Why am I here? Did I exist because of evolution or creation? Why was I born? Is there any purpose in my life? These are questions people are asking themselves for guidance and direction in seeking self-worth, value and introspection.

Since the average lifespan vs life expectancy is about 70-72 years, (although it has changed but basically about the same for 2,000 years) is that all there is to our longevity? Is our life on earth limited to a finite duration of time? Do telomeres predict our death? After death, then what? Should one care about whether there is life after death?

Different religions, whether Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Judaism, Christianity , etc., profess that there is an after-life, although they differ in details. Knowing what the future has in store for us, brings perspective to how we value our present life and helps us understand our responsibilities and obligations, as well as what attitude and behavior we all need to adopt and express.

Creation or Evolution?

Since time immemorial, philosophers, seers and thinkers come and go. Yet, no reliable answer from them to these questions is forthcoming. Granted, they are all intellectually endowed and respected by the society and era that they lived in. Nevertheless, they are all farther from the truth for reasons that are obvious. Introspection and use of their own judgments and human abilities to search for answers, only left them with more questions. Answers to these pivotal issues are not forthcoming if we anchor our existence on evolution. Logic and wisdom lead us to a Creator. Had they turned to their Maker, their eyes could have been opened to the truth. For “…my thoughts are not your thoughts…. my ways are higher than your ways..” Isa:55:8-9. Also, isn’t it logical to listen to the Creator, as described in Job Chapters 38 and 39? We listen to others and believe their writings, scientific or not, yet why is it repulsive to believe in those who personally witnessed God?

Source of Education:

Learning comes either passive or active. The active mechanism to learn is via our sensory somatic experience, viz., fire burns or heat is hot, when one touches a burning wood or the light of a candle. Also active learning comes from what we see and hear from a primary source and/or personally experienced. Passive learning on the other hand is when what we see and hear are from secondary sources, e.g., being instructed/lectured that an item is in fact hot and does burn, without actual personal experience. This is a first lesson in faith/trust in God who tells us the truth, instead of relying on our own finite brains, feelings, sight or hearing. Adam/Eve chose to learn the hard and active learning way by an actual experience of eating the “forbidden fruit”, instead of heeding the verbal admonition of God against it, via the passive learning process. They both paid an ultimate and heavy price of eternal death for their bad choice. Sometimes, it is wiser to learn from an instructor than experience the aftermath of a bad choice and decision. Whether one believes it or not, there is a living God who is our Creator, who totally and completely knows us and has plans for us from the very beginning. As this subject is about destiny, it is vital to go to the instruction book of our Maker, the Holy Bible, for an eye-opening reality. And, there is no better place to start than from the beginning.

Sequence and Pattern:

In the book of Genesis, it is essential to consider the pattern being set by GOD/YHVH-ELOHIM in the process of creation, viz.,

1. That first, there was darkness followed by light… non-living things were created, then living things, as after death will follow life.

Notice, that “….darkness was upon the face of the deep…” then there was light. He first created non-living things, e.g. the planets and stars of multiple galaxies, then the living things, e.g. plants and animals. These are facts as narrated in the Holy Scriptures. But, what is the truth behind these events? It appears that this narrative has spiritual and functional meaning. GOD is showing this pattern of death (darkness, non-living) to be followed by life everlasting, that is to say that there is hope of life (light) after death (darkness, chaos ), in the same pattern that after lies, deception, confusion, and different interpretations will come the truth…that from mortality (death) will follow immortality (life forever)…that our current physical nature is temporal and will change to spiritual which is everlasting.

Isn’t this a very powerful message of hope and renewal being taught to all of us from the beginning of time? Yes, our destiny is not eternal death and oblivion but eternal life.

2. Every living creature reproduces its own kind or likeness or image…..foundation of genetics.

Notice that before there was any other living entity, GOD/YHVH and angelic beings were already there as the only living entities ( see also fact-s.net/2011/05/21/what-is-god/). As the scripture says “…In the beginning, God created…”

To establish this pattern of reproducing like-for-like, kind-for-kind, class-for-class, and same image-for-image, GOD created the plants and animals. He showed that they can only reproduce after their own kind or likeness or image. And, within this concept is “adaptation changes“ depending on stimuli. After the plants and animals were created, at that particular moment, there were only three living classes of creatures, viz., GOD(spirit-composed as angels are), plants and animals. After the principle of genetics was established that plants and animals can only reproduce after their own kind or likeness or image, what did GOD say?

“Let us make man/kind in our image, after our own likeness…”

The plant-kind can only give rise to a plant, as the animal-kind can only reproduce the same kind. The same is true with the GOD-kind. Yes, God the Father, through “man-Christ Jesus, is reproducing himself thru the creation of man, human beings, flesh-composed, mortals.

God-Kind, not animal nor human-kind

Man was created in the image of God..in the GOD-KIND, the highest and ultimate class of living entity. Not even was man ranked among the angels as Paul emphasized . Man, although currently lower than angels, in the future will be higher than them. Starting from a “template“/temple of flesh-composed human, the “spirit of man” the “breath of life” was put in there to experience life. Without that “breath-of-life”, man is not alive as a “living being”. This flesh-composed body is only temporary and will die. Currently, man will undergo an “ongoing creation”. Subsequently, after “spiritual growth and development”, those who have “fruits of the HOLY SPIRIT and are “overcomers” will be resurrected with “spirit-composed bodies”, immortals with eternal life.

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being the last Adam, a life-giving spirit”. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:45-48).

This is indeed an awesome destiny for man to be in the GOD-KIND,, or KINGDOM of GOD, not Plant-kingdom nor Animal-kingdom but GOD-FAMILY…GOD-KINGDOM.

Yes, GOD is a family, with Jesus as quoted by Paul, the “…first of the firstfuits…” … “the firstborn among many brothers and sisters(brethren)” with Jesus as our elder brother, and his/our FATHER being all-in-all and above-all. And to think that this was all planned even before the creation of the world, before you and I were born, before anyone committed evil nor has done any good work, is a remarkable and compelling proof of GRACE, love and unwarranted GIFT to be in the GOD-KINGDOM and GOD-FAMILY.

Not yet but for the future

In Psalms 8:3-9, this was alluded to:

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Notice that this was narrated as past events that never happened yet at that time suggesting an assured and definitive thing to occur although contextually still futuristic. Anybody living at that time will be hard-pressed to understand just by reading these passages.

Similarly, in Genesis 1:26 another: promise for the future to have “dominion”“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Currently, humans have “no dominion” over infectious diseases, cancer, etc. so long as we are “flesh-composed mortals”. Centuries later, it took the “in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit” to grasp its awesome meaning and significance. Truly, “the blind shall see and the deaf shall hear” as written in Isaiah 29:18.

The Meaning of Hebrews 2

As enlightened by the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, Paul explained Psalms 8 further in Hebrews 2:5-18, See also parallel version NIV/KJV for comparison of translations

“It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man (man-Jesus)that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned (past tense though futuristic) them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.”In putting (progressive tense) everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God(Father), for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.”And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death (died as a man) he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

From the preceding, one can see that the endpoint of this prophecy is about “the world to come” and that “it will not be subject to angels but to mankind”. And this prediction started to unfold when man-Christ Jesus came.

Jesus is the “trailblazer/captain/pioneer” from which this prophecy comes to unravel. He is the first human (a trailblazer) to become immortal. through a process of death, resurrection and receiving-then-giving to us this empowering in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. And, the finality is still future as “creation of the kingdom of God is still ongoing”, so as to bring “many sons and daughters to glory”, in the “same family, to call us “brothers and sisters “

Appointed time

God knows the right time and all of these events will happen “at appointed time” as in:

Psalm 75:2 “When I select an appointed time, It is I who judge with equity.”

Habakkuk 2:3 “For the vision is yet for the appointed time;It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.Though it tarries, wait for it;For it will certainly come, it will not delay.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:”

Ecclesiastes 9:11 “…,but time and chance happen to them all.

SUMMARY:

Our destiny far-surpasses our imagination (2 Cor. 4:17-18; Eph. 3:20.) Our flesh-composed body is temporal, merely a template. It has the spirit of man ( breath-of-life) which is a “temple”, the “holy-of-holies” of our body for the Holy Spirit to dwell ( Acts 1:8; Lev.16:2, Matt. 27:51) so that sanctification, by following what is right, will be learned/experienced for man to become “begotten son/ child of God”.

At the resurrection, this flesh-composed body will change to“born son “, “from mortality to immortality” from carnal to spiritual as “sons/children of God”. What happened to Jesus from flesh-composed man to now spirit-composed will be our destiny. He is the precursor, the pioneer/trailblazer for all of us. He is our Elder-brother, head of the church/body and we “are one”, as he is “one” with the Father. Indeed, grace and love manifested !

It is our hope that this research will help illuminate the controversy surrounding human destiny. Let us keep our mind open to truth and for no one to be stubborn because of misplaced “belief perseverance”.

Praise be to God the Father who planned and to God the Son who executed this glorious work to fulfill this destiny of man.

God Bless🙏😇👍

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Original post:06/27/2003

Reposted:5/21/2011

Revised:4/24/2017

Revised:5/13/2018 Happy Mother’s Day

Hyperlink version posted 3/12/19

Revision posted November 3, 2020 ELECTION DAY. God bless all voters and candidates 🙏👍

Reposted 4/10/2021

N.B. All revisions and postings kept the original version; additions and edits were to enhance and explain better the context of the narratives.