapter 5
God’s Plan for Man’s Creation
When God saw the debacle caused by Satan’s rebellion, He realized that the angels could not be relied upon to always obey His laws and live according to His way of life under all circumstances. A super being, created by Him, had rebelled against Him, transgressed His laws and sinned, for ‘sin is the transgression of the law’ (I John 3:4.) That left only God the Father Himself, and the Word (who also was God, as a second member of the God family) who would not and cannot sin. Only they could be absolutely relied upon to never sin. So, the only way God could fulfill His purpose for the entire universe was to reproduce Himself. God and the Word had already devised a plan to do exactly that. It’s possible the 24 elders have also reached that stage as they have qualified to wear crowns, but we do not know for sure.
What Satan and the demons demonstrated by their rebellion is that they had not learnt the lesson that only God’s way of LOVE works for the welfare of every creature, and it requires godly character to live that way of LOVE. God and the Word saw that Satan and the demons lacked godly righteous character.
In their next phase of creation, God and the Word’s plan would include the development of godly character like their own in the intelligent creatures they would create. Godly character would ensure that these intelligent creatures would obey Their laws, and live Their way of life of LOVE for God and love and outgoing concern for their fellow intelligent beings, and would never rebel against His rule. Their new creatures needed to learn some vital lessons. They devised a plan to teach them those lessons.
The first lesson God wanted His new creatures to learn was that they would always be totally dependent upon Him. Jesus Christ is the only Being who is self-existent, that is with life-inherent in Himself (John 5:26). And that gift was granted to Him after practically a past eternity of developing total and complete faith and trust in God the Father. The new creatures (or man) needed to learn that God gives them everything that sustains their lives. Lucifer and the angels with him had not learnt that lesson. They did not need any kind of food for their existence. So, they thought they could live independently of God. The way God planned to impart this lesson to humans was to create them as vulnerable physical beings rather than spirit beings. They would be dependent on food, water and air to sustain them. Human beings develop pride in their strength, wisdom, talents and capabilities when they grow up. They can allow vanity to seize them. But they would experience old age, know they will die and then realize how vulnerable and totally dependent they really are on God.
The second lesson God wanted His new creatures to learn was that rebellion against Him would always be futile, and end in utter and total defeat. That lesson will be brought home to man by extinguishing the lives of the rebellious [including Satan and the demons] forever in the lake of fire, if they refuse to repent. That way the living will learn the lesson for eternity that God is Almighty and can always solve the problem of rebellion by extinguishing the lives of the rebellious forever.
Thirdly, God wanted to develop godly, holy and righteous character in man. God saw that all the angels that followed Satan in the rebellion lacked godly character as did Lucifer.
Before Satan’s rebellion, the entire universe was governed according to God’s way of love, cooperation and concern for the welfare of others. In such a perfect environment, there was no opportunity to test the character of the 24 elders or individual angels to resist sin against pressure, threat to life or pain and suffering through torture for an indefinite period of time.
After Satan’s rebellion two-thirds of the angels still serving God in heaven have been tried and tested in a limited way because they have to face Satan’s accusations against them before God as indicated in Revelation 12:7-10, 12. [7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down…12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."]
God’s angels are assigned specific duties on earth, functioning as God’s messengers. In these assignments they often have to battle Satan and his powerful demons, who have been appointed as princes over kingdoms of the earth by Satan as described in Daniel 10:12-13, 20-21. These battles are trials for God’s angels and tests of their character. So, God’s angels are being tested to prove their love and desire for God’s work on the earth, for this is the battleground.
However, to develop godly, holy and righteous character in human beings, God’s plan included leaving Satan and his demons on earth as rulers. God would create man but allow him to be influenced by Satan and his demons. He would also teach them His way. Then human beings could decide for themselves whether they would obey God’s laws and live according to His ways or choose to live in ways of their own devising as influenced by Satan. They would experience the results of Satan’s ways in the first 6,000 years of man’s history, and then experience the fruits of God’s Kingdom in the 1,000 years following. Humanity would then be able to compare and contrast the two ways.
God knew that Satan and his demons will persecute human beings loyal to Him. He also knew that Satan will threaten His people to forsake His ways, and persecute them by inflicting pain and suffering and even painful death. But that would be a supreme test of character for God’s people to determine if they will always remain faithful to His way despite all that Satan and his demons can throw at them. God promises to help His people as He chooses, but they must have faith in Him and rely on Him completely. They would have to be willing to sacrifice their physical lives, if necessary, to never compromise with God’s laws and His ways. Some will violently lose their physical lives, but they will attain immortal life and a glorious eternal future. The tests, trials and persecutions inflicted on them by Satan and his human agents will develop godly, holy and righteous character in His people. God devised this perfect plan to test man like no other intelligent creature God has created has ever been tested to develop His holy, righteous character in him.
After holy and righteous character is developed in humans, God will then give them spirit bodies with power and abilities multiplied billions or trillions of times, making them perfect and incapable of sinning, like Himself and the Word. That is what human beings are called to as stated in Matthew 5:48: “Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Fourth lesson God wants to impart to man is to learn how to love God and each other. Not all angels had been able to learn that vital lesson. We can visualize the feelings of angels for God by imagining the feelings of children. They are born into the world and are totally dependent on their parents in childhood and youth. As they grow up they long to be independent of their parents’ control. They cannot fully realize how deeply their parents love them until they have children of their own. They know how precious their children are to them, and how deeply they love them. Then they realize how much their own parents loved them and did everything that was only in their best interests. In the same way the angels perhaps could not perceive how deeply God the Father and the Word loved them, because they had not experienced similar love for ‘children’ of their own or their own creation.
Humans have been deceived into believing that God hates His creation and is ready to pounce on humans and blot out their existence at the slightest sin. So, far more important than humans learning to love God and fellow man is to learn how deeply God loves them. The best way for them to learn that lesson would be for them to reproduce and experience love for their own offspring. In addition to parent-child relationships, God also planned to create other relationships for experiencing love. He created the marriage relationship for them to experience the love the Word has for them. As a result of family, humans would also experience brother and sister relationships. Thus, God wanted His new creatures to experience love in many possible ways. Their physical bodies would also enable them to experience love in close bonds through loving physical contact. God also planned to create all humanity from one man. From that man He would create the woman. Then through that one man and one woman, all of humanity would spring forth. Hence all of humanity would be related. This way God would knit His entire creation closely together. The angels would also learn by observing and caring for humanity how God the Father and the Word love them.
It is clear from Job 38:7 that the angels had the concept of fathers and sons. They knew that they were sons of God by creation. But the depth of closeness that the father-son bond should have produced in them for God the Father and the Word was not present because they had not experienced the same closeness from the point of view of parents.
Reproduction in the dinosaur world before man’s creation was through laying of eggs and hatching them. But in the mammalian world the method of reproduction was changed to producing young from their own bodies. This develops a closer bond between parent and offspring.
God also wanted man to learn to love all living things. Satan and the demons created the dinosaur world. After their thinking became perverted, they had no love for those creatures, because they thought absolutely nothing of destroying them in their rebellion. To teach man to love all creatures, God created cattle and other animals on which man would be dependent in many ways. He would be dependent on them for food, clothing and to bear his burdens. The animals would represent wealth for him. Even his practice of sustained agriculture would depend on animals [manure] to maintain the fertility of the soil. In short, man’s well-being would depend a great deal on taking care of animals. Indeed, his long-term survival would depend on them. He would have to kill them for food, clothing and other needs, but that does not have to be done with torture, pain and suffering. They could be killed humanely. Man would learn the need to preserve the animals because each plays an important part in the ecological system. This way he would learn to love all of God’s creation.
Fifth, God wanted to demonstrate to His creation how He loves them with the kind of love that surpasses human understanding. At the same time, He wanted to demonstrate to them that He is always just and fair, because Satan and his demons accuse Him of being unfair. God and the Word chose to demonstrate their love by the Word agreeing to empty Himself of all His divinity and power, coming to the earth as a human being, living a sinless life and dying for the sins of humanity. God the Father was also willing to sacrifice His Begotten Son in an excruciatingly painful death. With His sacrifice, the Word would redeem His creation from death, by paying the death penalty on its behalf.
God would also prove His fairness by demonstrating that He and the Word are very strict about their law of love. Unfairness violates that law of love. The penalty for violating that law is death. All human beings have earned the death penalty by sinning. That penalty had to be paid. There was no compromise with that. That is how strict is God about keeping His Law. Jesus Christ paid that death penalty on our behalf. God the Father and Jesus Christ never compromise with their law, and never sin themselves. They are very strict about keeping their law. Therefore, there is no question of their being unfair and unjust.
Sixth, God wanted to demonstrate to His new creatures that He always knows and does what is best for them in the long-run. They must, therefore, learn to trust Him completely. He knows every creature that has ever been created and is intimately familiar with all the details of their life experiences and all their thoughts. He has all the power, and He sees things that the creature itself cannot see or perceive. And He has the benefit of knowing the experiences of all creatures that have ever lived. Therefore, He is in the best position to judge what is in the best interest of every creature, even far more than the creature itself knows. And He has all the power to affect the outcomes of all actions. Therefore, He wanted His new creatures to learn to put their complete faith and trust in Him. The way God would choose to instill that lesson in men would be to require them to praise and worship Him. By praising and worshipping Him, they would never lose sight of His awesome power and greatness, the wonders and miracles He has performed for those who love Him, and always keep in mind how weak and totally dependent they are in comparison.
Seventh, God wanted to drive pride and vanity out of man forever. One way He would drive vanity out of the angels would be to set man in authority over them. That would also be a warning to man for all eternity. If they ever became vain and arrogant against God, He could always create new creatures and set them over man. God never wants pride and vanity to be the cause of rebellion against Him, or of oppression of fellow beings as happened in the case of Satan.
Eighth important lesson God wanted His creation to learn is that it is His prerogative to create a being as He chooses. The angels were created with different looks, talents and rank. Satan may have used these created differences to sow discontent, dissatisfaction, a false sense of discrimination and unfairness, resentment, bitterness and hatred among the angels towards God. God must have thought through all these ideas in the minds of the angels but concluded that there was no alternative to creating variety, and creatures with different talents and abilities for the good of society. God thought through the future of man for eternity ahead and concluded that there was no alternative to creating a hierarchical structure. Possible reason is that billions of beings created equal in rank would lead to anarchy. Therefore, some would have higher authority than others. God created humans with different looks and talents. But He would demonstrate that He is capable of providing for all so that they all can live happy, abundant, productive and joyful lives.
But also remember that human beings will be rewarded according to how they use their talents and abilities as the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 shows. God is always fair.
The ninth vital lesson God wanted man to learn is that violation of His laws, which is sin, always produces pain, suffering and anguish in the long run. He wanted to demonstrate to man that His laws are living laws which always exact a penalty when transgressed. Man would be created as a weak creature. As a result, all would sin and suffer the consequences in pain and suffering. They would therefore, learn to avoid sin as a result of these experiences. When they are resurrected as immortal spirit beings with powers multiplied billions or trillions of times, they will become perfect and incapable of sinning. They will become literal sons of God.
It is very important to understand why Jesus Christ had to die for humanity’s sins, and why God wants humans to ultimately become sinless. Muslims argue that God can simply forgive sins. Therefore, there was no need for Jesus Christ to die. But if God simply forgave every sin, humans will keep sinning. And sin always produces pain and suffering. So, pain and suffering would never cease. God has prophesied the kind of world He will bring about in Revelation 21:3-4, “3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." We will never see that kind of world until humans become immortal and incapable of sinning.
Only prescribing the death penalty for sin and paying it can impress on the minds of all human beings that God will not tolerate an iota of sin, because He wants to eradicate all pain and suffering forever. The only way to indelibly write the Law, the Law itself and the penalty for its violation, on human minds is to let them know that violation of God’s Law will without fail exact the death penalty. Since all have sinned and earned the death penalty, Jesus paid the death penalty on behalf of all of us. But if any one willfully sins again, the death penalty will be applied to that individual, and his or her life extinguished forever. God simply does not want anyone in His kingdom who will continue to be a source of pain and suffering for others and himself.
The tenth consideration for God in creating man was that He did not want them to suffer forever. He planned to give man temporary physical existence. To those that developed holy, righteous character such that God could depend on them to be completely faithful to Him and His way of life forever under all circumstances, He would give eternal life. Those who failed to repent and did not develop godly character would have their lives extinguished forever in a lake of fire. This would forever stop the pain and suffering they were causing themselves and others because of their sins. There is no ever burning hell in which the souls of the sinners are tortured forever by Satan and the demons.
The eleventh element of God’s plan for man would be to give eternal life only to those who really want it. When God opens the understanding of an individual to what He has planned for humanity, the individual may be really excited about his potential and work passionately to learn and live according to God’s laws and way of life. He may diligently apply himself to root sin out of his life, and exercise love towards God and fellow man. Such a person will be granted eternal life as God’s literal son and will rule with Jesus Christ in His kingdom. On the other hand, another individual called into God’s Church may understand the incredible potential God is offering him, but may be lazy, lukewarm and not be passionate about overcoming sin and growing in knowledge and love of God. Such a person, who does not bear sufficient fruit to perfection, will lose his life in the lake of fire. He will have demonstrated in his physical life that he is not really excited and passionate about living for eternity. This is indicated by the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, and the parable of the pounds in Luke 19:12-26.
The twelfth element of God’s plan for creation of man was to make him joint heir of all things with Jesus Christ, if he developed holy and righteous character. According to God’s plan, no intelligent being created by God would be tested quite like man, and the firstfruits among men more so. The firstfruits, those called into God’s Church during the first 6,000 years of man’s history, would be required to be willing to die to keep God’s laws and commandments to prove their total commitment to God’s way of life with Satan and the demons around to influence them and put them through tests and trials. As a reward God planned to make them heirs of all things, as indicated in Hebrews 2:8. “All things” means the entire universe. Romans 8:16-17 declares that we shall be joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.
By analyzing man’s attributes and physical environment, one can understand some of God’s other purposes for creating man the way He has. Herbert W. Armstrong in his book “Mystery of the Ages” describes some of his experiences with demons: “I have had a number of personal experiences with demons through a few demon-possessed people. I have cast out demons through the name of Christ and power of the Holy Spirit. Some demons are silly, like spoiled children. Some are crafty, sharp, shrewd, subtile. Some are belligerent, some are sassy, some are sullen and morose. But all are perverted, warped, twisted” (p. 93).
From Mr. Armstrong’s description, it seems some demons are not as passionate about work. To inculcate the habit of work, and to derive joy and satisfaction from a sense of accomplishment through hard work, God made man dependent on food to sustain his life. To procure food, man must work. This would build the habit of work in man. The angels on the other hand are not dependent on food to live.
Lucifer may have had to contend with this attitude among some of the demons who were merely existing and not working diligently. As a reaction he probably developed the philosophy of ‘success through competition’ rather than through cooperation. He has imparted that same philosophy, attitude and mind-set to humanity, and even the animals.
God also wants man to maintain His creation well, and to finish its beautification. For this purpose, man has to learn to be clean and maintain things in order. Apparently, some of the angels before they rebelled did not have enthusiasm in maintaining the earth in a state of cleanliness, beauty and order. To teach man that lesson, God decided to tie length of man’s life to keeping clean. He created germs that would thrive in unclean environments, and cause disease in humans. If man persisted in keeping his environment dirty, it could literally kill him prematurely with disease.
God also wanted man to learn self-control and temperance. It is one of the fruits of God’s holy spirit (Galatians 5:23). Apparently, some of the angels with Lucifer did not exhibit this character trait. To teach man this lesson, God created human bodies in such a way that if abused through lack of moderation in food and drink, man would get sick. The more he abused his body, the greater pain he would suffer, and the earlier he would die. Man would also develop a higher level of self-control by having to change his eating and drinking habits as he grew older.
Apparently, all angels did not learn to fully cooperate with one another. Man would learn that lesson by being created weak, not possessing all talents and thus never completely self-reliant. Every human depends on services from other human beings for living. He cannot himself produce all he needs. Then in old age he often cannot take care of even his basic needs and needs the services of others. This way man learns the lesson of interdependence, and the need to cooperate with others.
Some of the angels with Lucifer must also have wondered why God created so many hundreds of millions or even billions of them. However, God would create billions of human beings to demonstrate to the angels that numbers are no constraint for Him. He has created many more planets in the universe than there will ever be human beings born. He can always create more. He can provide for all His creation with sustenance and fulfilling work and activities for all eternity.
So, after Satan’s rebellion, God planned out another creation, that of man! And He planned to develop His godly, holy and righteous character in him, found so utterly lacking in Satan and his demons. In effect, God planned to reproduce Himself. Man would learn all these vital lessons so that there would never ever be rebellion against His authority and government. Mankind would learn these crucial lessons through trial and error, sin, and the resulting pain and suffering, and these experiences would be recorded as history to be kept in remembrance for all eternity. God’s Word, the Holy Bible is that history book.
Not only did God plan to reproduce Himself through man, He also planned to restore His government on earth, which was taken away by Satan’s rebellion. Presently, Satan and his demons rule the earth, and that is why we experience so much pain and suffering. Though Satan can do only what God allows, God gives him enough freedom to rule the earth so that it is not the way government would function in God’s kingdom. That kingdom will soon be set up on earth when Jesus Christ returns as King of kings with the immortal saints and deposes Satan and his demons.
After Satan’s rebellion, God and the Word therefore planned to create intelligent creatures in such a way that they would learn what love is, feel it, experience it in many possible ways in multiple relationships and would have a deep desire to live it for eternity. God’s holy and righteous character inculcated in them would ensure that they would not depart from that way of life for eternity. Most important of all, they would learn that God loves them as His own dear children just as they learn to love their own children.
That is the reason why God created mankind the way He did, creating them flesh and blood beings, male and female, subject to death and decay, but with the potential to become immortal beings once they have demonstrated that they have developed God’s holy and righteous character in themselves. The marriage institution was created to be a vital part of character development, and to teach mankind that He loves them with godly love that surpasses human understanding, and wants humans to learn how to love Him and fellow man.
Some Important Lessons from the Angelic Rebellion
Before discussing God’s purpose for human marriage, let’s answer some questions about why God created humans as flesh and blood, male and female beings.
Through the human reproductive process and the institutions of marriage and family, God wanted humans to learn some very important lessons that the rebelling angels demonstrated they had not learnt.
1. God loves us with love that passes human understanding
The most important lesson God wants humans to learn is that He loves us with the depth of love that surpasses human understanding. He wants us to understand that He is our Father and loves us as His own sons and daughters. God chose to teach human beings that important lesson in two important ways.
The first way God chose to teach humans that lesson is through the human reproductive process.
The angels did not comprehend the love of a father for his own children. That is why some rebelled against God. The experience of love for one’s father and mother is enhanced to a much higher degree when an individual experiences love for his or her own children as a father or mother.
The angels were not designed to reproduce. If they could reproduce, the drawback would have been that the angelic offspring had the potential of becoming evil like their own parents, thus capable of much greater harm around the universe like that caused by Satan and the demons. On the other hand, if human children become evil like their parents, their evil would be limited to the earth only, and their lives could be easily snuffed out.
This does not mean that in eternity into the future angels will not at some stage be able to create spirit beings, or even intelligent flesh and blood beings like humans. We just don’t know what God’s plan is for them. Certainly, we can expect that the future will not be any less exciting for loyal angels than it would be for man. The angelic rebellion had merely temporarily halted that future planned for the angels.
The human reproductive process has been designed to deepen the love of a parent for a child. The human baby forms in the body over a 9-month gestation period and then separates as a new human being. This experience creates a much deeper bond than that created by animals and birds that reproduce their offspring by laying eggs and hatching them.
The second way God chose to teach human beings the lesson that He loves them with depth of love that surpasses human understanding is to pay the death penalty on their behalf which each of us has incurred by sinning.
With the world we see around us, and the pain and suffering we all experience without exception, we are led to believe that God hates humanity. We are led to believe that He is a monster, ready to pounce on human beings at the slightest infraction of His laws. That is so far from the truth.
God has a plan to solve every human problem. The problems we experience are not caused by God but by Satan and the demons, and ourselves. When Adam and Eve were given the choice to choose between listening only to God or living their own way of life, they chose to reject receiving knowledge from God only. By choosing to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they rejected revelation of knowledge from God and chose instead to produce their own knowledge. But since Satan and the demons were around before them, and the earth was their domain, Adam and Eve subjected themselves to be influenced by them. The world we see today with its pain and suffering has resulted from choosing our own ways as influenced by Satan.
God has allotted 6000 years for us to govern ourselves in our own ways and learn that it will result only in pain, suffering and ultimately death. We are suffering pain and anguish in the world because we have chosen to govern ourselves rather than be governed by God as our loving Father. But God will solve this problem of pain and suffering for humanity when He ushers in His kingdom for 1,000 years. Then we will see the happiness and joy being governed by God produces, and realize how deeply God the Father and Jesus Christ really love their creation.
Humans experience war mainly because of seeming scarcity of land and resources. But, history of mankind shows that even when the world’s population was less than 500 people, Cain, the first child ever born made a living by robbery and plunder. In reality there has never been scarcity of land and resources in mankind’s history. We have brought a curse on the land because of the way we use it without full knowledge because we have chosen to do things our own way rather than learn from God. With our agricultural practices we have turned fertile lands into deserts. Even then the earth is still capable of supporting well more than ten billion human beings.
However, God will solve the ‘scarcity’ problem for humanity in His Kingdom. In the catastrophes in the form of the third world war and equally devastating wars soon after that which we are going to inflict on ourselves under Satan’s influence, the surface of the earth will be transformed, making more than 20 times the current cultivatable land available. The greatest earthquake in the history of mankind prophesied in Revelation 16:18-20 will flatten all mountains, turn the desert lands upside down, raise ocean floors to make more land available. The earth will then be able to support a world population of 100 billion people or more. God will demonstrate to humanity that there never was a scarcity of resources. But without revealed knowledge from Him we just did not know how to make the best use of our resources.
Man’s ultimate destiny is to rule the universe. In fact God has divided the universe among the nations already as revealed to Moses in Deuteronomy 4:19 [“19 And lest you lift up your eyes unto heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”] God can and will provide us abundance of everything, and scarcity will never ever be an issue.
We also think that God is a trigger-happy monster, ready to blot out human beings at the slightest infraction of His laws. But search the scriptures diligently and you will find that God acts mainly against those who violate His laws that protect the rights and welfare of others. When we violate God’s laws, we cause pain and suffering to others. God loves all human beings, including the victims of violation of His laws. He wants to free humans from suffering. That is why He sometimes acts harshly against transgressors of His laws who cause pain and suffering to others.
However, God does not act against every infraction of His laws. He allows injustice in a world governed by us as influenced by Satan and the demons. As an automatic penalty we experience pain and suffering. That is how we learn the vital lesson that our own ways only produce pain and suffering. But all this will change in 1000 years of God’s rule in His kingdom. Then we will see perfect justice being administered with mercy. Later God will resurrect (yes, only God can kill and then make alive) all those who have died and will give them an opportunity to experience His full justice and love in His kingdom which will produce abundance, happiness and joy because His way of life will be taught and lived by all. By contrasting justice in God’s kingdom with justice under its own rule, humanity will learn how God deeply loves His creation. Then when we receive a spirit body and live forever, we will be able to appreciate life much better as compared to our physical state at present. It will produce contentment.
It is extremely important for us to have instilled in our minds that God loves us because that is the only way we can develop complete trust and faith in Him. Satan and the demons had not developed that trust in God. Without complete trust in the authority above us, it is impossible to have peace of mind. Without peace of mind we simply will not be happy.
Impossible to believe
Another related issue is the difficulty we have in believing that we will become literal immortal children of God. Jesus Christ is God’s literal begotten Son. He was begotten as a human being first. But then at His resurrection He became a literal spirit born Son, a God Being like God the Father.
This was made absolutely clear by John in 1 John 3:1-2, “1 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore, the world knows us not, because it knew him not. 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
John leaves no doubt that we shall have a spirit body like Jesus Christ. Just as He is a literal spirit born Son of God, we too shall be literal spirit born sons of God the Father.
Despite such scriptures reassuring us, we still cannot comprehend that we shall become gods like Jesus Christ, literal immortal children of God the Father. Our argument against this belief is that Jesus Christ was a God Being, but we were created mere flesh and blood. If God wanted to create us as His literal sons and daughters, He could have simply created us like Jesus Christ. Because we are created as flesh and blood beings like animals, we cannot therefore ever become equal to Jesus Christ as God’s literal sons and daughters.
But we forget that God did in fact create sons composed of spirit before humanity was created. Those spirit beings are the 24 elders and the angelic world. A part of those sons created with spirit bodies rebelled against God. God could not create His holy righteous character in them by fiat because they were created with free will and it requires their exercise of that free will in acquiescing to allow God to create His holy righteous character in them. God has created humans so that they can first allow Him to develop His holy righteous character in them before He will give them eternal life.
To prove to humans that He will convert them to spirit beings God the Father resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. He will resurrect us in exactly the same way as spirit beings, to become His immortal sons and daughters.
The reality of the resurrection energized Jesus’ disciples so much that they were willing to die for their belief. They knew that their potential was to become God’s literal sons and daughters like Jesus Christ. That’s why John the apostle wrote about it.
We may still think that we cannot be equal to God because God had no direct hand in creating us. We were born as a result of our parents’ actions, and not directly created like Jesus Christ was created by God the Father. So, we think we cannot be equal with Jesus Christ. But we are forgetting that we would not have fully experienced the love of a parent for a child if God had a direct hand in our being born. We also do not realize that the chance of a human sperm fertilizing a human egg by mere chance is almost negligible. This means that God has a direct hand in the conception of a human being, making the near impossible possible. But when a human child is born, its parents know that the child has come entirely from their own bodies. So, they deeply love that child. If God had a direct hand in creating flesh and blood human children without human reproduction, we would not have experienced the same level of love for our children. God has allowed us to reproduce without His seeming direct hand in it so that we can feel and experience love for our own children and thus learn how deeply God loves us. There was no better way to create humans to teach them the eternal lessons God wants them to learn.
2. God Never Wants Rebellion against His Rule
Another reason why God created humans as flesh and blood beings is that He never wants His intelligent creatures to ever rebel against His rule. One rebellion against His rule is enough. That rebellion is being used to teach the lesson to all His intelligent creatures that rebellion against Him will always be futile and will without fail end in utter defeat.
That lesson will be brought home to humans in two ways.
First, humans will learn how vulnerable and totally dependent they are upon God and will be so even when they are spirit born sons of God. The way God planned to impart this lesson to humans was to create them as vulnerable physical beings rather than spirit beings. They would be dependent on food, water and air to sustain them. Human beings develop pride in their strength, wisdom, talents and capabilities when they grow up. They can allow vanity to seize them. But they would experience old age, know they will die and then realize how vulnerable and totally dependent they really are on God.
Since only Jesus Christ is the self-existent created Being, even humans changed as immortal sons of God will not be self-existent. They will still be dependent entirely on God for their lives. So, God could still extinguish their lives if they rebelled against Him.
The second way God will teach humanity the lesson that rebellion against Him will always be futile will be by extinguishing the lives of the rebellious forever in the lake of fire, if they refuse to repent. That way the living will learn the lesson for eternity that God is Almighty and can always solve the problem of rebellion by extinguishing the lives of the rebellious forever.
3) God Wants Humans to Develop an Eternal Perspective
Virtually every human being on earth has contemplated eternity. We have all imagined “What it would be like if we could live forever?” Solomon knew this that this is a thought God has put in the heart of man for he says in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “11 He [God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…”
But what many may not have given deep thought to is what they would like to do for eternity by asking the question, “How would I enjoy eternity.” God is willing to provide eternal life to each and every human being, but not if they do not enjoy life, or if they will be a cause of pain and suffering for others.
God created angels capable of living for eternity. But Satan’s rebellion has showed that if humans with the mindset of Satan and the demons who live according to Satan’s way of life of getting and self-gratification are given eternal life, it will be an eternity of misery for everyone. The only way that can produce happiness and joy for everyone is living God’s way of LOVE, which is defined as outgoing concern for the welfare of others. It can also be called the way of “giving” instead of “getting.”
Here are the areas in which we need to have an eternal perspective:
a) Get out of Living Cain’s way of Life
God created humans as flesh and blood beings with their lives dependent on food, which they have to work to produce or gather. This necessity would inculcate the habit of working in them.
Adam and Eve started off living by working to provide for themselves after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. But under Satan’s influence, humanity began to develop another way of life that the Bible calls “Cain’s Way.” He led Cain to develop a way of living that involved robbery and plunder.
Cain, murdered his own righteous brother Abel. As a result, God banished him from contact with Adam’s other descendants to develop his own society. Humanity had been instructed to keep animals in addition to growing grain crops as animals would help maintain the fertility of the soil, thus producing excellent crops indefinitely. But after Cain’s offering of the fruits of the ground was not acceptable to God, as the correct offering to God was animal sacrifice, Cain began hating God’s way of life. He refused to keep animals. The result was that Cain’s agricultural practices came to nothing because the fertility of the soil was not maintained with manure. As a result, Cain had to keep moving to new soil and became a vagabond. After 150 years of wandering the earth, he moved next to the other descendants of Adam and Eve and began making a living by robbery and plunder. Then from merely stealing from others, he ‘progressed’ to forcing others on pain of violence and death to pay him tribute. From that Cain progressed to ruling over others by force and extracting more from them. That is what is called ‘Cain’s Way’ in the Bible. It means making a living by robbery and plunder or ruling over others by force rather than through one’s own labor; living by the old adage “might is right”, or “keeping up with the Joneses” or getting ahead of others “any which way you can.” Much of humanity has been following Cain’s way ever since.
A person cannot be happy for eternity if he has not learnt to produce something and experience the joy in accomplishment and then enjoy the fruit of his labors or enjoy ruling over what he has built?
Now just imagine if human beings are made into powerful immortal spirit beings, all schooled in Cain’s way and then nations are given stars and planets to rule and create in as prophesied in Deuteronomy 4:19. The result is not hard to imagine because Hollywood has already given us a glimpse of what could happen in Star Wars movies, Start Trek and other shows. Some will certainly see the creation of others better than their own and may simply decide to take over that creation and subjugate its creators. Star Wars would be a reality. But God will not allow that to ever take place.
Creating humans as flesh and blood beings is designed to create the habit of work by necessity to sustain themselves. They would experience Cain’s way as well and learn that that way of life can only produce pain and suffering. Those who do not learn the lesson and get out of Cain’s way of living will not qualify to receive eternal life. Their lives will be permanently extinguished in the Lake of Fire.
It's possible, that a long time after the rebelling angels had bought into Satan’s philosophy of ‘getting’ instead of ‘giving,’ they may have become dissatisfied with their life of creating their dinosaur world. Some may have thought “Is this all there is to life?” Just keep creating more dumb creatures forever and ever!
But God has been showing them what else lies ahead. He has been showing to all angels that He can reproduce Himself through mankind. Angels perhaps were to progress to that capability. But they would have an eternity to reach that level of creative ability. We today reproduce by sexual reproduction; a capability God has put within us. But we would have an eternity to learn how to create creatures that could reproduce themselves like animals do, eventually progressing to creating intelligent creatures that would reproduce themselves like God is reproducing Himself through humanity.
Will we get bored like apparently some of the demons did and give up well before we can reach that stage? In God’s Kingdom no robbing and plundering will be allowed. If we live the way of Cain and have not learnt to work with our hands and minds, then it’s a guarantee that we will just sit idle, get bored and not enjoy living for eternity. They will simply meddle in the affairs of others making them miserable; or simply spreading their misery and gloominess to others. It should be easy to see why God will not grant eternal life to those who live Cain’s way.
God wants humans to demonstrate to Him that each of us wants to live for eternity. This is a message for all who live for generations on welfare or who depend on the generosity of others because they are too lazy and or unwilling to work with their own hands, or they can inveigle others to part with their money and give it to them in charity. Unless they repent and demonstrate that they are willing to work and assume responsibility for their families, God will not grant them eternal life. The earth and later the universe will not have peace until the world is rid of such people.
That is why those who do not repent of living Cain’s way of life are defeating God’s purpose for creating man and will not be granted eternal life. In God’s kingdom, that way of life will not be tolerated. Paul the apostle stated the principle clearly in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “if any would not work, neither should he eat.” Either mankind does things God’s way of its own freewill or God will simply permanently extinguish the lives of those who still want to continue practicing Cain’s way.
b) Learn to Enjoy Life so that You Want to Live for Eternity
In addition to demonstrating a zest for life through accomplishment, humans also need to learn to be happy and content. This means learning to enjoy finer things in life such as the arts, fine music, drama and other forms of entertainment. Some should enjoy life by providing such entertainment and pleasure to others through their creativity whereas others should learn to enjoy these things. That is part of enjoying life for eternity. We have to learn to simply enjoy life and develop a lifestyle that we would love to live forever.
c) Learn to Love and Build Relationships
Humans also need to ponder how they want to live for eternity. Do we want to live loving each other or do we want to live alone doing our own thing? Developing relationships for each of us is absolutely essential. We first need to be able to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength. God wants us to develop a relationship with Him. For the person who is not willing to develop a relationship with Him, what is the point in living for eternity? Such a person will only be miserable for eternity. God will not grant such a person eternal life.
God also wants us to develop relationships with other human beings and learn to love each and every other human being as ourselves. If we have not learnt to love our fellow human beings what is the point in living for eternity? A lonely person will be miserable for eternity. God simply will not grant such a person eternal life.
God the Father has lived for past eternity. Then He lived with the Word for practically the past eternity. But they did not want to be alone. That’s why they set the next phase of their creation project, the angelic world, in motion. We too should be able to enjoy the same process. And that process is the very first great purpose for marriage mentioned in the Bible. That is stated in Genesis 1:27-28, “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, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
The very first great purpose for marriage mentioned in the Bible is to have children. We are to grow as a family. That is part of the process of learning to enjoy life for eternity. We enjoy life with others, not by living alone. Imagine being marooned in an island to the end of your life with nothing to do. You simply cannot enjoy life that way. Enjoying life means enjoying it with others. That’s why God wants humans to marry and have children. That’s why religions that teach celibacy as a higher form of living are dead wrong. By remaining celibate, or alone, one simply cannot enjoy life forever. Enjoying life means living it together with others. Being recognized and appreciated by others for one’s accomplishments is part of enjoying life for eternity.
God will make it easy for us to develop relationships. When all are made alive, we will be able to connect with our ancestors going back a hundred generations, or our descendants going forward a hundred generations and with extended families in all generations. If somebody is perpetually bored, sullen and morose and has no joy in living, then perhaps a chat session with a great great great great grand father or mother could perk up that individual and give him a reason to live and learn to enjoy life. Perhaps learning about the tremendous accomplishments of an ancestor may finally excite such an individual and motivate him or her to cooperate with others to jointly accomplish something in life. Remember God will heal all physical or mental disabilities when humans are resurrected back to physical life, and later become immortal beings composed of spirit. So, all humans will be able to find someone to get along with and start building relationships.
d) Learn to live under authority
How does each of us convince God that we will never rebel against Him if He grants us eternal life? The only way to do that is to demonstrate to God that we are willing to live under authority now and treat authority with respect and honor.
If in any part of our life we demonstrate to God that we cannot live and function harmoniously and productively under authority, then we are demonstrating to Him that we might possibly rebel against Him or against those He has put in positions of authority. He will not grant such a person eternal life.
e) What if your Life Has been Less than Perfect
Another issue is, what kind of an eternal perspective must you hold if your human life has been less than perfect. For example, if you have never married and have never experienced family life with kids. God clearly says in the long run it does not matter. Even though you have not married and had children, you have imagined what life would be like in a married state. Jesus said in Matthew 22:30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.”
So, mankind’s future as a spirit being does not include marriage and physical children. But human physical life has taught us how to care for children and how to have close relationships with other human beings such as wives and husbands. The Church’s marriage to Jesus Christ will be responsible for bringing tens of billions of sons to glory. As God’s literal sons we will look after human beings in the millennium as literal sons and daughters coming out of the marriage between Jesus Christ and the Church. Having experienced love for our physical children, we will know how to enable the tens of billions in God’s Kingdom to gain eternal life as sons with motherly love and care. So, if you have never married in this life, ‘no big deal.’ Marriage is a state only for physical human beings and not a state for eternal sons of God. As an immortal being, you will not have missed too much if you have never been married. Your life as a human being could have been easier and pleasanter, but it will not affect your life as an eternal son or daughter of God.
Now what if you have all the disadvantages in your physical life in terms of looks or you have been diseased, and your body is much less than perfect? The eternal perspective is that as an immortal son of God, your body will be totally different as spirit, without the fleshly limitations.
The only human being resurrected so far has been Jesus Christ. The Bible gives 3 examples when people did not recognize Jesus Christ after He was resurrected. In John 20:14-16, Mary Magdalene did not recognize the resurrected Jesus Christ, except when He called her by name and she recognized the same way He used to call her as a physical human being.
In John 21:6-7 the seven disciples did not recognize the resurrected Jesus Christ, but they did so from a past event when He had asked them in Luke 5:4-8 to cast their net on the right side of the boat and they caught so many fish that the net was breaking.
In Luke 24:30-31 the disciples again did not recognize the resurrected Jesus Christ until He took the position of the head of the family and broke bread, which He had done many times in His physical life with them.
So as resurrected immortal beings, all the defects of our physical bodies will be gone. Do you think we will be resurrected as mere bags of bones and skin which many of us become in our old age? No. All such defects will be removed when we are resurrected as God’s immortal sons.
Human Life is the Testing Ground
God wants each and every human being to receive eternal life. He has put eternity in the hearts of each and every one of us. God reveals in the Bible that this is not a mere fantasy. It has always been His plan from the very beginning to give eternal life to man. But man must first demonstrate that he really wants to live forever and will enjoy life for eternity.
God has given humans physical life as a testing and proving ground to prepare us to live for eternity and to provide a means for God to determine who qualifies and who does not qualify to receive eternal life. Those who are willing to demonstrate:
a) That they trust God completely that He loves them with depth of love that surpasses understanding,
b) That they will never rebel against Him,
c) And human family with ancestors and descendants to hundreds of generations has been designed to give us an eternal perspective on life which is demonstrated by:
1) Learning to work with our own hands to support oneself and one’s family, and enjoy life through accomplishment for eternity.
2) Learn to live life so that one can enjoy living that way for eternity.
3) Learn to build relationships with all human beings based on love because one cannot enjoy life alone.
4) Learning to live under authority because everyone will be subject to authority. Even God the Father does not rule arbitrarily. He rules the universe according to His law of LOVE.
Those are the goals God has in mind in creating human beings flesh and blood, male and female, with the marriage and family institutions. Each of us must evaluate every aspect of our lives to see if we are meeting God’s expectations in demonstrating to Him that we have learnt to love Him and our fellow man, learnt to live under authority so that we will never rebel against Him and that we will enjoy living for eternity by working and having loving relationships with one another. Those who achieve these goals will be granted eternal life. Others will not be.
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