By Neibert David
When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden as it is recorded in Genesis 3:1-7,
they introduced the concept of death into their lives. Consequently, they also
introduced death into the lives of everyone that would be born from them (that is:
the entire human race). Their sin also caused them to be physically separated from
God used to visit them “in the garden in the cool of the day”. (Genesis 3:8 – NIV)
The introduction of sin also caused them to be physically separated from God since their sin caused them to be banished “from the Garden of Eden”. (Genesis 3:23) In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had enjoyed a continuous presence of God in addition to the physical presence of God when He visited them. Have you ever wondered what else Adam and Eve may have lost when their sin separated them from God? Adam and Eve also lost their spiritual connection with God when they sinned. To understand this, let us go back to the beginning when God created them. Let us go back to what our dearly departed brother Dr. Myles Munroe would call the manufacturing process.
In Genesis 1:26-27, God says: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” When God created mankind, both genders were in His mind. Therefore, females were not an afterthought when God created human beings.
In fact, the Scriptures clearly show that females were in the mind of God from the beginning. Thus, when God created them: male and female, He created them equal. In other words, men are equal to women, and boys are equal to girls. Both genders are equal to each other in the eyes of God!
Then Genesis 2:7 (NIV) says the “Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” (King James Version – a living soul) God had created both the body and the soul, but they were not yet living because He has not yet breathed His breath of life into man. When God breathed into the man, it was God – the Holy Spirit that provided the breath. God – the Holy Spirit provided His Ruah (breath or spirit) and gave birth to the spirit of the man when He breathe into his nostrils. In other words, the Holy Spirit, as the Breath of God was originally connected to or was in communion with the human spirit before Adam and Eve sinned.
In John 3:1-7, Nicodemus, “who was a member of the Jewish ruling council”, “came to Jesus at night” and had a conversation with Him. Nicodemus acknowledged that Jesus, also known as Messiah, must have come from God because of the miraculous signs that Jesus performed. He says in verse V2: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus responds to Nicodemus in V3: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again”. This statement shocks Nicodemus, and he says in V4: “how can someone be born when they are old?” “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!
In other words, Nicodemus was perplexed that Jesus may be suggesting that a grown person can go back into his mother’s womb to be born a second time?! Yet, Nicodemus was thinking of a natural birth while Jesus was speaking of the spiritual birth.
In V6 Jesus, responds: “flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” To answer Nicodemus’ question Jesus was explaining that while human beings (flesh) give birth to other human beings (flesh), only Holy Spirit (Spirit) can give birth to the human spirit. In other words, Holy Spirit is the one that needs to give birth to the human spirit for them to see and understand the kingdom of God.
In the case of John 3:7, Holy Spirit would perform the re-birth of the human spirit since He originally gave birth to the human spirit noted in Genesis 2:7 when He breathe into the man. Holy Spirit is the one who originally gave birth to the human spirit, and He is the only one who can provide a re-birth of the human spirit.
The original pattern set forth by God still exists – human beings (flesh) give birth to flesh, but only Holy Spirit can give birth to the spirit of a human being. Genesis 3 recounts the “fall” of the first humans. The “fall” refers to the
consequences that human beings suffered when they were originally disobedient to God’s directions.
Genesis 3:4 recounts how Eve was deceived into being disobedient to the direction God gave Adam. The serpent told her: “you will not certainly die…For God knows that when you eat from it” (the tree that is in the middle of the garden) “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Eve listened to the serpent and ate from the tree. She gave Adam the fruit, and he also ate. Adam, in taking and eating the fruit from Eve, was disobedient to God. In Genesis 2:16b-17 God specifically told Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Adam, seeing that Eve did not die when she ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, also ate. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they plunged themselves and all future humans that would come after them into sin. Their action also plunged the entire earth into sin. As a result, their continuous abiding in the presence of God and their continuous interaction with God in the garden were separated!
Additionally, when Adam and Eve sinned the interconnectedness of their human spirit with God’s Holy Spirit was severed. This means that their human spirits were also now separated from God!
When Adam and Eve sinned, it was not just their physical relationship that was separated from God but also their spiritual relationship. That one on one communion with God’s Holy Spirit through their own human spirit was now severed. They will now need to undergo a process to be able to be spiritually reconnected and come alive once again with God.
During His ministry in Luke 9:59-60, the Lord Jesus: “said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
In these two verses, Jesus is letting the man know that some people, even though they are walking and breathing, are spiritually dead because they are not connected to God. Therefore, Jesus was saying: let the spiritually dead bury the naturally dead.
Before Adam and Eve sinned, they interacted with God as children. But the severing of their spiritual relationship with God created deadness within their spirit. This deadness created spiritual orphans.
That is, Adam and Eve became orphans when their spiritual relationship with God was severed! And consequently, all human beings after Adam and Eve became spiritual orphans because they were born spiritually separated from God.
When Adam and Eve became physically and spiritually separated from God because of their original, they passed that same condition down to everyone who would come after them. Meaning, they passed down the condition of being physically and spiritually separated from God to all humans.
Therefore, humans need to experience healing, transformation, and reconnection with God in the human spirit. As they do, they will enjoy the same type of connected relationship with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed before they sinned.
Yet, that transformation or reconnection can only begin with being reborn of the Holy Spirit just like the first human Adam was originally born of the Holy Spirit (Genesis 2:7). This happened for Adam when Holy Spirit breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living being. The pattern remains the same!
In other words, when Holy Spirit gives birth to humans, they can now experience within their human spirits the reconnection with God that they lost when Adam and Eve sinned.
Now it must be noted that humans are only eligible for such rebirth, transformation, and/or interconnectedness with God once they follow His plan. God’s plan for humans to reconnect with Him is this: accept the free gift that He offers through the suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of His One and Only Son. God revealed His One and Only Son in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. (John 3:16) He is the Jewish Messiah!
After the fall of humans (Genesis 3:1-7), God set the plan in motion to reconnect human beings to Himself. In Genesis 3:15, God, speaking to the serpent who had deceived Eve, said “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The serpent represented Satan who had been kicked out of heaven because he wanted to be like God. (Isaiah 14:12-15) He wanted to get the glory or accolades that rightfully belonged to God for himself. Satan coveted what belonged to God, therefore he was “cast down to the earth”. (Isaiah 14:12b) God promised that an offspring of the woman would crush Satan’s head, and he would strike his heel. This seed or offspring of the woman who defeated Satan was the Lord Jesus Christ. He defeated Satan by what He suffered on the cross of Calvary.
For the Lord Jesus Christ to crush Satan’s head on behalf of humans, He had to live a sinless life. He had to live the type of life before God that humans could not live on their own, and He did!
Therefore, through His life, suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ accomplished what humans could not. He repaid the debt created and owed when Adam and Eve sinned. (Colossians 2:13-14)
Every human being has the choice to accept for themselves the price that was paid on his/her behalf by the Lord Jesus Christ (or Messiah). This is the pattern that God set out for humans to reconnect with Himself.
When humans accept the free gift offered by the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Holy Spirit enters the human spirit. Through this process, the human spirit is reborn. This is the first step in spiritual healing.
The rebirth of the human spirit is only the beginning of a beautiful, adventurous, and fulfilling relationship with God. The human spirit reconnecting to God’s Holy Spirit is only the beginning. The next step is to be transformed from being orphans, which was inherited as offspring of Adam and Eve.
The next step is getting rid of orphan behavior and mentality that humans were socialized to believe were normal after the fall. What normal should be is this: the human spirit is connected to God’s Holy Spirit, and there is the capacity for constant communication with Holy Spirit. Normal should be the continuous communication that Adam and Eve experienced in their relationship with God before the fall. Upon receiving the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, positionally, relationally, and spiritually, humans become believers (in Jesus Christ) and are no longer orphans.
But God desires to and will take all believers on a journey to replace the effects of the orphan mentality from the human heart, mind, will, and emotions.
Will you accept God’s free gift?
