Chapter 3.
Before Adam Existed,
The Trinity Embraced
Jesus’ Plan For Mankind.
When Jesus was living among the Jews, they frequently offered sin-sacrifices to cleanse their souls. They had been taught, “Sinning stains the soul.” They knew that persons with sin-stained souls could never ascend to Heaven. They didn’t want to suffer forever in Hell. So, they were determined to keep their souls clean.
If a man felt he must cleanse his soul, he would take a lamb without blemish to the fiery altar on the Temple grounds in Jerusalem. A priest would tell him to place his hands on the head of the animal and have him ask God to transfer his sins to it. Then, the priest would slit the throat of the lamb, and as it bled out, the priest would catch some of its blood in a brass vessel and sprinkle the blood around the base of the altar. Next, the priest would roast the edible parts of the lamb. A portion of the meat would go to the priests who were manning the altar. The rest would go back to the man who had brought the sacrifice victim. While that man ate the meat, he would thank God that as the lamb, bearing his sins, had died, his soul had been cleansed.
According to the Sacred Writings of the Jews, the sinful man deserved to die and drop into Hell. Instead, a lamb had died in his place. Because the lamb was substituted for the man, this ceremony became known as a “vicarious” sin-sacrifice.
An observer, who knew nothing of the Jewish religion, would have had many questions dogging his mind. Where and when did this ritual of forgiveness originate? Why is there an altar here? Why are the priest and the penitent man certain that this procedure actually cleansed the sinner’s soul?
The Bible gives us answers. To explain them, we imagine the following conversation, voiced by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It is highly speculative, since we mortals cannot know the mind of the Almighty, Triune God. But, hopefully, it helps us understand the issues that pertained to the creation of mankind and the need for vicarious sin-sacrifices engendered thereby.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Consider Creating Mankind.
In the magnificent, glittering Throne Room of Heaven, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit discuss the possibility of creating mankind. Many thoughts float among the Three in One.
~ The Son ~
Let’s make mankind! ... men and women ... make them the highest of the creatures on Earth ... make them of flesh and blood ... with a body very much like mine ... with a spirit and a soul ... place them in a dangerous and troubled setting on Earth, where Satan and the other wicked angels will soon be sent ... and, give each of them a “free will” ... They will be tested, thoroughly ... Those of them who choose to live righteously and worship Us, We will welcome into Heaven when they die ... They will be excellent additions to Our Celestial Family ... even surpassing the angels, since they will have chosen to honor Us and pursue Our ways while being buffeted by extreme temptations and troubles.
~ The Trinity ~
We like Your idea! ... These humans will be superb ... We will want every one of them to make it to Heaven ... but, We see a problem ... It’s certain that all of these men and women will sin ... The penalty for sinning is death, followed by eternal incarceration in Hell ... So, if We decide to make these wonderful beings, We must provide a way for them to cleanse themselves of the stains their sins will paint on their souls.
~ The Son ~
I’m so strongly in love with the idea of creating the human race ... I will offer each man and each woman a way to cleanse their souls ... I will leave Heaven, for a season, and be born of a woman ... experience the challenges and temptations humans will face ... and later, as a man, reveal that I am the Son of God clothed in human flesh ... I will teach men and women Our ways ... Many will love My Message, but some will hate it and plot to kill Me, rejecting the fact that I am God, the Son ... Though I will be innocent of the charges they bring against Me, I will allow them to kill Me ... and, We will count My unwarranted death as a “Sin–Sacrifice” ... We will let those who believe in Me and My Message transfer their sins to Me, as I am dying sacrificially, enduring the death sentence each of them will have incurred by sinning ... and, I will give each of those believers Our righteousness ... Then, they will be qualified for citizenship in Heaven.
~ The Trinity ~
That’s an astounding plan! ... That’s love beyond measure! ... That’s amazing grace! ... That’s heroic! ... But, where? when? how? will You die? ... How will men and women know Your Sacrificial Death can erase their sins?
~ The Son ~
Let’s consider what the future will be, if We create the human race ... Let’s choose the perfect moment in history for My vicarious Sacrifice.
What if we teach the first man and woman how to transfer their sins to a lamb? ... have them slay it? ... and offer it to Us on a fiery altar as a vicarious sin-sacrifice? ... and We assure them that this act has erased their sins? They will teach the necessity of sin-sacrifices to their offspring ... As human history unfolds, believers, world-wide, will use this practice to cleanse their souls ... Since lambs will not be available in all of mankind’s cultures, We will make it known that a few other animals, such as cattle, goats and doves, may be used as sacrifice victims.
If, after the Romans conquer Israel, I take the form of a man, and reveal that I am the Son of God in human flesh, thousands of Jews will believe My Message and worship Me and all of Us ... But, wicked Jews and Romans will despise Me ... They will kill Me ... Crucify Me!
~ The Trinity ~
That’s brutal! ... so vicious ... See how some of the Jews and Romans will slug You in the face? ... See how that soldier will whip You with a lash till You faint? ... See the blood flowing from Your wounds? ... See how other Romans will mock You and will pound a crown of thorns into Your skull? ... how they will force You to drag a heavy Cross up to Golgotha? ... how they will drive nails through Your hands and feet to fasten You to the Cross? ... See how Your blood will fall to the rocks below? ... how Your enemies will taunt You? ... It wil be difficult to recognize You after they torture You! ... It’s too much to watch!
~ The Son ~
It’s fitting! ... It’s necessary! ... The believers who transfer their sins to Me will see the awful consequences of sin and the destruction they deserved for sinning ... They will shudder as they consider what would happen to them, if I had not been willing to die in their place ... They will feel immense gratitude toward Me and love Me for taking their punishment.
And, three days later, I will baffle the residents of Israel ... Jews and Romans alike ... I will arise from death! ... My body will be glorified ... restored to its Heavenly form ... I will appear to My followers, showing them what they will be like when they die and ascend to Heaven ... and, I will fix in their minds the fact that I am the “Sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” ... They will see My Crucifixion as the Ultimate Sin-Sacrifice ... They will cease sacrificing animals and place their trust in My Sacrifice ... so perfect it will never need to be repeated ... and, they will know that while I was dying, I gathered all the sins of all believers of all times to Myself and disposed of them ... even the sins they are yet to commit ... From My Crucifixion forward, when believers seek to cleanse their souls, they will return to the Cross in their prayers, confess their sins to Me, and I will forgive their sins and fill them with Our righteousness ... That will make them Heaven-ready.
~ The Trinity ~
There’s an unevenness here ... Before the Cross, believers will shed the blood of animals ... at the Cross, the far more precious blood of You, the Son of God, will be shed ... The blood of goats and sheep and cattle are far inferior to the Blood You will shed.
~ The Son ~
Right ... the sins transferred to animals will be stored ... We will “deem” them to be forgiven, even though they are not fully absolved ... When I am dying on the Cross, those stored sins will be transferred to Me and be completely forgiven ... In fact, the sins of all believers of all times will be laid on Me as I perish.
~ The Trinity ~
What a beautiful, breath-taking plan ... Those animal sacrifices will be bloody ... Your Sacrifice will be bloody, too ... For sure, without the shedding of blood, there will be no forgiveness of sins ... Or, more precisely ... without the shedding of Your precious Blood, there will be no complete remission of sins.
~ The Trinity, in Unison ~
Let’s create mankind!
......
Bible Verses that Suggest
The Foregoing, Imagined Conversation.
...
In The Revelation, Jesus is identified as ...
... the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8b KJV)
Thus, we know that, before men and women were created, the Triune God determined that Jesus must be slain by Crucifixion as the ultimate, vicarious Sin-Sacrifice, so that those who believed in God and made Him the Lord of their lives and worshiped Him would have a way to cleanse their souls and qualify for residency in Heaven.
Peter added these thoughts ...
... you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. (1 Peter 1:18-20 NIV)
...
While Jesus, the Son of God, was standing on Earth among mankind, He spoke the words in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit.” And, certainly, the Holy Spirit is a Spirit. But, the Son of God is different. After His Resurrection, the Gospel writers noted that He looked like a glorified man. And, in the opening chapter of The Revelation, Jesus is depicted as a glorified being, resembling a man. So, it is safe to say that the bodies we humans wear are styled after the form of God, the Son. Beyond that, we have a “likeness” to the Triune God in that we have a “free will” and a “knowledge of good and evil” -- attributes none of the other creatures God made for our world possess. And, clearly, we have dominion over the flora and fauna on Earth. Therefore, the Bible tells us ...
... God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26 KJV)
...
When Jesus created mankind, He gave us three parts: a physical body, a soul (our personality), and a spirit (a combination of conscience and will). Paul prayed for you and me. He said ...
... I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless ...
(1 Thessalonians 5:23 KJV)
...
Mankind lives in a troubled and dangerous world ...
Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering ... (John 16:33a AMP)
...
Currently, Satan and his evil spirits infest our world. Peter warned us, saying ...
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8 KJV)
...
God gave each of us a “free will”. We can choose to worship Him or to ignore Him. He said ...
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
(Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV)
...
The men and women who ascend to Heaven will rank higher than the angels. Paul implied this when he asked the Corinthians ...
Do you not know that we [believers] will judge angels? ... (1 Corinthians 6:3 AMP)
...
God wants every human to make it to Heaven. Paul put it this way in a letter to Timothy ...
[God] ... wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4 NLT)
...
For sure, all men and women sin. Paul stated ...
... everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (Romans 3:23 NLT)
..
The penalty for sinning is spiritual death. If we die physically while we are spiritually dead, we face eternal incarceration in Hell. Paul said ...
... the wages of sin is death ...
(Romans 6:23 KJV)
Here, “wages” refers to a negative reward for negative behavior.
...
Our sins separate us from God, but Paul noted that we can be reconciled to God by the Crucifixion of Christ. He urged the Corinthians to ...
... be reconciled to God. For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us!
(2 Corinthians 5:21 The Living Bible)
...
Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would be the mother of the Messiah ...
... The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
(Luke 1:35 KJV)
...
Jesus experienced the challenges and temptations we face. Speaking of Jesus’ role as the “High Priest” of the Temple in Heaven, the author of Hebrews stated ...
... we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin. (Hebrews 4:15 AMP)
...
When Jesus was 30 years old, He revealed that He was the Son of God clothed in human flesh ...
Jesus replied, “It is written in your own Scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!’ And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods’, why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God?’ After all, the Father set me apart and sent me into the world.”
(John 10:34-36 NLT)
And,
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)
...
Many in Israel loved Jesus’ Message.
... there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan. (Matthew 4:25 KJV)
..
Jesus acknowledged, “Some will hate My Message and plot to kill Me. I will let them.”
... they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again. (Mark 10:32-34 KJV)
...
When Jesus was tried by Annas, Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod, many charges were brought against Him. Only one was true, namely, Jesus claimed to be equal to God. Pilate did not care about this “religious” claim.
Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.
(Luke 23:4 KJV)
...
The Trinity decided to count Jesus’ unwarranted death as the “Ultimate Sin–Sacrifice”. Jesus said that He came ...
... to give His life as a ransom for many [paying the price to set them free from the penalty of sin].
(Matthew 20:28b AMP)
And, Peter stated ...
... you know that you were not redeemed from your useless [spiritually unproductive] way of life inherited [by tradition] from your forefathers with perishable things like silver and gold, but [you were actually purchased] with precious blood, like that of a [sacrificial] lamb unblemished and spotless, the priceless blood of Christ. (1 Peter 1:18-19 AMP)
...
The Trinity chose the perfect moment in human history for Jesus to die on the Cross. As Paul thought about Jesus dying to redeem us and to adopt us into the family of God, he wrote ...
... when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Galatians 4:4-5 KJV)
And,
... when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. (Galatians 4:4-5 NLT)
...
Jesus foreknew that wicked Jews and Romans would Crucify Him. They wrecked the body of a handsome and regal, young man. In John, chapter 1, verse 14, the Apostle said, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” But, as Jesus suffered on the Cross, He was horribly damaged and a shocking sight. Centuries before the Cross, the Holy Spirit gave Isaiah some glimpses of Jesus. In one glimpse, the prophet refers to the beauty of Jesus as a young man ...
My servant [Jesus] grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. (Isaiah 53:2a NLT)
Here, Jesus is called a “root in dry ground”. In the last chapter of the New Testament, Jesus calls Himself “the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” (Revelation 22:16 KJV). He is the “root” of King David, since He created him in his mother’s womb. He is the “offspring” of King David, since Jesus’ mother, Mary, and her husband, Joseph, were both descendants of David. Jesus was a beautiful, young lad planted in the “religiously” barren ground of Israel.
But, in another vision, Isaiah saw Jesus after He had been mauled by Roman soldiers and nailed to the Cross. He saw a wholly different man. He wrote ...
... many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.
(Isaiah 52:14 NLT)
Also, Isaiah explained the importance of Jesus’ Sin-Sacrifice. He wrote ...
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected -- a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. (Isaiah 53:2b-5 NLT)
...
Believers feel immense gratitude for what Jesus did for them by taking their punishments and erasing their sins.
We love him, because he first loved us.
(1 John 4:18 KJV)
And, Paul wrote ...
... thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Corinthians 15:57 NLT)
...
Three days after His burial, Jesus arose from death!
... Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. (1 Corinthians 15:3b-4 NLT)
...
Jesus appeared to His followers after His Resurrection. on the first Easter Sunday ...
... at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
(John 20:19-21 KJV)
And Luke reported ...
... as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.
(Luke 24:36-45 KJV)
...
On the first Easter evening, Jesus showed the assembled believers what they would be like when they ascended to Heaven ...
Beloved, we are [even here and] now children of God, and it is not yet made clear what we will be [after His coming]. We know that when He comes and is revealed, we will [as His children] be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is [in all His glory]. (1 John 3:2 AMP)
...
Since the moment Jesus died, when believers seek to cleanse their souls, they return to the Cross in their prayers, confess their sins to Jesus, and He forgives them and fills them with righteousness.
If we confess our sins, he [Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 KJV)
...
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
.. the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
(Leviticus 17:11 KJV)
An “atonement” is an action taken to bring discordant parties back together. Stretching out the word, we say an atonement makes two “at one”. The blood that was shed in a sin-sacrifice re-united the sinner and his Lord. The writer of Hebrews said ...
... without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [neither release from sin and its guilt, nor cancellation of the merited punishment]. (Hebrews 9:22b AMP)