Musings on the Deaths and Resurrections of Man

What if God wanted to show His power and wrath (Romans 9:22) toward the devil and his angels (see Matthew 25:31-46)? What if He did this by creating a class of creatures in His own image through which He would demonstrate grace and mercy (Romans 9:23)? A contrast such as this would demonstrate God’s power and wrath as well as His grace and mercy. This class of creatures in order to receive grace and mercy from the hand of God would somehow have to be made recipients of His displeasure and wrath. R.L. Dabney is attributed with an observation on the dangers of prosperity which is not insignificant here.
 "It’s in man’s nature to be so ungrateful when you have everything you want. Look to man’s nature and we’ll see some of the reasons for this. It ought not to be true but it is true that it’s man’s mean spirited disposition to feel less gratitude as the favors he receives are multiplied. The more God gives you the less gratitude you have. We treat God in the same thankless way. The frequency and the multiplication of mercies necessarily make the reception of them a habit. And habitual incidents make less and less impression the longer the habit is maintained. So that the multitude of our blessings, instead of begetting proportionate gratitude, deadens our sense of obligation. Here then we have this result. That sluggish, thankless indifference to God’s love and benevolence will naturally grow out of continued prosperity."
Consider if you will that though the man and the woman were created with the possibility of sinning and therefore of dying, God’s evaluation of them had been “very good.” The process of dying also, was included in this evaluation. Man was created with the ability to adapt to various conditions. This is true in your own experience. If you live in a noisy environment, you become accustomed to the noise. The same is true with odors or smells, sight, or touch. Just think of living in a state of perfection. Is it not possible that living continually in such “luxury” eventually deadened man’s sense of gratitude to God for his very existence? Instead of thanking God for His blessings, man came to expect God to cater to him rather than he be obedient to God. Thus the man and his wife embarked on a journey that garnered God’s displeasure and wrath—spiritual death. God would deliver them out of that condition and shower upon them the aforesaid gifts of grace and mercy. God, being just and holy, also would have to “send somebody to jail.” After all, a “crime” would have been committed. No One less than God could endure the punishment and still enjoy the creatures made in His image.

Suppose God decided to create an environment and an arena in which all this would be worked out. The world is the former and time is the latter. Suppose further that God did not discard the horticultural model of the third day of creation when He created man on the sixth day. What if man in his original creation was like a seed. What if the path to grace and mercy lay through the valley of the shadow of death? Yea, even death itself? What if God did not start with the body that would be (I Corinthians 15:37, 46)? Also, suppose that His plan required death and resurrection, so that man could not have the body that would be except that the body that was would die? What if the resurrection is as old as the creation?

Genesis 2:8 says, “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” A garden is the place where a seed is planted. Genesis 3:19 ends God’s interview of the offenders and the next verse reveals the reason that Eve receives her name. She is the mother of all the living. In order for a seed to be quickened it has to die first (1 Corinthians 15:36). This motif is that to which Jesus appeals regarding His glorification in John 12:23 & 24.

Genesis 3:21 gives insight into God’s mind regarding man’s end. God reasons as Jesus would when healing the man let down on a bed through the roof (see Mark 2:1-10). Jesus forgives the sick man his sins before healing him. Jesus reveals His power to forgive as well as to heal. In the same way God forgives Adam and Eve raising them from spiritual death. The resurrection of Jesus validates God’s action at the beginning of time thus guaranteeing the forgiveness of sins (I Corinthians 15:17).