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The search for Blessed Time, part 1

When God created the heavens and the earth, He created time as well, dividing it into segments of sevens. Everything functioned according to God’s calendar on Blessed Time until Adam sinned. His sin brought God’s curse upon the ground and upon all who were under the authority of the ground itself.

Let me explain.

God cursed the ground for Adam’s sake (Genesis 3:17 KJV). Few understand the implications of this. They see this only in terms of Adam’s responsibility for the problems that arose thereafter. First and foremost, the ground was affected because it was under Adam’s authority. When leaders sin, their sin affects all those who are under their authority.

But at the same time, the ground also fulfilled the role of an intercessor. An intercessor is one who pays for the sin of someone else. The ground was made responsible for at least a portion of Adam’s sin. In this way, the judgment upon Adam was shared, as the ground took part of the load, and this reduced the effects of sin insofar as Adam was concerned.

It appears that all of the pre-flood patriarchs remained on Blessed Time, even though the earth itself was on Cursed Time.

Adam still became mortal, but he did not die immediately. Neither was Adam placed on Cursed Time, for then he may have died at the age of 414 or 828. Instead, he died at 930 (Genesis 5:5). The ground, on the other hand, “died,” as it were, 1,656 years later (4 x 414 years) when the flood came. Those who were “earthy,” being identified with the earth that had taken the curse, lost their breath of life in the flood, because they had not sought to be heavenly creatures who would obtain grace.

So Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:47,

⁴⁷ The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

This spoke primarily of Adam and Jesus, but it also speaks of our flesh and our spirit. Our flesh is “from the earth, earthy.” Adam’s name literally means “earthy.” Our “earthy” identity, which is derived from Adam, gives us no reason to glory, for it is part of the first Adam. Those who lived in the days of Noah died in the flood precisely because they were identified with Adam, rather than with the second man, Christ. They were earthy, not heavenly.

Likewise, today, we who live in a time that is likened to “the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37) must become heavenly creatures by being begotten by the Spirit, in order to avoid the judgment that again is coming upon the earth. In other words, we need a change of identity, so that we can say (with Paul), that the earthy body which sins is “no more I” (Romans 7:20 KJV). We must disavow the earthy in order to obtain a greater identity as a son of God.

This is how we may find grace, even as Noah did (Genesis 6:8). Those who claim benefits through the first Adam—or any other form of earthy flesh, such as Israel, Judah, or one of the tribes—will also share in the divine judgment coming upon all flesh. The only advantage of being a fleshly Israelite is that they were entrusted with the oracles of God (Romans 3:1, 2). They were the first to receive the law and were the first to understand the revelation of God by which they might learn the nature of the New Covenant and the promises of God.

The Earth Gives Birth

In the end, the earth did indeed bring forth the Son of God, just as Egypt had brought forth the firstborn son of God under Moses (Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1). Likewise, the birthing of the sons of God occurred through tribulation (pain in childbirth). So, too, Egypt “died” in childbirth while bringing forth God’s firstborn son, Israel.

Even Rachel died bringing forth Benjamin (Genesis 35:18). Benjamin had two names: Ben-oni, “son of my sorrow” and Benjamin, “son of my right hand.” This prophesied of Jesus, who came the first time as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and the second time as the One who ascended to the Father, who “seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:20).

The same pattern must be fulfilled in the sons of God, for those who follow in His footsteps are also raised up and enthroned “with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).

The lesson here shows that the flesh must die in order to give birth to the sons of God. Hence, we must be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) in order to partake of His resurrection life. The earth itself must also undergo a form of death in order for heaven to come to earth in fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6:10.

Throughout past generations, only a few have actually learned the secret of grace, but in the ages to come, the Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh, until the earth is “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). This is the second flood that is coming, a flood of the Holy Spirit, which, though patterned after Noah’s flood, is no longer literal on account of God’s covenant in Genesis 9:9-11.

In our time, this flood will have positive results in contrast to the results of Noah’s flood. Noah’s flood removed the breath (ruach, “spirit”) of life from all flesh (Genesis 7:22). The greater flood in our time, likened to the days of Noah, puts the Spirit back into all flesh (Joel 2:28), not all at once, but incrementally over time.

Saving the Earth

The earth will ultimately fulfill its calling and purpose. God’s own reputation is on the line here. Is He sovereign enough to do this? Is His will more powerful than the will of the flesh? We believe so. However, when He put a curse on the earth, His will was delayed for thousands of years. This delay did not take God by surprise, of course, but it did make apparent the distinction between His will and His plan.

God’s will is set forth in the law itself, which sets forth the nature of God and the standard of perfection. In other words, it is God’s will that we not sin, and “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Because “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), all have broken the law and violated God’s will. But God foreknew all sin as well as righteous acts and took account of this when He drew the blueprint for history. He foreknew, because He had predestinated all things (Romans 8:29).

Hence, Paul uses two Greek words to describe God’s will and His plan. His will is thelema (Romans 2:18); His plan is boulema. (Romans 9:19). God’s thelema is everywhere resisted; but of God’s boulema, Paul asks rhetorically, “who resists His will?” (that is, His boulema). The context of this question shows that Pharaoh had been raised up by God to resist the will of God, and in his resistance, he was unable to resist God’s overall plan.

This is a hard word for most people, and this is usually “explained away,” watering it down to a more palatable form. But the word of God will be fulfilled, regardless of how many people are unable to agree with it. In fact, the only reason God’s boulema is difficult to understand in Romans 9 is because they have not first understood the love of God in Romans 5.

When we truly understand how “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), and when we comprehend the promise of God through the New Covenant, we see how men like Pharaoh were not predestined to be lost forever but to be saved in the end by the same promise of God. For a more in-depth discussion on this, see my book, The Problem of Evil.

The salvation of all and the reconciliation of all things, based on the promise of God, requires many steps from start to completion. The main fulcrum is, of course, Christ’s death and resurrection that is set forth in Scripture. This event secured the promises made earlier throughout the Old Testament. It secured the fact and the inevitability of universal salvation, but the outworking of the plan required a second work of Christ and still more in the ages to come.

The full end will not be seen until Creation’s Jubilee, which, I believe, will occur after 49,000 years. We are currently near the end of the first six days (6,000 years) of Adamic history. The thousand years ahead is the first great Sabbath “day,” where a long “day” is as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).

After this “week,” I believe that we will have another six “weeks” (42,000 years) of judgment until finally God declares the great jubilee for all creation. The law of Jubilee limits all judgment by the love and grace of God, according to His nature, for God is love. This allows God to be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).