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Eating from the beginning until after the flood

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dave:

--- Quote from: John from Kentucky on September 17, 2016, 03:41:12 AM ---Not all of us believe the Adam and Eve creation story is literal.  The Spirit has given some the understanding that the story is a metaphor or story.

Adam is the Hebrew word for mankind.  Eve is the mother of all living.  If Eve only goes back 6,000 years then she is not the mother of all living, only the mother of some.

Just as the seven days of creation is not literal but symbolic, so are the other aspects of the creation story symbolic. The contrast between eating herbs versus meat is also symbolic.  The symbolism is brought out in the New Testament.

Jesus said His words are Spirit and they are Life.

If you can only understand the Scriptures on a physical, literal level, then so be it.  You cannot go beyond what the Spirit has given you.  But the time is coming to grow up and put off childish things.  Ask God to give you deeper understanding of the Spiritual truths of the Scriptures.  Only Jesus can reveal the deeper understanding of Scriptures.

--- End quote ---

 I understand it this way as well. If all we do is attempt to try and understand the beginning as natural we will find ourselves befuddled, pieces just don't fit properly. First the natural and then the spiritual. My thoughts are that the beginning is dual, most of christianity sees Genesis as natural and just look at what that has produced, God did it all in six 24 hour days, if that is block A then block B will not find a home. I personally have found a wealth of understanding in Gen. 1-4 and Ray's teaching on "day."

John from Kentucky:
Hi George,

I do not want to argue or in any way put down anyone who believes the Adam and Eve creation story is literally true.

I believe all the Scriptures are true, some are just not literally true.  We do not have the time or space to discuss that point in depth.

I do of course believe that Jesus ate literal real food in those two examples you mentioned.  But Jesus did tell His disciples that He had food to eat they were not aware of.  They did not get what He was saying right away.

Ray once said the Scriptures were like a Charlie Brown story.  Children could read the story and have one understanding.  Adults could read the story and have another understanding.  That is not a put down, but just the way things are.

I read the creation story in early Genesis and understand it is not literal.  But it is chock full of amazing spiritual truths.  All by the power of God's Spirit.  To each his own as led by God.

Kat:

Certainly the account of Adam and Eve is difficult, and that is because it is mostly symbolized, but that does not take away the reality of it. The things being symbolized are certainly literal. Yes of course there are many spiritual lessons in the symbols used, but you cannot discard the object of the lesson as not real.

Adam and Eve are symbols for God's people, which the Scripture focus on, that's how she was the mother of all living - God's chosen people. There was even a historical record of Adam genealogy that acknowledge his descendants, how could you say those were not literal?

Gen 5:1  This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

But what most cannot see is that there are two separate seeds that are in the world from this account, one of the seeds is from Adam and Eve, God's chosen and the line that would continue all the way to Christ's birth. While there is another real physical/literal seed spoken of... if you cannot see that the "serpent" was not a snake, but a living human and could only be those people living at the time Adam was formed and brought to life, then you cannot understand this.

Gen 3:14  So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
v. 15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

God's chosen people were always suppose to stay separate from the heathen nations and so were enmity and against the foreigners/strangers/Gentile. Of course God designed this whole scenario to make a distinction between His people and those without Him, He first did this in the physical, "a shadow of things to come" (Col 2:17) and then through Christ in the spiritual. So at first God's promises were only for the descendants of Abraham, all the way to Christ.

Gen 17:9  And God said to Abraham: "As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

1Kings 8:41  "Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for Your name's sake

Lev 26:45  But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

Psa 105:42  For He remembered His holy promise, And Abraham His servant.
v. 43  He brought out His people with joy, His chosen ones with gladness.
v. 44  He gave them the lands of the Gentiles, And they inherited the labor of the nations,

Not until the door of salvation was opened to the Gentiles were they considered as equals and as Paul put it "of one blood."

Acts 17:26  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

Eph 3:6  that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,

Gal 3:14  that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Anyway just giving food for thought.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

lilitalienboi16:
Let me also add to something. Ray first pointed it out and Kat reminded me of it again. Moses had a book written by Adam. It's where Moses got all the information on Adam's lineage. It was in a book passed down.

It is the verse Kat quoted, 'this is the book of the generations of Adam.'

We also have the lineage of Jesus which in the book of Luke goes all the way back to Adam. That is a literal lineage. If Luke, an apostle of God who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, believed Adam real enough to prove a literal point about the Messiah then shouldn't we also who have The Spirit indwelling?

Certainly the story is not easy to interpret but with the spirit of God the pieces fall into place both as a historical account and a spiritual testimony to the truth.

I don't necessarily agree that the serpent represents the people outside the garden who were not to be God's people because John refers to the dragon, satan, as the 'old serpent.' As far as I can tell, the use of 'old' is referencing back to 'in the beginning...' that serpent which was of old in the garden.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Now was Satan actually in the form of a literal serpent when he tempted eve or was he merely called a serpent because of how he behaved like one I cannot tell. Does it matter? I don't think so. But let it be remembered that a burning bush spoke to Moses and a donkey rebuked Balam so why should a spiritual being like satan taking on the form of a literal snake surprise us?

Indeed, my thoughts as well. I am open to these interpretations but I just can't see all of Genesis or even just Adam and Eve being merely symbolic individuals and not people from which an entire nation that would become God's chosen people descended from.

God bless,
Alex

Kat:

Alex, I do agree that the serpent does represent Satan, and we have a number of examples of Satan being referred to when a real person was so influenced by him. Jesus referred to Peter in such a way.

Mat 16:23  But He turned and said to Peter, Go, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you do not savor the things that are of God, but those that are of men.

And of course there is Judas.

John 6:70  Jesus answered them, Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? And one of you is a devil?
v. 71  But he spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon; for it was he who was about to betray Him, being one of the Twelve.

John 13:2  And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him,

John 13:27  And after the morsel, then Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to him, What you do, do quickly.

Of course the person was not literally Satan, but they took on the persona of his character in what they did. And we can see that it is Satan that is being referred to in tempting Eve, it just makes sense to me that it was through a person. And we know that throughout Scripture God has warned His people to stay away from the nations of the land that He drivers out before them. Maybe that is what's symbolized in do not eat the fruit of the tree...

Lev 20:22  'You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out.
v. 23  And you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

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