Why Were You Born?
Introduction
Were we created and put here on the earth by an intelligent Creator for a definite purpose? And if so, what is that purpose and why is humanity so totally unaware of it? Or, on the other hand, did human life develop, over a period of millions of years, from lower animal species, by the process of evolution? Did we humans come to be formed and shaped as we are purely by natural causes and resident forces? These are the two possibilities of origins.
Today the theory of evolution has gained almost universal acceptance in levels of higher learning. Yet biologists and the proponents of the evolutionary doctrine fail to show any definite purpose for the presence of the human family on this planet. Neither do they tell us why man is as he is — possessing such awesome intellectual and production powers that he can fly to the moon and return safely, but at the same time is utterly helpless before the onslaught of this world’s problems. For that matter, neither has religion shown man his true purpose in life.
It has become imperative that we find the answer. Suddenly humanity’s number one problem has become the question of survival. And time is fast running out on us. The evolutionary biologists and the world’s religions have so far given no explanation. They offer no solutions. They give us no hope! We are now in a head-on confrontation with this frightening fact: any one of several heads of nations could plunge this world into the nuclear World War III that could erase all human life from the earth! Man has progressed to the point where he is about to destroy himself? Is that the end of the evolutionary line?
Is it possible there may exist a source able to shed unrecognized new light on this life-and-death question? Is it even possible there exists new evidence, vital to humanity’s survival and the peace of the world, within the Bible unrecognized by theologians, Judaism and traditional Christianity? If so, In this crisis hour of human existence, no apology is offered for turning the spotlight on the truly startling revelation that has been rejected by science and higher education, overlooked by religion.
The book called the Bible itself lays claim to being the revelation of basic, necessary knowledge — the Instruction Manual which God sent along with the crowning product of His making — man! Could this least understood of all books reveal PURPOSE behind the presence of mankind on the earth? Does it explain why man is so creative and yet so destructive? Does it explain why man is so helpless before his own problems, yet with such awesome intellectual and productive powers? Does it offer solutions? Does it give us hope?
Emphatic Answers
To all these questions, the emphatic answer is a resounding YES! But ask the same questions concerning evolution, or the teachings of religions, and the answer is regrettably NO! Would it not, then, seem foolish to refuse honest examination of these desperately needed answers? Here is His crucial Message to mankind in this crisis hour of human history. Expect surprises!
How this missing dimension in knowledge could have been overlooked by religion, science and education is as shocking as the fact that God, in the first two chapters of His Instruction Book, tells us clearly and emphatically, that man is neither an animal, nor an immortal soul! These first two chapters of Genesis refute the theory of evolution two ways: The very first verse of the first chapter in the Bible states positively that God exists — that God created the heavens and the earth. The first chapter also states positively that man is not descended from lower animal species, and that man is not an animal. And the second chapter depicts God Himself saying positively that man is not an immortal soul — contrary to the very foundational belief of many, or most, religions!
The very first words in the Bible are: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. No “perhapses,” no theories, just a positive statement! Another important fact to note at the very beginning: Moses wrote in the Hebrew language. The English word “God” is translated from the Hebrew Elohim — a uniplural noun, like such words as “family,” “church,” “team,” “group.” It means one God, but more than one Person composing that one God — just as a family is one family, but may be composed of two, five or more persons.
CHAPTER 1: You Are Not An Animal
Notice, in verse 21 of Genesis 1: “And God created great whales … after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind.” Then in verse 25: “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind ….” And then verse 26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ….”This says plainly God made Man after the God kind! That’s what it says! It is the God Family speaking.
This reveals clearly, that man is not an animal! Man was made in the image and likeness of God — in the very form and shape of God. Man was made to have a relation to God — a link to God — totally unlike any animal. That will become more apparent as we proceed. But why did God make man in His own image? Why did He create the human species at all? Was there special purpose, is there a MEANING to human life unrealized by mankind?
PURPOSE Being Worked Out?
The late Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, actually gave the answer when he said before the American Congress: “There is a purpose being worked out here below.” Of course, he implied a Higher Power, doing the working out. But man, it seems, fails to understand that purpose. Look at all the species. How many of those are able to think, plan, devise, and then bring about, by making or creating, that which was designed and planned?
By instinct, beavers build dams. But all these dams follow the same pattern. The beaver cannot think out some new, different pattern and make some new and different thing. Ants may form ant hills; gophers, snakes and rodents dig holes; birds build nests. But they always follow the same pattern. There is no originality, no thinking and designing of a new idea, no new construction. The beavers dams, the ants hills, the gophers, snakes and rodents holes, the birds nests are all made purely by instinct, not by thought and original designing.
A test was made with weaver birds. For five successive generations, weaver birds were kept in a place with no nest-building material available to them. The fifth generation had never seen a nest. But when nest-building materials, along with other materials, were made accessible, that fifth generation immediately made nests. And they were weaverbird nests — not robins nests or swallows nests or eagles nests.
Evolution cannot account for the fact that animals are equipped with their marvelous instinct — yet with total absence of mind power. Nor can it account for the absence of such instinct in man. Or, for the vast gulf between the powers of animal brain and human mind. Man can design and build great dams, build great tunnels under mountains, invent and build automobiles, planes, battleships, submarines. Man alone is capable of approaching real creative powers.
How Man Has Used His Powers
Look at what man has actually done with the things he has had the intelligence and ability to devise and to make. Thousands of years ago he learned to work with iron, steel, and other metals. He made implements, constructed buildings. But he also made swords and spears and went out to destroy! Man learned how to organize into cities, groups, nations. But to what use did he put the organization he controlled? He organized armies, and set out to conquer, to destroy, and to acquire by taking, not alone by producing and creating.
Man at cost of billions of dollars develop nuclear weapons faster than his enemies, and now is producing weapons of mass destruction that can blast all human life off the earth!
A country doctor once said it was his belief that everything man’s hand ever touched of God’s creation man had polluted and ruined. That statement seemed radical. But man, endowed with a portion of God’s actual creative power — and the only being which has it — turns this power of devising, planning, inventing and producing into destructive channels.
Science Running Amuck?
Look at the factories of the major industrial nations. Here is the creative activity of mankind. Man has made some slight approach toward actual God powers in his tremendous industrial development. But there is one deadly fault with all this.
Man has learned to exercise scientific, inventive and mechanical powers in excess of his development in ability to direct the product of his efforts into right and constructive channels! Did God Make Man So Destructive? why did God put man on this earth? Did the Creator design and make man as he is — with such tremendous intellect and powers, yet so destructive, and so helpless before all his problems?
It may come as a shock to learn the real purpose for human existence. But read with your own eyes Scriptures overlooked or rejected — yet truth that has been there all along!
CHAPTER 2: Creation Not Complete
One of the very first things we need to realize, that has been overlooked in the Bible. The first man’s creation was not completed! The first chapter of Genesis called the “creation” chapter actually does not record the completed creation at all! Man’s creation was not finished! Be sure you understand what was created, as revealed in Genesis 1, was the PHYSICAL creation — the physical man and woman — with which to create the SPIRITUAL creation!
The Bible plainly reveals this. What God actually is creating in the human family is the crowning, supreme masterpiece. And that will be when finished, BILLIONS of humans converted into perfect spiritual characters! The spiritual creation is still in progress!
God is composed of spirit, not of physical matter. John 4:24. But nowhere does the Bible say man is a spirit. Nowhere in the Bible can you find the expression “immortal soul,” or “immortality of the soul.” In Genesis 1, animals are called souls — that is, Moses used the word nephesh which in Genesis 2:7 is translated into the English word “soul,” while in Genesis 1:20, 21, 24 it is three times translated “creature.
Actually, there exist, overall, only two basic ways of life — two divergent philosophies. They travel in opposite directions. One is the way of give — the other of get. It is the God centered way, of love toward God and love toward neighbor.
The opposite is the self-centered way of vanity, lust and greed; of competition and strife; envy, jealousy and unconcern for the welfare of others. Few realize this vital fact: The give way is actually a spiritual law in motion. It is summarized, in principle, by the Ten Commandments.
CHAPTER 3: The Cause of Peace and Happiness
It is a law as real as the law of gravity. It governs and regulates all human relationships! why should it seem incongruous that the Creator of all matter, force and energy, the Creator of the laws of physics and chemistry, gravity and inertia — should also have created and set in motion this spiritual law to cause every good result for us?
If the Creator is a God of love, a God of all power — could He possibly have done otherwise? Could He have neglected to provide a way to produce peace, happiness, prosperity, successful lives? There has to be a cause for every effect. If there is to be peace, happiness, prosperity, something must cause it! God could not be God without providing a cause for every desired good.
In love for those He created, God also set in motion this spiritual law to provide the cause of every good result? God forbad Adam and Eve to choose to have knowledge of good and evil, under penalty of death! Why? Because He wanted them to choose the way of every desired good —because He wanted them to avoid causing evils, sorrows, pains, suffering, unhappiness. Therefore, taking this fruit was symbolic of transgressing God’s Spiritual law! To have taken of the tree of life was merely symbolic of receiving the gift of God’s Spirit, the love of God (Romans 5:5) which fulfills this Spiritual Law (Romans 13:10 ) and which God gives only to those who obey His Law. Acts 5: 32.
The CAUSE of World’s Evils
A just God could not have warned the first humans of the death penalty without having fully revealed to them the Spiritual Law — the Law codified as the Ten Commandments — the transgression of which carried that penalty. Remember, the details are not written here — only the highly condensed overall summary of what God taught them.
So God had explained fully to Adam and Eve His way of life— the “give way” — His Spiritual law. God had already set in motion the law that causes all good. He had explained also the way that causes evils – the transgression of that Law — else He could not have told them that for transgression they would pay the penalty — death. More clearly stated, God gave man his own choice. He could choose to cause every good and live forever. Or, he could choose to cause evils. It is humanity, not God that cause all the evils that befall us. The choice is our’s. What we sows, he reap.
Yet here’s the crucial point: It was necessary for them to take his word for it— the Spiritual Law is as invisible as the laws of gravity and inertia! They could not see this Law. But God had told them the way of good, and the way of evil. Now come to Chapter 3 in Genesis. “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Eternal God had made” (verse 1).
Much of the Bible is in symbols — but the Bible explains its own symbols. It is very out-of-date to believe in Satan today, but the Bible plainly speaks of one named Satan. In Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, the symbol serpent is plainly explained .
The Subtle Temptation
Satan subtly went first to the woman. He got to the man through his wife. "And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die: for God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be (margin) God, knowing good and evil’” (verses 1-5) It is God who determine what is right and what is breaking His law. God has not delegated to us the right or power to decide what is sin — but He compels us to decide whether to break or obey His Law.
To rightly determine what is good required the creative power to produce and set in motion such laws as this Spiritual Law and the laws of physics and chemistry — a law which automatically causes good if obeyed, and evil when disobeyed! Adam and Eve had only God’s word that they could die. Satan disputed this. He said they were immortal souls and could live forever. Who should they believe? They had no proof, except God’s word. But Satan discredited that and claimed the opposite. He said their intellectual powers were so great they could determine for themselves what is good and what is evil. “You can be God”!.
Satan was appealing to their human vanity. Remember, they had just been created, with perfect human minds. Not God minds but perfect human minds. They allowed the thought to enter their minds that they possessed intellectual powers so great that they could assume the God-prerogative of producing the knowledge of what is good and what is evil! Intellectual vanity seized them! They were thrilled, enthralled, intoxicated with vanity at the grand prospect. How, after all, could they be sure God had told them the truth?
The First Scientific Experiment
They saw (verse 6) they used observation — that the forbidden tree was good for food. Intellectual vanity caused them to use human reason. They decided to reject what God had told them and made the very first scientific experiment. They took to themselves the prerogative of deciding what is good, and what is evil. In so doing, they rejected the God-centered way of God’s Spiritual Law, and, they chose the way that transgresses it!
They decided for themselves what is right and what is wrong! And humanity has been doing what seems right in its own eyes ever since. And how did they do it? They 1. rejected revelation, 2. used observation, 3. used experimentation, and 4. used human reason. And that is precisely the “scientific” method used by Modern Science today! And the result of that experiment? They died, they produced the first child delinquent, the first criminal and murderer! The most vital dimension of knowledge was missing from their “scientific” procedure!
Much Beyond Human Power to Discover
There is basic and important knowledge beyond the powers of man to discover! Such important knowledge as what man is, why man is, why he was put on earth and for what purpose? And how may we attain it? All nations seek peace, none finds it, they have wars! This world pursues false values!
Those are the most basic and important things man needs to know. He can know them only through revelation from God. Then such knowledge as: how the earth came into existence, when it came into existence, how old it is, how old is human life — the mystery of origins. These questions throught, research and thinking of scientists, philosophers, historians can come up only with theories, hypotheses but no proof, the definite knowledge they could know only from God.
The first humans took to themselves the determination of what is good and what is evil. They rejected the fact that God’s living spiritual Law is the cause of all good and breaking it the cause of all evil. Since they and humanity in general have taken to themselves the determination of what is good, they have followed the way against God’s Law.
They made themselves competitors of God. That is why it is written in Romans 8:7: “The carnal mind is enmity [hostile] against God: for it is not subject to the laws of God, neither indeed can be.”
CHAPTER 4: What Is The Missing Dimension
So what is the missing dimension in all knowledge? Even though rejected by the first humans and mankind in general God revealed basic knowledge. We have it! The Holy Bible contains history, instruction, revelation of basic knowledge, and prophecy. It does not contain all knowledge. It contains that basic, foundational knowledge otherwise inaccessible to man!
What is wrong with knowledge production today? The most vital dimension is missing! Error generally comes from assuming a false premise, taken carelessly for granted without proof, and building on that premise. And when the basic premise is false, the entire structure built upon it topples with it!
The tools of Modern Science are observation, experimentation, and reason. Are those tools wrong? Not at all! The error comes from rejection what God had written, for this is the true starting premise. When man substitutes his own false hypothesis, the most vital dimension in the knowledge production is missing! God’s instruction manual for mankind is the foundation of all knowledge. It is not the sum-total of knowledge. It is the starting point that directs the approach to the acquisition of further knowledge.
Man SHOULD Produce Knowledge
God intended for man to produce additional knowledge. He gave us the basis — the foundation, the premise, the concept. But He also provided us with eyes to observe. With means to produce laboratories, test-tubes, means of experimentation. He gave us awesome minds with which to think. If a plane from Singapore destined for Manila starts off in the wrong direction, it might land in India instead of the right destination. It is just as important to start off in the right direction, from the true premise, with the right approach in knowledge production.
God intended man to use observation, experimentation, and human reason. He supplied us with the basis, the foundation, the start in the right direction, with the right concept. But our first parents rejected the most vital dimension in all knowledge. And the world has continued to reject the very foundation of all knowledge. Knowledge production has been operating without a foundation based on false premises and erroneous hypotheses.
That is the reason human knowledge production has failed to solve humanity’s problems. Manufacturers of mechanical or electrical appliances send along an instruction manual with their product. The Bible is our Maker’s Instruction Manual which He has sent along with the product of His making — humanity. Six thousand years of human misery, unhappiness and evils ought to provide sufficient proof for those willing to see, that humanity rejected the most vital dimension.
Compelled to Choose
Creation Is Still Going On. The first man was freely offered the opportunity to live forever. He was compelled to make a choice. Had he and of course his wife made the choice to believe God — accept knowledge from God, instead of taking to themselves the determination of the knowledge of what is good and what is evil — they could have taken of the symbolic tree of life and lived forever.
That tree symbolically represented God’s Spirit. Then their creation would have been completed within their lifetime. They would have been changed from physical material composition to being composed of spirit, even as God is! But the first humans rejected basic revelation of knowledge from God, just as humanity has done ever since. They rejected the way God set in motion to cause peace, prosperity, happiness. They limited the acquisition of knowledge to their human minds.
The CAUSE of All Evils
And ever since man has tried to go his own way, governing himself, living the “GET” way, with unconcern for the good of others. Man’s way has resulted in the mountain of evils thorought world history.
This is the explanation of all the illiteracy, the poverty, the disease, the squalor of the world’s majority. This is the explanation of the evils that exist in the “more advanced” and “developed” areas of the world. They have educated but with its missing dimension! Education with no knowledge of the purpose of life. Education that can produce computers, fly men to the moon and back, but cannot solve man’s problems.
And why? Because the problems are spiritual and man has rejected the knowledge of God’s spiritual law’s— the way of life that would cause peace and universal good! But has God left stricken humanity to its fate? By no means God’s spiritual creation is still in progress.
The True Answer to These Questions
The real answer was brought out by Job. “If a man die, shall he live again?” Job asked — and answered: “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. You shall call, and I will answer you: you will have a desire to the work of your hands.”Job 14:14 -15. This is the key. Job knew he was the work of God’s hands.
We Are God’s Workmanship
The Prophet Isaiah explains this also: “But now, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand.”Isa. 64:8. In the resurrection, God is having a desire to finish the work of His hands. The model from which the finished spiritual product is to be molded.
In the creation of Genesis 1, God formed and shaped man physically, into God’s image. But we do not, as humans, have the spiritual character of the perfect God. During this lifetime, for those God calls, if they respond, God begins to reform and shape us spiritually, while we become more and more like Him in spiritual character. For this purpose, God has marked out a duration of SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS! Each 24-hour day of the Genesis 1 creation, was a type of the seven millennial days of the spiritual creation.
Except for those God specially and individually calls, for the first six millennial days, God leaves man to learn his lesson in human experience. Man made the chaos of relying on himself under influence of Satan. God is allowing man to demonstrate beyond question his helplessness without God’s Spirit to live in a way that produces peace and happiness. Or, the parallel: God is allowing Satan six thousand years of deception and evil. And on that seventh 1000 years — he shall be imprisoned, while Christ brings truth and saves the world-both physically and spiritually.
What Is Redemption?
So now let’s look briefly at redemption. What is it? “By grace are you saved through faith … for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” .Eph. 2:8-10. Notice, there are good works to salvation. The “we” in New Testament language always means true Christians — those truly converted. We are God’s workmanship now being created to what objective, to what purpose? “Unto good works,”unto perfect spiritual character!
Paul is not speaking of Adam’s creation, six thousand years ago. He is speaking of true Christians, now, being created — unto good works. We are His workmanship — the Creator is still creating, He is molding, changing us to His own righteous, holy, spiritual character. Creating in us this perfect character.
The Purpose of Our Living
But “the god of this world”(II Cor. 4:4) would blind your eyes to that! He tries to deceive you into thinking all there is to it is just “accepting Christ” with “no works” and you’re pronounced “saved.”But the Bible reveals that: “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Matt. 24:13.“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. II Cor. 5:17. Yes a New Creation! “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the new man, which after God is (being) Created in righteousness.” Eph. 4 :23 -24.
It all begins in the mind. Repentance, the first step in ‘salvation’ is a change of mind. Receiving Gods Spirit is a renewing of the mind. Gradually, learning to live by “every Word of God,” being continually corrected, keeping in constant prayer, the mind of God is placed within us. A new holy spiritual character — is being created.
God made us solely out of matter. Jesus said “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”! Then He explained we must be born again to enter into the Kingdom of God. Not again of flesh — we must be born spirit, of God our spiritual Father. If in this life our thinking and our ways are changed until we really do become as God would have it, we are finally turned into a finished spiritual product.
Begins and Ends in Christ
This entire creation begins in Christ, and is finished by Him. God created all things by Jesus Christ. Eph. 3:9. Jesus was the workman, then who created the original Adam? But our spiritual creation begins in Him too. He became our living Example who came into the world to lead the way and became the firstborn. Romans 8:29. The first completed, perfected spiritual man.
Christ Is Alive
Now we come to the ultimate PURPOSE of human life on the earth. It is beyond the capacity, perhaps, for many to grasp. But see it, with your own eyes in the Bible! Each year, on the Sunday called “Easter,” millions celebrate the resurrection of Christ. But how many believe He has been alive ever since? How many know what He has been doing these past 1900 years ?
The entire Book of Hebrews is devoted to telling us what He has been doing and what He is doing now, and what He will do in the future. Begin at the beginning — chapter 1, verse 1: “God… has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds ….”
The all things refers to the entire universe! Moffatt translation. Continuing the same sentence, “… that “express image” as “stamped with God’s own character… and upholding all things by the word of His power …” verses 2-3. In other words, God, the Father of the Kingdom of God which is the Family of God — has appointed the resurrected living Jesus Christ, His Son, as Chief Executive in the administration of the Government of God over the earth and the entire vast universe!
Several times, in the Bible, converted Christians having God’s Spirit, are called heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Rom. 8:17 ; Gal. 3:29 ; 4:7; Titus 3:7,etc. Could that mean we are appointed to share that rulership of the entire vast universe with Christ? Hebrews 2:6, quoting from Psalms 8:4-6: the question is asked: “What is man, that you art mindful of him? ”What is there about man that God should be concerned about him?
What are You that God should be concerned about You? Notice the incredible answer.
"You made him a little lower than the angels…” who are composed of spirit (see chapter 1:5-7, 13,14). Continue, verse 7: “… you crowned him with glory and honour, and set him over the works of your hands: you have put all things in subjection under his feet… He put all in subjection under him. verse 8.
In chapter 1, quoted above, “all things” is also translated “the universe.” Could it mean God has put the entire vast universe under man? That has been too fantastic for even theologians to believe! But notice the last sentence in that verse: “But now we see not yet all things put under him.”
CHAPTER 5: Inheriting the Universe
God has not yet put the vastness of the universe under man’s control. Not while we are still human! Man has so far proved he is incapable of even governing himself, here on the earth! No, we don’t see man yet in such fantastic power.
But what do we see now? Verse 9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels …” like we are now “… for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor" as explained in the first chapter, the executive ruler over the universe "… that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things …”God created everything by Jesus Christ. Eph. 3:9 “… in bringing many sons unto glory…" verse 10.
In bringing many sons unto glory.” We humans who repent, come to believe God, believe what He says, believe what He reveals, believe the knowledge He reveals to us, now, through the Bible instead of rejecting knowledge from Him as most in science and higher education do. We are the sons He is bringing to perfection.
How Christ Was Made Perfect
The pioneer, who has gone on ahead, before us. He already has inherited all things — the universe! But notice further: “to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering! And notice, in verse 11: “… He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” He was the first human ever to achieve it — to be perfected.
Jesus learned, He suffered! But out of it came perfection? Satan did not upset God’s Plan. All that has happened, God foreknew. He is creating something higher than angels or archangels. He is creating the supreme masterpiece of all God’s creation … holy, perfect spiritual characters.
What Spiritual Righteous Character Is
Perfect character, such as God is creating in us will be a person finally made ready to live forever, who is a separate entity from God; who, through independent free choice has come to know, and to choose to do what is right. And that means to believe and know that what God instructs is what is right. Great planets, some many times larger than the earth, must travel in God’s ordained course. These things are marvelous examples of the creative power of God. Yet these things are inanimate — they have no mind, no free choice, no character.
Character is the possession and practice of love, patience, mercy, faith, kindness, gentleness, meekness, temperance, self-restraint, and right self-direction. Character involves knowledge, wisdom, purpose, ability, all properly controlled and developed, and through independent choice. Holy, righteous character is something that is developed only through experience. And so God creates time and God creates circumstances which produce character.
God first formed out of the dust, out of matter, the flesh-and-blood man, in the image of God, “image” means form, or shape, not composition. And through seven thousand years of experience, God is taking the human family through a process, the results of which, even “as we have borne the image of the earthy (man), we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” —like Jesus Christ living forever, the “second” Adam. I Cor. 15:49. Once fashioned, shaped, molded according to God’s Purpose, even we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. I John 3:1-2.
Return to Chapters
CHAPTER 6: Why All This Human Suffering
There are just two broad principles of life, God’s way, God’s law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, and Satan’s way of competition, greed, vanity. All suffering all unhappiness, fear, misery and death has come from the breaking of God’s Law. Living by the law of love is the only way to peace and happiness.
God placed man on this planet to learn that lesson, to learn it through generations of experience. God’s true way has always been available to man. But man given the right of free choice, always has turned his back on God and God’s true way. And even though man as a whole still refuses to see or learn the lesson, he has written this lesson in the history of human experience. We learn through experience. And through suffering. This is the very stuff of which character is made.
What We Shall Be Like
Once this godly character is developed in us, what shall we be like in the resurrection. Notice in your Bible: “… now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be …” I John 3:2. What we shall be is not now apparent — Continue, “… but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” Our appearance, then, will be like that of Christ now!
And what does Christ look like now? His appearance is described in Revelation 1:14-16: “His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters “and His countenance was as the sun shins in his strength" …
But once actually entering into His Kingdom. His FAMILY, by the resurrection or by being changed, we shall be composed of spirit. We shall be like Christ now is. “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; …and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”1John 3:9. As Christ was born of God by His resurrection (Romans 1:3-4), so shall we be. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn of many brethren.” Rom. 8:29.
At that time we shall be changed “For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from where also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body …” Phil. 3:20-21. Do you begin to comprehend why you were born? How amazing is the TRUTH! Return to Chapters
CHAPTER 7: Understanding Why You Were Born
The purpose of life is that in us God is reproducing Himself — at the time of the resurrection we shall be instantaneously changed, composed of Spirit— actually born into the God FAMILY! Remember, the word “God” in Genesis 1:1, comes to us from the Hebrew word Elohim. Elohim means one God, not many gods. But that One God is a Family, a Kingdom. There is only one true Church but many members. I Cor. 12:20. So it is with God.
The purpose of your being alive is that finally you will be born into the Kingdom of God which is the Family of God. When you fully grasp this tremendous truth it gives a new meaning to life, your eyes will be opened, you’ll see the meaning of life, its great purpose, as you never dreamed it could be.
Return to Chapters
Return to Library
Summary, Herbert Armstrong, Free Library Copy
In accordance with Sec 107 of Chapter 1 of Title 17 of US Copyright Law, this material is distributed without charge or other commercial interest for the purposes of comment, teaching, scholarship and review.
U.S. British Future, P.O. Box 4877, Oceanside, Ca. 92052. U.S.A.
AmericaAndBritainsFuture.com also US-BritishFuture.com