God 's plan for humans
The purpose of creating humans has been the most complicated issue of the world history. According to the Bible, God created humans in his own image (Genesis l: 26). He created humans for his own fellowship, so He would be their God and they would be His people (Exodus 6:7, Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 7:23, 31:33, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Revelation 21:3).
God created humans in His Own image; therefore all humans have the power and right to choose. The Lord has presented his laws through His Word for humans ' well being and guidance. These laws or the Word of God is the cause of blessing in life and guidance for a successful life here and for eternity. When the Lord created Adam and Eve, He declared His law about not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). But unfortunately they went their own way instead of God 's way and ate from the fruit of that tree. It was in this way that God 's law was broken and sin was committed. It is crucial to mention that sin is nothing but braking God 's law, and sin does not only include murder or adultery, but when we go our own way instead of obeying God 's way, we sin. In some parts of the Bible, it has been clearly stated that sin is nothing but braking God 's laws (1 John 4:3, Genesis 3:6). Because God is Holy, therefore with Adam and Eve 's sin, spiritual death, which is separation from God, came to Adam and Eve and their descendent, humans race. It is necessary to explain two important attributes of God, Holiness and Love. God is Holy and there is no sin in Him. God 's holiness has been mentioned repeatedly in the Bible (Exodus 15:11, Deuteronomy 32:15, Isaiah 6:3, James l:17, Revelation 4:8). The other attribute of God is Love wh...
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...d, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace".
In the book of Zachariah, the Lord says: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son". (Zechariah 12:10)". In this verse we clearly see that the Lord has predicted his own death on the cross and getting strike by a spear, which happened to Jesus Christ (John 19:34-37). In the New Covenant we see so many verses that talks about Jesus being God. In John we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being ... And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Although I read the Genesis2:4b-4:26 and Genesis 1:1-2:4a stories to try to understand why God create us, I still do not understand why, why god create us? Is it because he feel lonely? Or because he wants to have fun? Or “According to the Atrahasis story, the gods created human beings to do the work that the gods themselves refused to do (p.4)”. Why god use so much energy to create us and still need we to believe in him/her and give us pain and suffer, then he comes to save us or redemption? And also, how the Jahwist/Yahwist and the Priestly source knew what God said, and did they see God, like people saw Jesus? The story is God told them or they made it up to make people believe. “These two specific texts are mythic or symbolic narratives, not scientific theories (p.5)”. Krieg is right, not everything can use scientific to determine right and wrong or reason, especially the religion. But I do not think that is good answer for t...
xvi) On the same exact page Hill states, “Christian ethics does not involve either or analysis as if we could choose between holiness, justice and love, but rather a synthesis in which all three conditions must be met before an action can be considered moral.” The Bible recognizes this concept by saying, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.” (Hebrews
a law made by God, called the Law of Reason. This law gives humankind liberty,
In placing humankind within this world, it is the intent of God that humans enjoy this world and flourish in it through a continuing relationship with Him. And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, by our likeness, to hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and the cattle and the wild beasts and all the crawling things that crawl upon the earth” (Genesis 158-159). Therefore, He creates a human in His image, the image of God. God did not want man to be alone and decides to fashion a companion from the rib of man. “And the Lord God cast a deep slumber on the human, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed over the flesh where it had been, and the Lord God built the rib He had taken from the human into a woman” (Genesis 160). Upon learning of this the human said, “This one at last, bone of my bones / and flesh of my flesh, / This one shall be called Woman, / for from man was this one taken” (Genesis 160). Human beings occupy center stage in this account of the world’s origin, but are held in low regard in Mesopotamian and Greek creation stories. In Enuma Elish, Marduk spoke to Ea of his idea for the creation of humankind, but Ea was the actual creator who devised how it should come about. In the Sixth Tablet, Marduk says, “My blood will I take and bone will I fashion / I will make man, that man may… / I will create man who shall
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
Humans can think, feel, and reason which differentiate them from the rest of God’s creation. The ability to reason enables human beings to think and reflect on their own nature and the nature of God. The bible teaches us that God created man in his image and likeness. In the beginning of creation human nature was perfect because we were created by God. Genesis 1:31 describes Human beings were created very good by a loving God”. God created humans to operate their lives according to wisdom under God’s kingly reign (Diffey, 2014). God’s purpose in creating mankind was to work and serve (Genesis 2:15), and have dominion over earth (Genesis 1:26-28) The fall of Adam and Eve separated humanity from God and wisdom. This act plunged all of humanity into a history characterized by idolatry (Diffey, 2014), and is the root cause of all human
Christians, unlike Muslims and Jews, accept and submit to Jesus as God who came down to earth to save mankind from their sin and eternal consequences. One of the main goals or themes of the book of John is to prove or recounts Jesus’ claim that He is God. The book of John is full of many examples where Jesus following his miracles wishes to make people understand that He is God. He wasn’t just a prophet as many Muslims believe, or some speaker, or radical Galliealiean as many Jews thought. He was God! In (John 10:30), Jesus stated, “I am and the Father are one.” This short verse mentions two members of the trinity, and does not separate them as different entities. Jesus is saying I am a form of who God is, or the Father. We are one! “Whoever has seen the son has seen the father.” For this reason, the Jews almost stoned him on that occasion. Their hardened hearts had chosen not to believe, and so they were insulted that a man standing right in front of them had proclaimed himself to be God. Another time Jesus proclaimed his divine existence comes from (John 8;58). “Before Abraham was born, I am.” Again the religious Jews almost killed Him for daring to state that. This man had the nerve to call himself and identify himself as what God had identified himself to their beloved and sacred leader, “I Am.” Not only that, but he stated that before Moses and Abraham existed, He already existed. Yet scripture always backs itself up, and had (John 8:58)
In the first chapter of Genesis we can see the first relationships God creates with man. God makes man in his own image so that he may have relationships with them which is unique in that man is the only one of God’s creations that he gives the ability to do this. In both stories, we see that God is the
The result of sin, then, would be considered a blurring of the image of God and a barrier between God and man. In addition, salvation is a process not of justification, but of reestablishing man's communion with God (Ware 155-161).
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good” (Lewis, C.S., 2001). We see the futile attempts of men and women in the Old Testament who eagerly intended to be good. They aimed to abide by the law of God, but as soon as something shiny, pleasurable, and of earthly value flashed before their eyes, their obedience to God’s commands went out the window. Some did not even try. God’s people compromised their beliefs and committed spiritual adultery against Him by esteeming handmade idols. All the while, they religiously offered sacrifices, and therefore, polluted the House of God. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, our sinful nature has been beckoning us to choose evil, to embrace worldly counterfeits, and to seek a life of selfish ambition. However, Jesus steps on the scene and changes everything.
As Towns states in John: Believe and Live, “He (Jesus) claimed to be equal to God as well as claimed the deity He so rightly held.” Jesus is the “self-existent one,” God in the flesh; the God-Man. Leon Morris explained that when Jesus said “I Am” he was confirming His messiahship. These are confirmed to be “solemn words of deity, as stated by Ed Hindson. No other could claim such and not be reckoned by God. Each time Jesus spoke these words it was with the full authority from and with God. Jesus “knew that God the Father had placed the power over all things into His hands” (Jn. 13:3). Jesus knew that He would return to His home in Heaven with the Father, but He had to deliver His message on earth first before His work was finished. Having expressed this on numerous occasions, Jesus tells the disciples “unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins” (Jn.8:24) If they fail to believe that He is God incarnate they will not see Him for their eternal life. Today this same statement holds true: one must see Jesus as one with the Father and believe that through Him they will have life everlasting. Otherwise they will die in their sins as Morris says: “that must clearly be a dreadful
After wisdom is turned on, a lot of people start thinking about human origins. Many great people have tried to explain the origin of human, they also proposed a variety of unusual ideas and explains, but most people are not accepted their idea. However, the first part of the Bible have a good explanation of the origin of human. There are two different theory about the origins of humanity in the Bible. God according to his own image to create a human, designed to allow humans to communicate with him, to respond to his love, and to serve as managing the affairs responsibilities.
The relationship between God and his creations humans can be said to be a very complex relationship. Genesis shows us many examples of God's interaction with humans and human's interaction with each other. From the creation of Adam and Eve and all the events that follow afterwards, I shall show what the relationship tells us about the nature of God and mankind.
God and the Bible’s teachings are used as a framework to find meaning in life and purpose of human presence. Purpose resides in every human’s potential to strive for peace, seek equality, nurture relationships and the environment to achieve harmony with the earth (Valk, 2012). “Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior and my hope is in you all day long” (Ps 25:5). The Holy Spirit, known as God’s active force and His power in action (Lk 1:35), is used as a guide by Christians to ascertain and determine what is right. “We choose to act based on good thinking, scripture and prayer, and the Holy Spirit helps us discern the right alternatives” (Shelly & Miller, 2006, p. 89). In seeing others as the image of God, choosing what is right from wrong is influenced by beliefs cultural background and respect for one another. In this religious culture, the tendency to do wrong is seen as sinfulness. However, it is the admission of sin that leads Christians to Jesus Christ to find and experience God’s forgiveness (Shelly & Miller, 2006). The recognition of sin and eventual redemption strengthens the relationship with God which directs a life of service to humanity (Shelly & Miller,
Sin is elusive. It hides behind our motives and intentions. Sin will parade in a garment that looks stunningly beautiful but when uncovered there is nothing but ugliness and wickedness hiding underneath. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” ( Mt. 23:27 NIV) Sin masquerades deceptively as something it is not. Laying the groundwork which led to Eve’s questioning the trustworthiness of God concerning the forbidden fruit the serpent said “Ye shall not surely die: (Gen. 3 :4b KJV ). The insertion