We are going to begin in Genesis. At the end of the recreation week, it says that:
I think it is good to note that mankind was not perfect, but we were very good. It does say in the context that mankind was created very good for the purpose - this has to be understood - God was going to carry out. This also tends to indicate something about Satan as well, and that is that he is not necessary to God's purpose. He is here - we have to deal with him - but he is not necessary to God's purpose.
Since we know that he is going to be confined to the abyss, to the pit - he is symbolically chained during the Millennium and God's purpose is going to be carried out during the Millennium - we then understand that God is able to carry through with His purpose of reproducing Himself without Satan around. You might say it is an added bonus for us to have to deal with Satan. Because this added bonus is here, I think the rewards are going to be greater as well.
God therefore not only created us mortal, but He also created us with a spiritual capacity. In fact, understanding this in the light of Genesis 1, we can begin to understand another angle why He used the term very good and that is that we were incomplete. We were good as far as we went, but there was much more to come. We were incomplete because we understand from other parts of the Bible that man needs another spirit joining with his spirit so that he can then have the capacity to make use of, to see, to comprehend spiritual things as well as the things of a man.
Again remember Genesis 1:31 - God Himself said that we were very good. This is an expression of pleasure. He was pleased with what He had accomplished. If we were very good when He created us, then that must include the nature He created us with.
Does God take pleasure in a nature that is enmity against Him (Romans 8:7)? I do not think He would take pleasure in that at all, which indicates very strongly that as He created us and as we are born, we do not have the nature that we later come to have that is enmity against Him. It is something that develops. And it develops because God put a spirit in us that other spirits, either God Himself or the spirit of this world, is able to communicate with.
If the spirit that He is talking about in Genesis 1:31 was very good, then why has human history been a recording of violence, disease, anguish of spirit? Why is there so much bitterness, anger, prejudice, resentment, doubt, self-pity, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, pride, and lust? Can you find anywhere in God's Word that these are called good or even acceptable?
Those things did not come from God. He did not create us that way. God is love. God is kind. God is generous. God is good. God is merciful. I think that we can honestly conclude that they did not come from man either as he was created by God, because God judged man to be very good. Yet, mankind expresses these very attributes.
Again, would something God pronounced very good produce what we see? I think then that we can reach the conclusion that they must have come from the spirit of this world. They must have come from Satan who is invisible, soundless, but is able to communicate with us.
Before we go too far here, let us not be deceived into thinking that God does not want us to have satisfaction in life, but rather that human nature, aided by Satan, very easily gets out of control and it goes beyond the bounds of righteous standards. God wants satisfaction to be produced in a different way from what human nature employs. There is the problem. I think that sex is an area where this principle should be able to be very easily seen. God created it, and within the principle of Genesis 1:31, He said It's very good. It is to be used both for reproduction and the binding of a marriage into an evermore closely, intimate, loving, pleasurable, and satisfying way, as each partner gives and serves the other.
Sex is intended by God for marriage only. However, as we can see from the world around us, if a person (man or woman, or both) does not have a strong sense of obligation to either the mate or to God, or to the promises given when taking vows, or of God's laws, or of his personal relationship with Christ, sex and its use can very easily get out of control. When people seek only their own pleasure in the use of it, then the self-satisfaction becomes a destroyer of marriage and family life, the stability of community, and above all our relationship with God.
Pay attention to this statement: Their teaching regarding redemption is that man is a prisoner in this evil material world. It is important to understand this. What does God's Word say? Here is God's own statement regarding His Creation:
Not evil! God said it is very good. You can begin to see already that these Gnostics, in their beliefs, were not in harmony with God's Word. They did not believe God. They believed the material creation was evil, but God said that it is very good. Hang on to that.
They are already off on the wrong foot, and this very greatly affected their approach to life.
In order to escape this through redemption - and that is interesting, too, because the earth is our inheritance but they wanted to escape it; they had everything mixed up - the Gnostic must be given secret knowledge by a redeemer, which enables him to propitiate the evil spirits who are on guard at a series of gates that lead from this evil world to the realm of light - heaven. (We are not going to heaven either.) You can see that they did not believe the Old Testament, because it is very plain that the promise to Abraham was to inherit the earth.
