(originally posted 09-22-2022)
Bear with me during the first part of this, as it will seem a little like classwork of a sort, but it is necessary to properly illustrate our subject. If you have your schoolbook – the Bible! – handy, please do follow along.
Genesis 1:4 – And God saw the light, that it was good [2896]: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:31 – And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very[3966] good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Good[H2896]
Very[H3966]
Perfect[H8549]
תּמים tâmîym taw-meem’
without blemish, complete, without spot, undefiled, whole.
Rooted in [H8552] tâmam taw-mam’
come to the full, be all here, be (make) perfect
Perfect[8003]
shâlêm shaw-lame’
just, peaceable, quiet
Perfect[H8535]
tâm tawm
morally pious, upright.
The word “perfect” only appears twice in the entire book of Genesis, while “good” appears more than 40 times in that same book. And, in about half of the accepted translations available to us, “perfect” isn’t used at all, but is replaced by “blameless”…which makes more sense in those cases anyway, as we know from the Bible that strive as we will, we will not be “perfected” in this life, but in the next, and it is this context that it is used in the verses quoted.
How many times have you heard a pastor, evangelist, or theologian of some sort or other claim that Adam was perfect? That at the time of his creation, Adam, Eve, and the Garden were absolutely perfect? Have you ever heard Eden described this way? I have countless times.
And there are still others who extrapolate that belief so much further, that they claim that Adam could speak things into existence, even life itself, just as God Almighty does right up until the moment he sinned and fell from grace.
If you haven’t heard that idea before now, you may be looking at this writing with your mouth askew and eyebrows raised, wondering just how the heck does anybody think that?
You may think it is a very extreme position, on the absolute fringes of Christian theology, but ultimately it isn’t that far removed from what many have been taught to believe, and the so-called perfection of Adam is at the root of this thinking, a root which grows out beyond this point even until it reaches a point where folks will espouse that once we are glorified and in Heaven along with Christ and the Father, that WE will not only be perfected, BUT, will be…as God is. That we will in effect be actual (not adopted) brothers of Christ ourselves, and will be for lack of a better term: Little Gods.
Brothers and sisters, this is simply not so. In fact, if we look at the entire concept from a distance, and we set aside whatever glasses of color towards our favor we wear, and are willing to call a spade a spade, what this belief amounts to, is nothing less than blasphemy.
God’s word teaches us over and over again, that there is only ONE God, the Creator and Ruler of all that exists. There have never been any other actual gods of any kind, and there will never be any other gods of any kind. Godhood, Diety, call it what you like, it’s very definition (as best we can grasp with finite minds) precludes there ever being multiple gods; if there were so much as ONE being in all of Creation who could in any way, shape or form, challenge our God, then our God would not be – He COULD NOT be – God.
Are there lesser beings with great power, powers and abilities that are so far beyond our reach, that many of us would refer to them as “God-like”? Certainly! We can fairly say that so far as has ever been revealed to us, Satan, is the most powerful being in existence – EXCEPT as pertains to God Himself. Yet, he speaks nothing into existence, and is only able to pervert what God has already created.
As powerful as Lucifer is, and he is truly so much more powerful than the modern world has been mis-taught to believe of him being, next to YAHWEH, he is NOTHING! The Devil is no more than a speck of sand in an expanding universe of endless beachfront property!
I’ve had many conversations in life where my thrust is to impart the understanding that WE, humankind, ALL of us put together are nothing more than a mote against the Infinite, and while Beelzebub, the Worm, or whatever appellation you prefer to use, is far more “powerful” than any of us, he remains as utterly insignificant compared to the King of all Kings, as the flint of a disposable lighter does against the largest star in the universe.
Adam was created very good, not perfect – and when we are glorified and step into eternity with our God, we will remain creations of God, perfected servants forever proclaiming the glory of the Lord. We will never become “little gods” any more than we will die and become angels. When we’ll be as we’ve always been intended to be, we will be all we were created to be, and we will be forever in eternity with our great God, but we will never be “gods” ourselves. To think so, is the foulest idolatry – the epitome of the worship of ourselves above the worship of God that we have all struggled with since we first polluted the Garden.
Exodus 20:3 states “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Adam was very good, and the second Adam, Jesus Christ IS perfect, something which we all should be grateful for, as it is only because He IS God that any of us has the chance to escape the eternal suffering of separation from God in Hell.
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