WHY GOD MADE MEN

CHAPTER I

THE INCARNATE TRINITY

EN are the only natural beings in which there is the consciousness of right and wrong, the knowledge of good and evil. The entrance of

the moral emotions into the creature was by

Jehovah breathing his life into Adam. Adam was an upright natural grower with divine life in him. In poetic license Moses styled him a tree of knowledge of good and evil, and emphasizing his divinity, spoke of him as a tree of life. 1The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Though Moses spoke of Adam as a tree, the figure of speech was clearly marked, for he spoke of all the trees which were plants as being planted, or growing out of the ground, but the tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not spoken of as being planted, nor as growing out of the ground.

The history of the six days before the creation of Adam, was made up of clashing elements, and the doings of savage beasts, but this the seventh, the age of man, is for the sanctification of the creature into the life of God. Some say the Babylonians divided time into seven days for a week, before the time of Moses. However this may be, it is true that the Babylonians held there were six days in which the gods might indulge in evil passions, but on the seventh, they must rest

'Gen. 2:9.

from anger; consequently mortals were forbidden to do on the seventh day, any thing that might disturb the wicked passions of the gods. If the division of time into seven days for a week was older than Moses, then he took an old and probably familiar form of dividing time, and filled it with divine truths about the creation, instead of heathen superstitions.

The first six days of the creation were unhallowed, and of their work Moses speaks of God as Elohim. This is the title which Israel used when conversing with their heathen neighbors about the power behind the universe; but when describing the creation of Adam, he adds the name referring to his moral character, his holiness, Jehovah the God, or as our translation has it the Lord God.

Adam was in full power of what a man can reach this side of a glorified body. The morning of the human race opened with the strong light of day shining on a little spot called Eden, revealing the unlimited dominion of the divine life in man over the creature. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, commanding everything in the power of life everlasting.

Children inherit from their parents bodies with tendencies to diseases, and spirits with depraved inclinations. Adam's body was in clean animal vigor from the beasts of the field, and his spiritual life was breathed into him immediately from Jehovah. No iniquities of parents were visited upon him. The divine life in Adam had such dominion over him, the natural passions were hushed, and the generation of life from him to another must be through the holiness of his divine life. Eve was not begotten by animal generation, but by the holiness of the spirit in Adam. Jehovah the God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he took out one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which Je

hovah the God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her to the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Animal life is in the dual character of male and female. It was not good for man to be alone. The human race could not have been perfect high priests to nature had they not represented both the males and the females. In the human race there is more in the association of the opposite sex than the reproduction of their kind, and this is emphasized as the spiritual life is quickened. The associations of Adam and Eve before their fall were the communion of spirits living in the opposite poles of the flesh. The movements which have been for the uplifting of the race have not been by men alone nor by women alone, but by men and women working side by side. It was Moses and Miriam who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, dividing the waters of the Red Sea, triumphing over Pharoah and his hosts. Jesus was a man, but he wrought his great miracles in the presence of women. His beginning of miracles at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, was in answer to the anxiety of his mother. The widow's son of Nain was restored to life and given back to his mother who was standing beside the bier. Mary and Martha were with Jesus when he called Lazarus their brother from the tomb. It is recorded that Mary was the first at the sepulchre, and the first to meet the risen Lord. May it not have been that by sympathy of her approach, completing humanity, he awoke from death, and the first she saw him, he was standing at her side? Male and female created he them, and so being, they were able to feel every emotion of natural life, to be touched with the feelings of its infirmities; tempted

'Gen. 2:23.