God created humanity as His children, in His image and likeness. In Genesis chapter one He blessed us and told us to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, and to take dominion over all the animals.

God gave Adam and Eve the Garden. They were to tend it, keep it and enjoy it’s fruit avoiding only the tree of knowledge. Although God is spirit, He manifested in the Garden physically to spend time with Adam and Eve.(Genesis 3:8)  This is the first picture and instruction we have concerning the purpose of humanity.

As the first people, Adam and Eve had in themselves all of humanity. Therefore, they represented us. When they produced the rest of humanity, we would be in their image and have their nature. (Genesis 3:20  Romans 5:12)

Their spirits were fully connected with God and they lived by their spirit. But when they ate from the tree of knowledge, their spirit was separated from God. (Spiritual death) They had been led by their spirit that was connected to God. Now their source became their soul and the tree of knowledge. The next post will explain your spirit, soul and body more fully. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

All of us born from then on, the Bible calls “In Adam.” That means our spirit is separated from God and we have a sin nature. We are led by our soul and the knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately for us, that is the Devil’s playground because Adam delivered authority to the Devil. He is the small g, god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) and death is evident everywhere you look.

Enter Jesus, He came to destroy the works of the Devil (1 John 3:8b) and bring us back into God’s family. Jesus came as a human, He is called “The Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) because he is also a representative man. On the cross He represented all of humanity from Adam to end of the age. He paid the price of all sin. Everyone’s sins are forgiven. (2 Corinthians 5:19-21) Sin is no longer an issue with God, He wills that all men believe on Jesus and join His family.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Believing what He did for you, receiving His gift of salvation by confessing Him as Lord is the only way to be born again. (Romans 10:9-11) The Bible also calls this being born from above, being born of the Spirit, or the new birth. It means our spirit is fully connected with God. We become His children, born again into His family. We can choose to walk with Him in fellowship as his children, like Adam and Eve did before the fall. We can even choose to move further into intimate fellowship and partnership with Him in all things. That is His hope, God gave you all He had and He wants you to give Him all you have in return. It’s called the New Covenant.

The cliff notes version. God made a covenant with us that is summed up in Deuteronomy. We were encouraged to choose Him and his ways, if we did we would receive the blessings.(Deuteronomy 28:1-14) If we failed to choose him and His ways we would suffer what’s called the curse of the law.(Deuteronomy 28:15-68) That is called the old covenant, it’s found everywhere in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant. In this Covenant, Jesus was our representative, He fulfilled the requirements of the law for us. So God made a covenant with Jesus, giving Him all the blessings, only Jesus did it as our representative. Now we get all the benefits without fulfilling the law ourselves.(2 Corinthians 5:21) We get it all through faith in Jesus. Today we don’t choose God by obeying the law. We choose Him to walk in relationship with Him, that is where we prosper in all things and be in health.

The purpose of salvation is to remove us from the Devils family and his inheritance of death, and to establish us in God’s family and His inheritance of life. Eternal life starts as soon as you receive Jesus and it is all about relationship with God.(John 17:23) We will be diving into all this in more detail, post by post: saddle up. We are not waiting on God, He is waiting on us. (Ephesians 2:10)