Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
The speaker discusses the topic of what it means to be a human in the image of God. They reflect on their past biases when reading scripture and emphasize the importance of understanding what God sees and expects of us. They explore the purpose of codified law and how it relates to humans walking in the spirit. The speaker also examines the meaning of the word "finished" in Hebrew and its connection to pride and the creation of the earth. They discuss the sanctification of the seventh day and question its specific identification. Lastly, they mention the concept of rest for God and the need to study the Sabbath for a deeper understanding. The speaker concludes by expressing their hope that this discussion will inspire a desire to know and follow God's will. Hello, and this is Philip Black. Once again, I am happy to be with you all to continue our discussion about the topic of what is man, is man in the image of God. For me, this topic has really been, I guess you'd say, very eye-opening in the fashion that it allows me to do a self-examination. The reason why I'm saying that is because in times past when I've read scripture, most of the time I read scripture with a bias. I've read it with a lot of cultural norms, understandings, things that have been passed on to me. And most of those biases are difficult to overcome because when you read the scriptures, you read it with an expectation to see where the scripture agrees with you. And when I say I've had an eye-opening experience in the fact that now I'm understanding that the scriptures are actually something that God is using to let me understand what he is seeing, that's what I want to re-emphasize again. The scriptures are allowing us, as humans, to see what our Creator sees when he looks from heaven. That changes the whole perspective of things. Seeing what is in the mind of God when he looks at humanity, when he looks at his creation. So my biases, my understanding of things, really are irrelevant. What really matters is what he sees and what he is expecting of us. There is a purpose for the things that he has done and what I've found out is that if I don't understand that purpose, I am abusing the things that God has given me. That's a sobering thought because it is easy, as scripture says, a man has a right in his own eyes. And basically I want to say it in this fashion that your view of yourself, you will justify any behavior about yourself, even if it is contrary to what the scripture says. That is what they call someone who is righteous in their own eyes. In other words, you establish your own rule to live by and no one can question that rule because you are the ruler and you say this is the way I shall live, regardless of how it harms, how it destroys. This is a self-righteous person. This is not a person that has fallen to the will of God. So with all of this in mind, as I continue to search this topic of what is man, is man in the image of God, there are a couple of observations that I would like to also share. And that one is the question of why does there have to be codified. In other words, when I say codified, I mean written law for humankind. And that question is not always obvious, but I'm going to offer this. The reason there is codified law is because when man, as it says in Genesis 1, 26-27, is created in the image and likeness of God, man's spirit would be what should govern the body. And because of that, the spirit would be intuitively, that's a tough word, tongue twister, intuitively be able to operate without having to have an input from the natural realm, but the input from the spirit realm, for God is a spirit, God is not a human. So in order for us to walk in the spirit, we must have input into the spirit. So this is the reason for codified law. Man would not intuitively walk by the spirit. So let's get into the word, let's get into reading the scriptures. And I'm going to start with Genesis 2, verse 1 through 3, and then I'm going to make some comments. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And he rests on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he has rest from all his work which God created and made. Now I'm going to go back to verse 1 here. And one of the things that I found interesting, and this is part of studying scripture, studying scripture in its origin, which is Hebrew. All scripture was translated from Hebrew. And I know when I talk to some people and I start talking a little bit about Hebrew and paleo Hebrew, a lot of people say, is all that necessary? And to some it may not be. But I think whenever we seek to fully understand things and we research out and want to know what's really in the mind of God and get a better picture, I think all things are something to help us. So the reason why I share this is because I think it gives us a better insight of our origin of the King James and all other scriptures that are translated, they are translated from the Hebrew. So it's quite natural that we, I would say for me, it's quite natural to want to understand the origin of these things. And the reason I make that comment is because in Genesis 2, 1, there is a word that we read and it says, thus the heavens and the earth were finished. That word finished is a real, I would say, interesting word from this standpoint. When I look that word up in the Hebrew, it actually shows something that is complete. Something as it says, the word finished, it is actually a good, I guess you would say translation. But it also shows me something that it is a root word for something that in Hebrew that we, and I will say we because we are not Hebrew scholars, would overlook. And I think this is important because that same word is kalah in Hebrew. This is the word where we get pride. Kalah is the root word for the word bride in Hebrew. So I thought I'd add that in there because that's very interesting because later on that's going to be an important issue concerning man and the female. So male and female, this is an interesting point. The other observation as I read the scripture, it says that the heavens and earth were finished. And when I think about the earth, I look at the earth and we've seen the earth depicted as a sphere. When you are above the earth and many times if you haven't ever studied astronomy where they have telescopes and stuff that peer out into the heavens and also if you look at photographs of what we call holographs, you see that most, well I will say this from what I've seen, all of the planets have also a sphere, they are shaped in a sphere. And I find that interesting because it shows us that our God is consistent when he creates something that works, that is good. He continues that path and I find that interesting that for those people who may question, is there really a God? I think it's clear as it says here in Genesis 2, 1 that the heavens and the earth, now I know most people say that the heavens in this particular scripture is confined to the sphere here in earth, the space. But I will not debate that issue, all I'm just saying is I find it very curious that he has also created other planets in a sphere, just like he created the earth. And so I find that interesting, that's why I'm sharing that. The other question that comes about is when we read the word seventh day, in scripture it does not give a name for the days, God just gives a numerical value as translated from the Hebrew to each day. So the question becomes when he says that he sanctifies the seventh day, how do we know what that day is? Because man has assigned to these days names, but God never mentions that. And I don't see a real problem here for the simple reason as we're going to see later in scripture that God allows the human to name all of the animals. So with him giving us rule to be able to mark time and space on the earth for observation, for things that we need to keep track of, because I think this would be something that is in the realm that he gives as a responsibility for humans. So with that being said, if he sanctifies the seventh day, he does not name it, he does not give, as you read the scripture, it doesn't say he gives this command to the human beings. It just says, if you read it, it says, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. So the other question that comes to mind is, since God is a spirit, and as we know the scripture says, he does not slumber asleep, why does he say the word rest? What is he really saying here? We need to look up that word, that word means many different things in the fact that it doesn't have to be a physical rest, it means we can just stop here at this point. But when we do research on the word Sabbath, we'll begin to understand that it has a different purpose for the creator than it does for the creation. And as we begin to study this word, Sabbath, and why it is holy to God, first of all, as we read in the scripture, man has nothing to do with this work. Man did not create heaven, man did not create earth, man created nothing. Man is only a creation. So at this point, what would man be resting from? He hasn't done anything. So for us to get a deeper and better understanding of what is being conveyed to us from God's perspective, we will continue to study and discuss the topic of the Sabbath. So with that being said, this is Philip Black, once again, thanking you all for listening and hoping, hoping that this truly helps you to have a deeper desire to know the will and the mind of God for your life, for His creation, and how we are to relate to Him and to our fellow man. So until the next time that we continue with section 7, I hope you will listen and thank you for listening, and most of all, we will pray and hope that God will give you insight and understanding. Until the next session, this is Philip Black, once again, for the Voice of Humanity. We are signing off until the next session. God bless you all.
