Hi there,

If you can assist in this query, it will be greatly appreciated.
I cannot praise and thank God enough for leading me to your site. At last the many questions I had over the years are starting to make sense. I just need a bit of help with something I do believe to be correct but would like to know if there is any grammatical proof for the different interpretation to what all other bibles read.
In your answer to the letter “Was Adam made in God’s image”, you say that Gen 1:26 should read “let us be making man” and not “let us make man”  It makes perfect sense that it is a continuous and not a final act of creation as it lines up with other scriptures in the bible that we are to “become” Christ- like.
What I would like to know is if there is anything in the translation that was previously incorrect and can be shown that it should read otherwise.

God Bless
S____

Hi S____,

I make no claim of being either a Hebrew or Greek scholar. I don’t even claim to be an English scholar. All I have been granted to do is to look at what is written and do as you say in this e- mail. I put “line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” to discover what the scriptures really say. That is the principle revealed by how the writers of the New Testament handled the Word of God. It is the principle by which our Lord Himself handled the Word of God.
So when I say that Gen 1:26 should read “Let us be making man”, I do so only because the sum of God’s Word reveals that everything in the Old Testament is but a shadow of the true image:

Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The book of Genesis is the first of five books known as “the law.” Every word in “the law” is a typical shadow of some spiritual reality. That is especially true of the verses to which you refer.

Gen 1:26  And 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.
Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Add to those verses in Genesis, these verses in Romans:

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Add to these verses the concepts revealed in these next two verses, and it becomes clear, that while the physical creation may be said to be a type of the image of God, the truth is that just as manna was but a type of the “true bread from heaven,” so too, the first Adam is merely a figure of Him that was to come and not the “express image” as was “Him that was to come.”

Exo 16:4  Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.
Joh 6:32  Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
Rom 5:14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

We tend to see the first chapter of Genesis as a history lesson while the spirit sees all of God’s word as a figure of much deeper spiritual things to come.
Add to all of those New Testament verses these Old Testament verses which say the same thing, and there is nothing left to do but to acknowledge that Adam and Eve were but the prototype and not the end product at all.

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Who shapes and conceives us?

Joh 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

God is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.” Those who see the letter instead of the spirit will die. Those to whom it is given to see the things of the spirit will live, and be used of God to give life, at a later date, to those who are now nothing more than the walking dead.

Mat 8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
1Co 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Rom 11:30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

I hope this all helps you to see that when I said that Gen 1:26-27 should read ‘is making man,’ instead of ‘made man,’ I say that because of the sum of God’s Word. While it is true that both Hebrew and Greek use the aorist, or what we call present progressive tense far more than the English language, that is not always the case. But whether it is or is not, God’s word is still always an ‘is, was and will be’ Word which “will never pass away.”

Mat 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

“The holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual with spiritual” means that the first Adam is but a spiritual shadow of the spiritual reality of the New Testament “last Adam.”

Your brother in Christ,
Mike