But that’s not the plan God had throughout the ages! He doesn’t just want to keep people out of hell. His plan is to have a family. He wants spiritual sons and daughters He can fellowship with on His own level who will do His will on earth as it’s done in heaven. He wants sons and daughters who will walk in His BLESSING and reign in this life just like He would if He were here in full manifestation.
Only One Restriction
That’s been God’s will from the very beginning. It’s what He had in His heart when He created Adam and put him in the Garden of Eden. As Genesis 1:27-28 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion….”
By making Adam in His image, God made Adam as much like Himself as it was possible for Adam to be. He clothed him in divine glory and breathed into his spirit His own zoe, eternal life. Adam looked like God, inside and out. He had the same power in his spirit that God had. He had authority on earth just as God had authority in heaven. God gave him dominion and put the rulership of earth into his hands.
The only restriction God put on Adam was this: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Even after giving him that command, however, God let Adam choose. He let him decide whether or not he would obey.
God didn’t force Adam to do anything because He didn’t want him to be a slave. He wanted him to be a son. He wanted him to serve God of his own free will and to only know good and never know evil. But Adam made the wrong choice. He sinned. He disobeyed God, bowed his knee to the devil, and opened the door to spiritual death. He lost THE BLESSING and the glory of God, brought the curse upon all mankind, and let the devil steal God’s family.
How did God respond? He immediately went to work to get His family back! Right there in the Garden of Eden He said to the serpent, the devil, who had tempted Eve, “Because you have done this, you are cursed…. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:14-15, "New King James Version").
From that moment, God began working toward the day when He could once again have sons and daughters on earth who were made in His image and filled with His glory. That was His plan. It was His will, and because He never changes, even though it would cost Him a dear price, He intended to see it come to pass.
BVOV : 29
