In six days God created the universe.
His masterwork was the garden of Eden.
The most wonderful place on the Earth.
The sixth day He called very good, for He had created Adam and Eve on that day and He was happy with the human beings. The completion of His work.
Everything was very good and there was no evil in the universe, nor any forseen evil. For if evil had been foreseen, it would not have been very good.
A good creation, contains the possibility to choose to rebel to God, as not to create robots.
God had also created the angels, to serve the human beings. They also have a free will. After the creation, one of these angels with a free will, choose to rebel, and wanted to overthrow God’s authority. This person was satan.
Satan had always been in the council of God and he knew very well what the consequences were for rebellion: “Sin is breaking God’s law (1 John 4:3) and Sin pays of with death (Romans 6:23)”.
But on a certain moment in time, he choose to stir up pride in his heart. He convinced 1/3th of the angels to rebel with him. 2/3th choose to remain loyal to God.
After the battle was over, satan was kicked out of heaven and smacked down on the earth by archangel Michael. Satan lost. The battle was over…
But satan devised a plan. He thought: “I know God cares most about the human beings. I will deceive them, so that from then on, I can be their accuser before God. I will tell Him: ‘They also have rebelled against you God, now, let them also die, as your righteousness requires’. In that way, I will grieve the heart of the righteous God in the most hurtful way.”
So satan slipt into the garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived.
Satan deceived a serpent (which was a walking or flying creature back then) and agreed with him that he would place himself in this rebellious serpent.
In this way satan wanted to deceive the human beings.
God saw all of this but He allowed it to happen. Why? Because He respected the free will of satan and the serpent, who would eventually be judged by Him. God also wanted to use the human beings to judge satan. He expected Adam and Eve to show their loyalty to Him, as did the non-rebellious angels.
So satan went, in the body of a serpent, to eve. (Adam was also present.)
He lured Eve into believing that old lie, that the one who sins against God will not die. That they would be like God if they disobeyed God. Satan knew this was not true, since he was cast down before and was already on death row.
So Eve ate, and Adam also. In that way, Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
They broke the only commandment that they were not allowed to break:
eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree by which God made it possible to them to rebel.
Satan’s plan succeeded and in this way Adam and Eve brought death upon the human race, for their rebellion against God. They hid, for their consciences knew judgment was immanent.
God was shocked and asked the appointed ruler, who foresook his God-given role, Adam, for a reason of and a responsibility for the transgression he had committed: “Adam where are you?!”
Satan had already been punished. Now God punished the serpent and its offspring by letting it crawl on it’s belly. He cursed the earth and the animals, with a curse of death, until the recreation of the earth. It was the creation of chaos out of order.
God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, so that they also would die eventually. And so all descendants die physically.
The soul of every human being is judged to die, because every individual chose to sin (Ezekiel 18:4), by imitating the other human beings. This can also be put the following way: We inherit bodily death, because of the CONSEQUENCES of Adam’s sin. We inherit spiritual death, because of the GUILT of our personal sin. Sin happens by imitation, not by inheritance or obligation. We are entirely responsible for our sins and the judgment we bring upon ourselves.
God still loved Adam and Eve… He did not curse them. They would have to die physically and spiritually, due to the consequences of their sins… But God had already planned a plan B in case this would happen. He foreshadowed it in that he slaughtered an animal for them (Genesis ), which might have been “coincidentally” a lamb. You will find out very soon what this foreshadowed (Colossians 2:17).
As a proof that moral responsibility of the free agents and God’s love for mankind did not end at the fall, we have the story of Kain and Abel.
God was not pleased with Cain’s offer and God saw that Cain wanted to sin.
God told him that sin comes from the outside and that it wants to rule over us but that we can master it (Genesis 4:7).
Although Cain could have listened to God, Cain choose not to.
So Cain killed his brother Abel.
Again, God was shocked and asked Cain to confess his transgression of the law and his own responsibility for it. By this rebellion against the order of God,
he brought spiritual death on himself.
Out of the fall of Adam and Eve, we see that satan could bring death to their bodies and the bodies of their descendants.
Out of all the above examples, we clearly saw that satan made God have to destroy the soul, as His righteous character and His righteous laws require.
So we can depict satan as death (Revelation 9), wishing to take with him, as many souls as possible (John 8:44). So satan held all his followers, all those who even only rebelled one time, in a critical death grip (John 8:44).
The fact is: all broke the law which God wrote on our hearts (Romans 2:14-15).
Yes, the Jews received the law written in stone…
But they also all sinned and did not stick to it…
In a certain moment in time, the lawbreakers where punished by a plague of snakes. Those serpents would, with their poisonous bites, soon end their lives.
This is a depiction of the totally depraved state they where in.
Adam’s sin slowly killed their body but their personal sins would have most assuredly killed their souls.
However, God gave them a chance of receiving mercy. If they would look on a replica of a bronze snake on a pole, the plague would stop.
The One Who came to save, made it clear that this story was a foreshadowing of the Way by which God wanted to save all human beings (John 14:6).
You see, the love story of God was not over! God always wanted to show mercy, where necessary! God wanted to be able to revert the punishment of total destruction!
God would strike back masterfully, in a way He had already foreshadowed to those who responded to God’s longing to have a relationship with mankind (Read Hebrews 11). Christ would make a way, whereby he could undo mortal death, the consequence of Adam’s sin and He would remove from us the punishment of the destruction of our souls.
The Jews where taught by God, through Moses, to slaughter a lamb, as a ransom, when they transgressed His law. This was another foreshadowing.
Jesus Christ was the true innocent Lamb of God.
He went as a lamb through the court trial, mocking, beatings,…
And just as Moses had to put a serpent on a stake, in the same way, Jesus came to have Himself put on a cross (John 3:14). He foretold this when he said: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
(John 3:16, KJV). God loved this world so much, that He Himself came to be our ransom. He is the ransom effective to those who would believe in Him.
You see, In this way, the Lamb bought the ransom… He gave His blood, so that he could be a substitute, a ransom to statisfy the demands of God’s righteous law and have the accuser silenced. In this way, the curse could be reversed for all who would believe on Him. (click here for more information on that subject)
Due to Adam our bodies all have to die and due to our own personal sins, our souls have to die. We know that everyone’s mortal body dies, due to Adam’s transgression… All will be ressurected and will be righteously judged for the good and the bad things they have done in this life.
Only the souls of those who do accept the ransom, will be spared from the persecutor and therefore from God’s condemnation through the punishment by the law for their own personal sins. Their body and soul won’t be destroyed in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8).
As it is written:
“Since we, God’s children, are human beings—made of flesh and blood—he became flesh and blood too by being born in human form; for only as a human being could he die and in dying break the power of the devil [= the accuser] who had the power of death. Only in that way could he deliver those who through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread.”
– Hebrews 2:14-15 (TLB, added words between brackets)
“He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil [= the accuser].”
– 1 John 3:8 (NKJV, added words between brackets)
Jesus wants to be your Savior and not the one who has to condemn you to execution. He wants all to be saved and have eternal life with Him. He does not want anyone to perish (Ezekiel 18:23, 2 Peter 3:9). He was victorious over the evil plan of the devil by dying for all human beings on the cross and by being resurrected from death, in an immortal body. In this way, He is able to make His sacrifice on the cross, count as a ransom. Do you want to receive this ransom? Do you want to receive an immortal body or do you want your soul and body to be destroyed in the lake of fire?
Simona Gatto, John 3:16
You can pray this prayer to start walking with Jesus:
“Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Son Jesus Christ. I am fully responsible for my own personal sins but still He became my ransom to undo the ultimate punishment for our sins: death in the lake of fire. I did not deserve this gift. Now the devil has no right to accuse me at your court anymore, for I trust in the sacrifice of Jesus, on the cross, that bought me from the devil’s death grip. The greatest thanks to You. I put my trust in Jesus Christ. He is my Lord from this point on. Now I am hoping in the resurrection life, that after my mortal body has died, I can receive eternal life as Your gift, in an immortal body, on this Earth, renewed as before the fall.”
You must endure until the end, to show that you truly love God and trust in the ransom, so that you can live in relationship with Him forever. Read the Bible. I would be glad to help you to have fellowship with other Christians; so please send me a message if you have prayed the prayer mentioned above. 🙂
Note: this is only a summarized retelling of the story of the Bible, including my own interpretation. This does not take away that the sacrifice of Christ and its consequences are the most beautiful fact in all of history.
Here is another man’s view. On this video by him I agree for 95% I think 🙂 :
All paintings by Gustave Doré, except for “Agnus Dei” (The Lamb of God) by Francisco de Zurbaran and “Ecce Homo” (Behold The Man) by Antonio Allegri Correggio.
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