Greetings once more, Friends! The most important command in the Bible is about the human Love for God. God gave humanity the most important command when Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mar.12:30). In the book of Exodus, God told Israel, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exo.20:3). In other words, we are to be Loving God unquestionably above all else.

Let us get one thing straight right off the bat, without giving a second thought, in our fallen state of existence in sin, it is not possible for humans to keep this command. The Bible states, “Can anyone really say that his conscience is clear, that he has gotten rid of his sin?” (Pro.20:9, GNT). For emphasis, “No one in this world always does right” (Eccl.7:20, CEV) The prophet Hosea in indicting Israel and by extension all humanity said, “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel,for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land” (Hos.4:1, NLB). Yes, the indictment is clear: “there is no faithfulness or steadfast love” for God.

Realizing we are living through devastating times with the Russia/Ukraine conflict and the threat of a wider escalation, the Covid-19 pandemic, the unprecedented insurrection in the US Capitol, the extraordinary effect of climate change and warming of the planet, the loss of arctic ice and glacial melt, the rising sea levels and its effect upon the most vulnerable peoples and nations, the increase in droughts and natural disasters like hurricanes and flooding, higher wildlife extinction rates, human conflicts over political aspirations, the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, racial animosity and hatred, violence and abuse in society, the disintegration of the family unit as the backbone of a healthy social order, and we could go on and fill a book about all the pressing issues facing humanity today.

Yet, the answer to all our human dilemma may not be as far-fetched as we imagine. This is what the Bible quotes God as saying, or more precisely promising, His human creation, “The Lord says, “I will rescue those who Love Me. I will protect those who trust in My Name. When they call on Me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them My salvation” (Psa.91:14-16, NLT). Here, we read about God promising to rescue humanity, and He tells us where it must begin: LOVE! The passage states, “I will rescue those who Love Me. I will protect those who trust in My Name. When they call on Me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them.” Yes, it is about Love. But do we Love God enough to move Him to come to our aid?

The Love command states, “Love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength?” Is this possible at all? We can live pretentious or fake lives, but God knows our motives and heart, saying, “But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve” (Jer.17:10, NLT).

“I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve…” That is sensational, that just squash all our hopes, for who can be justified before God? Paul said this about all mankind, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom.3:23). The “glory of God” simply means who and what God is in His holy divine Being of Love. (Luk.1:49) God’s holiness is immeasurable because His Love is unfathomable. (1 John 4:8; Psa.111:9) So, if in our depraved state of existence, we fall short of His glory and Love, how can we possibly Love God who is all holy in His Love? 

Yes, why did God give mankind a command that humans could not possibly follow in the first instance? But that is exactly the point, the command was given to be followed, not disobeyed. Doesn’t anyone realize, most of all God Himself, that as long as humans exist in their fallen state of existence inherited from Adam it is not possible for humans to Love God as He would expect?

Or, is it possible that God was echoing a harmonious relationship which once existed with humanity from the beginning in Eden at the creation of man before the fall of Adam? Adam and Eve were created in God’s likeness. (Gen.1:26-27) That means, to exist in God’s Love likeness and image. So, from the start, our first parents lived in an environment of Love, freedom, grace and harmony in the Garden of Eden. So, what happened to that Loving existence between God and our first parents (humanity)?

Yes, why would God issue the Love commandment which once was? In a previous post, entitled “The Cross” (http://bulamanriver.net/29118), I mentioned that according to ancient patristic writings, in creating Adam from the dust of the ground, God clothed them in a ‘glorious garments’ which gave them a form of extrinsic immortality. Eden was the celestial garden God planted for our first parents (humanity), to have an ongoing Love relationship. As such God could not have subjected our first parents to death in any way, shape, and form, because God created them according to His likeness, and that likeness is life…in truth, everlasting life or immortality. (Gen.1:26-27; Gen.5:1)

Death was alien to and never part of God’s image. Our God is the God of the living, not the dead. Death is synonymous with sin, and God is all holy and without sin. (Rom.6:23) God declares, “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Pet.1:16; Lev.11:44). God alone possesses intrinsic immortal life in Himself and has the power to impart the same to whomever He chooses. And God has promised to confer intrinsic immortality to humanity through His Son, Jesus Christ. (John 3:16-17; 36). Paul indicates to the Corinthians that there can exists different kinds of bodies for various life-giving organisms, whether physical or metaphysical, as determined by God the Creator of all life. (1 Cor.15:38)

The verbal evidence and undertone from the Genesis creation account show that Adam was created to reflect God in every sense of His divine substance (eternity), and nature (Love) (Gen.1:26-27; Isa.40:28-31; Job 9:32; 1 John 4:8) God nowhere states that He created our first parents and subjected them to death, in truth the opposite was true. Adam was created in God’s eternal likeness. (Gen.1:26-27) But they were warned about death, but never knew its reality for they never saw nor had ever experienced it. They never had the notion of what death was, much less its deteriorating impact in their universal physical reality. (Gen.2:17)

It was not until they disobeyed and sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit that death suddenly appeared and came into play. For Scriptures tell us, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom.6:23). So, in the second part of that passage, the Scripture holds out hope for humanity in Christ, despite our state of alienation through Adam’s fall.

The glorious garment also gave them the power of the divine Love to exist with God in Eden, the Garden of God. However, the glorious garment had a inherent shortcoming, it became powerless and vanishes instantly when sin is committed by the person adorned in it. Consequently, when our parents disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, their garment vanished instantly. They were left powerless and unable to relate with God in Eden. What happened next was they saw and realized they were ‘naked.’ (Gen.3:7) So, true nakedness is spiritual, not physical. They were emptied of their extrinsic eternity which allowed them to exist in God’s presence in Eden. General Douglas McArthur insightfully said, “It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”

The garment that gave them a form of extrinsic immortality disappeared and was no more. They were now mere mortals, at which point God uttered those most foreboding words, not before, “For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return” (Gen.3:19). In other words, death has now become part of the human reality. It was then that ‘time’ as we know it, with its natural movement and mobility, began its countdown for our now mortal parents. Today, we are six to seven thousand years removed from that fateful day of Adam’s disobedience when his glorious garment had vanished due to sin, and he started living life as a pure mortal human being with his wife Eve, subject to death because of sin. (Rom.6:23)

Not only did they lose their ‘glorious garment’ but most importantly they lost the ‘miraculous life’ they had known and experienced in Eden since their creation. To exist in the midst of God’s Love is to experience life in the innermost being of the divine grace which erupts in miraculous celestial manifestation. But now, God says, “By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made” (Gen.3:19)

Yes, the miraculous life was no more for they were expelled from Eden, and had to labor for a living, and by extension all humanity has been doing so ever since. In the previous life in Eden, they were given to manage the Garden estate of Eden which God had planted for them. (Gen.2:15) It had wild life and many other livestock and life forms with ‘helpers’ to maintain the estate. (Gen.2:19) So, it was no ordinary backyard garden or orchard.

Before their banishment from Eden, God had to first perform a most vital act of Love. God clothed Adam and Eve in cloaks of animal skin to cover the shame of their nakedness. The animal skin depicted animal life which were slain for ‘sacrificial’ reasons in atonement for sin, as appeasement for their betrayal of God’s Love. Prior to this, death was unknown and non-existent in Eden, for the eternal God was the life of Eden. Eden was the picture of life in the pure everlasting sense of the word. This sacrificial act saw the first death known to humanity enacted and recorded in Eden to picture God’s act of human restitution at a point in time in future.

Death was and still is anathema to God. Death stands as affront to God, and complete contrast with who God is and what He stands for. However, this death through the demise of animals pictured what God sadly had to, and with heavy but faithful heart, in anticipation of a future eventuality – the offering of His only Son, the promised Messiah, who would sacrifice Himself in order to atone for and cover the spiritual nakedness (sins) of mankind as a whole. (1 Cor.15:45-49; John 3:16-17).

Later, through Moses and the Levitical priesthood, God enacted the sacrificial system in Israel. The system was an ongoing narrative in Israel’s history to picture God’s future redemptive work through the coming Messiah, His only Son, Jesus Christ. God, beyond everything, in condoning the death of His Son, spells the grandeur of God’s immense Love for humanity.

So, we see that a Loving divine relationship with God was very much part of human life and experience through our first parents. To assume the fall of Adam and Eve occurred immediately after their creation, as commonly postulated, and they never did tasted nor experienced God’s deepest, wholesome and wholehearted Love, would presume the enemy (Satan) is mightier than the Creator, which would be absurd and sacrileges to say the least. (Isa.45:21-24; Isa.44:8)

No, nothing could be further from the truth, for our first parents were sustained in God’s immeasurable Love and affectionate care for an indeterminable while living the miraculous life in Eden. Then eternity later (for ‘time’ was meaningless and irrelevant), in that fateful moment of weakness through Satanic deception, they sinned. (Gen.3:1-6, 11, 23)

Since they had a form of extrinsic immortality through their God-given glorious garment, time was immaterial in their Edenic existence. Only after sinning, and the subsequent vanishing of the celestial garment, did they fully realized the consequence of their action, and their now susceptible mortality. For now, they experienced how time and space had suddenly compressed upon them like some strange bodily sensation. They now could feel grief, pain, and even bleed to death. For now, the miraculous life of Eden was all but lost and would await the fulfillment of God’s promise of the Messiah, the second Adam, to bring restitution. (1 Cor.15:45-49; 1 Thess.4:16-17) Banishment from Eden was to be their cursed future existing under satanic influence, in the world outside the confines of Eden. (Gen.3:1-6, 22-23; 2 Cor.4:4)

When Jesus, the Second Adam, appeared on the scene about four millennia later, His mission was to reconstitute something important which was part of humanity in the Garden of Eden before the fall – the Love relationship which existed between God and humanity which He authored in Eden initially through our first parents. To restore this Love relationship, Jesus mission was to restore God’s Love and immortality in humanity – only this time Jesus’ intrinsic and not the Adamic extrinsic immortality of Eden, and the power of the Spirit who manifest God’s Love in the human heart! (1 Cor.15:45; 1 Cor.3:16)

Here, we see how Jesus began His mission and the first thing He did was give passage for the Holy Spirit to reenter human life once more since Adam in Eden. He did this when He was baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, then He inaugurated the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very Personification of divine Love. (Matt.3:13-17) Jesus said a person has to be reborn of the Spirit if he/she is to be saved. (John 3:5-7) The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Tri-Personal God (Trinity) and is the power and presence of God’s Love in humanity. (Matt.28:18-20; Rom.5:5) Through the Holy Spirit, humanity will be given the gift of intrinsic immortality in Christ at His second coming. (Rom.8:11)

In Eden, Adam and Eve were empowered by the Holy Spirit, and God’s Love, as symbolized through the “Tree of Life.” They ate of the fruits of the Tree of Life which empowered them with God’s Love and the glorious garment which clothed and covered them with a form of extrinsic immortality. The fruits as revealed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, were actions empowered by the Love of God through the Spirit. It was God’s Spirit in them that gave them the power to Love God through the application of the Spirit’s fruits. (2 Tim.1:7) The fruits of the Tree of Life (Holy Spirit) is available to humanity today: you can read about it at my post: “Gifts Are Magnets of the Love Personality” at: http://bulamanriver.net/27435).

In the post you will read about the fruits of the Tree of Life (Holy Spirit) which we feed upon every day in life’s human journey upon earth. (You can read about the fruits of God’s Spirit (Love) in the appendix below). Humans must feed and feast upon the Spirit’s Love-fruits who resides in the hearts of humans to give them spiritual energy to defeat sin and be empowered to relate with the Creator and our fellow humans in Love. (1 Cor.13:1-13; 1 Cor.3:16; Mar.12:30-31)

If we are not being sustained in the Spirit by imbibing of the fruits of the Tree of Life, it could be said as a situation of dereliction on our part. And sadly, this was so with our parents in Eden. Our parent’s wrong was more a sin of omission than we realize. They stood under and fed off the tree of the forbidden fruit, and failed to eat of the fruits of the Tree of Life. The sin of omission leads to the sin of commission. The devil will deceive and tempt us to abstain from feeding ourselves of the Love-fruits of the Tree of Life (Holy Spirit), and feed upon the tree of human knowledge of good and evil which promotes the life of autonomy from God. So, Love is not just God’s name (noun), it defines His activity in His creation as seen through the Spirit’s Love-fruits (verb), and be empowered to relate with God in Love.

Paul said this about what Jesus our Savior did for humanity, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal.3:27). Paul is saying that when we affirm our belief in Jesus as personal Savior and are baptized (a ritual ceremony of an outward sign of inward belief and change), we are actually putting on and being clothed in a spiritual garment, and that Garment is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Paul added, “Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom.13:14).

Yes, note the new Glorious Garment is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. If we are clothed in Christ Himself, then we already possess immortality in us, for He is the eternal Son within the Tri-Personal Godhead (Trinity), and He immortalized our humanity through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The fuller intrinsic immortality will become humanity’s reality at Jesus’ second coming. (1 Cor.15) Paul uttered the most profound truth of this mystery and our reality in Christ, saying, “For He (God) raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus” (Eph.2:6, NLT). Isaiah prophesied saying, “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isa.61:10; also Rev.21:1-5).

This is not the garment in which Adam and Eve were robed in Eden which gave them extrinsic immortality but was powerless in the face of sin, but the true Glorious Garment of Jesus Himself who has defeated sin and death and brought true immortality to humanity. (Gen.3:6-7; John 5:21; Rom.8:11; Act.2:24; Rev.3:18; Rom.6:4) Yes, and side by side with the Garment of Jesus, the miraculous life is again the privilege to live as saved humans because of the Holy Spirit He has inaugurated on Pentecost. (Act.2:1, 38)

Yes, today in this mortal existence we have eternal life in each of us living the miraculous life because we are clothed in Christ. That’s to say, Christ lives and walks in us, as Paul assures the Galaltians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who Loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal.2:20). Thereby, we are empowered by Love through the Spirit (Love) to commune with God. Daily, Jesus mediates for mankind as our High Priest before the Almighty Father in the prayer of praise, grace, blessing and invocation. He taught us to pray for conciliation, “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt.6:12, NLT).

The Scriptures tell us, “The Father Loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36; 6:47). The Garment of Jesus Himself can’t be compared to Adam’s glorious garment which was powerless and vanished in the face of sin. (Gen.3:6-7; Rev.3:18; Gal.2:20; Rom.6:4; Heb.4:15)

It is relevant to recount the parable of the wedding banquet as told by Jesus, “The kingdom of heaven is like a King who prepared a wedding banquet for His Son.” The custom in those days was for the one hosting the wedding feast—in this case, the king—to provide garments for the wedding guests. The King had “noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the King told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness” (Matt.22:11-13). The wedding garment is metaphor for being clothed in the Garment of Jesus Christ, supplied by the Father. Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith, and wellspring of Love and immortality. (John 3:36)

When Adam was banished from Eden, he was cut-off from the Holy Spirit (third Person of the Tri-Personal Godhead – Trinity) who was symbolized in the Tree of Life. (Gen.3:21-24) Without the Holy Spirit (Tree of Life) they were barren of the divine Love which fueled and empowered their relationship with God. It was not until the second Adam, Jesus Christ, appeared almost four thousand years later, that He reintroduced the Holy Spirit to humanity at His baptism in the Jordan. (Luk.24:49)

The Bible records Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in this way, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I Love; with Him I am well pleased.” (Matt.3:16-17). Then on the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and all of believing mankind as a whole. (Act.2:1-4; 38)

Today, humans can receive the divine Love which will give them the power to Love God. But they must receive Jesus as Savior to cleanse them spiritually of all sin, thus giving the Spirit (Love) passage to enter the human heart through Jesus’ mediation thus making His (Spirit’s) abode in human life possible. (1 Cor.6:19) This is a life of living faith in Jesus finished work of saving mankind.

Yes, the Holy Spirit is the very life of God Himself for He proceeds from the inner communion of the Father and the Son. He is the bond of Love in the Tri-Personal Being of God (Trinity). The last time when the Spirit communed with mankind in a real sense was in Eden with our first parents. Now, the Father reintroduces Him to mankind through His Son. It is in the Holy Spirit that humans have communion with the Father through Jesus Christ, the Messiah and second Adam. (1 Cor. 15:45-49) It is in the empowerment of this triune movement of God’s Tri-Personal Being that humans are given the power of Love, and the power to Love. We partake of the very life and light and Love which God is. That is what Christians believe and live by. (1 John 1:3; John 17:3, 21)

And this is where the relationship of Love with the divine Godhead (Trinity) starts. Some may imagine that God’s Love Command tells them God is self-absorbed and egomaniacal. Nothing could be further from the truth. For by giving us the Command to Love Him completely and totally, He was setting His sight upon us, not Himself. God, in His Love, lacks nothing. He does not need humanity to exist or fill any need, but mankind needs Him to restore us as a species with Love and immortality and dwell eternally in His Love.

Love is wholeness of and in itself and is never wanting nor incomplete, for “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). Love only knows how to give for He is the reservoir of bounty and abundance as the Creator of all life both seen and unseen. The vast universe, the earth and everything in it, proceeded from the utterance of His words. He says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it” (Psa.50:12). He goes on, “The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty” (Hag.2:8).

He is infinitely generous, and wants nothing less for mankind. The Love Command was God’s way of enabling humans to Love themselves impartially and not love with the human self-centered and egotistical heart. When we Love God completely and unreservedly in the Spirit’s power, He infuses and envelopes us in His unspeakable joy. Joy comes from a place of discovery of a person’s true celestial identity with and in the divine will and Love. So, my friends, let us take His Love command in its truest and purest form, as John attests, “And we have come to know and to believe the Love that God has for us. God is Love, and the one who remains in Love remains in God, and God remains in him” (1 John 4:16).

Now that the Holy Spirit is made to reenter and reside in the saved heart of mankind made possible through Jesus’ messianic mediation. Paul tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself” (1 Cor.6:19, NLT). Paul said, “You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body” 1 Cor.6:20, Amplified Bible). Through the Holy Spirit, God says of humanity, “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people” (2 Cor.6:16). This is how the Love relationship (rather than the ‘Love Command’ in its ineffectual legalistic form) with the divine will is forged and made to move ahead in human reality.

Now, let us come back to the question which bears the title of this post, “How Do Humans Completely Love God?” Here is the plain answer, Jesus is the first human being who has Loved God completely without reservation. And because He has done so, humans can Love God in the identical completeness vicariously through Jesus. We cannot Love God completely on our own, for we are fallen human beings, but we do so because Jesus took and redeemed our humanity in Himself and has already made the Love relationship possible for us.

As Paul affirmed to the Corinthians, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made the righteousness of God through Christ” (1 Cor.5:21, NLB). How can human beings be made “the righteousness of God” unless it is possible for humans to Love God completely? Yes, both Love and righteousness are mutually inclusive attributes. You cannot have one without the other. God made it possible by attributing and assigning Jesus’ perfect life upon us so we can be clothed in Him and His Love and righteousness. This is the life of living faith by which we exist before God Almighty. God has given up His Son for humanity, so that through Him we can be redeemed from sin, and be reconciled to God. And that is how we are made to Love God completely – through Christ’s vicarious glorious life. Today, Jesus sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven as humanity’s High Priest ceaselessly mediating for us so that through Him a complete Love relationship between God and humanity may exist forever.

O how marvelously beautiful is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the finished work of salvation He has complete for humanity in Himself. All our praises must go to the great God Almighty, our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and our Helper the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. 

I will close with a word of encouragement from John, “God is Love. Whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16). Keep in mind, this is a life of faith, faith in the miraculous life where the Spirit manifests the divine Love in humanity. The Scripture says, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose” (Phi.2:13).

Petition: Friends, as I have closed my post in the past, I customarily give our readers the opportunity to give their lives to our Maker. I thank you for investing your precious time with me in the sharing of the good news of Jesus who is our hope and has enabled us to live the Triune Life*. Jesus is alive today as our High Priest in heaven seated at His Father’s side, and ceaselessly mediating for us. I hope that in your heart of heart you will receive Him as your personal Savior, receive God’s Spirit, and be part of living this glorious Immanuel humanity made children of God forever.

You can privately and quietly pray the prayer below in your heart. I am asking you to pray this prayer as a human being Christ died for, regardless of your background. All are inducted into the one mankind Jesus saved, not into any religious sect or denomination, or divisions one may espouse – but into the glorious humanity that Christ is preparing as the holy temple for the holy God, the Creator’s dwelling:

Prayer: “Almighty God, Father of all humanity, forgive me of all my sins for I receive Your Son, Jesus, as my personal Savior. In Your incalculable grace, grant Your promised celestial life in Your Son through Your Holy Spirit, and open my eyes to the wondrous gifts you have conferred upon me and all humanity. May Your Love guide and protect me and my Loved ones always, and bring us all into Your beloved and divine Kingdom. I praise and thank You, Amen.”

Welcome to the celestial life of Love in God’s holy, eternal Family. (1 Tim.6:19) Then keep in touch with God’s Word for you by reading and studying your Bible, and visiting this blog and website and look at various subjects listed in our archives that may be relevant for your situation – go to: http://bulamanriver.net. You can email me with your questions at the address shown below.

Personal Blessing: Until we meet again in my next post, may the blessings of the God who ceaselessly expresses Himself in His dependable Triune Love, be with you always. May the Spirit enliven your spirit and make all things concerning you possible as you live the “Triune Life”* Be strong in the Lord’s joy.

Farewell for now,

Appendix: *The “Love-Fruits of the Holy Spirit:” *the fruit of patience, *the fruit of kindness, *the fruit of contentedness,  *the fruit of modesty (unboastful), *the fruit of humility, *the fruit of honor, *the fruit of unselfishness, *the fruit of calmness and dignity, *the fruit of forgiveness and compassion, *the fruit of delighting in good and shunning evil, *the fruit of tolerance, *the fruit of responsibility, *the fruit of enduring hope, *the fruit of steadfast perseverance, *the fruit of joy, *the fruit of peace, *the fruit of goodness, *the fruit of faith, *the fruit of gentleness, *the fruit of self-control, *the fruit of zeal and spiritual fervor, *the fruit of friendship, *the fruit of sharing and generosity, *the fruit of prayerfulness, *the fruit of hospitality, etc. (1 Cor.13; also Gal. 5:22-23; Rom. 12:9-21). These attributes may seem ordinary and mundane, but when empowered and propelled in the Spirit’s power, they are transformed into divine elements of transformation.

**”Triune Life”: Relationship with God has no meaning without Love. By its very nature, Love cannot endure in solitary existence. So, when God said “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness…” He was revealing Himself as existing in His trinitarian existence. That is, His Tri-Personal Being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Gen.1:26; Matt.28:19; John 14:10, 16; 16:7) The Hebrew word for ‘God’ in the creation account is “Elohim.” It describes God in His plurality, as the Trinity – the Tri-Personal Godhead, which other scriptures attests. (Matt.28:18-20; 1 Pet.1:2; 2 Thess.2:13; 2 Cor.13:14) So, God is Trinitarian in His Love nature. He is also clothed in Freedom. For the three Persons of the Trinity are three distinct and free Persons in the triune Godhead. Love and Freedom by nature is relational as God is in His Tri-Personal Being. Hence, a human being was created a relational being possessing freedom.

Adam was solitary and incomplete until God made Eve. He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone (solitary). I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen.2:18, italics mine). So, God gave Adam a family to raise composed of a father, mother, and offspring, to reflect Himself in His plural Being. The Bible states that the Church’s or humanity’s destiny is to marry Christ, the second Person of the Triune Godhead, in the new age to come which will be an everlasting divine relationship. (2 Cor.11:2; Eph.5:23-27, 32; Rev.19:7) The Bible is abundantly clear about God’s nature and declaration of Himself in His relational Triune Being from the past, the present, and the future. God has never lived as a solitary Being, but a Tri-Personal Being.

It’s noteworthy to understand that Eve was not created an individual creation from the dust of the earth as was Adam. She was not created apart from Adam as an individualized separate human being, instead, she was taken out from Adam’s side to show she was biologically one and indivisibly part of Adam, like God is in His Triunity. Eve was not detached (solitary) from Adam, but intrinsically inseparable from Adam’s innermost humanity. When Adam saw Eve, he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man” (Gen.2:21-23) God created humanity to reflect Himself in His unified Tri-Personal Being (Trinity).

Each one of us was created as an indivisible relational human being incubated and given birth from Adam’s mold as one species, for God created humanity to reflect the eternal likeness in His triunity. We are born for relationships with the divine triune Love as our guiding principle. All this show that humans were created to be indivisibly one to reflect God’s Tri-Personal image of Oneness (Trinity), not solitary separateness. When God sent Jesus His eternal Son, He became human in order to unify humanity spiritually to the Triune Being of God through Christ once for all time. Hence, when the prophet Isaiah proclaimed Jesus’ coming, He was given the prophetic name, Immanuel. (Isa.7:14) The name means “God with us” (Matt.1:23). Humanity is ‘organically’ one with the Triune God through Christ, just as humanity is one with Adam.

Most religions believe God as some solitary being. The true God is not solitary by any means, He is the one Triunity in His Tri-Personal Being. God consist of three Persons in One divine triune Godhead. (Matt.28:18-20) They exist in One “homoousion” meaning consisting in one substance, or “consubstantiality.” The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in One hypostatic union, One substance, like Eve was biologically part of and never physically separate, but of one substance from Adam, for she came out of Adam. Likewise, humanity is made of one spiritual substance with the triune God through Jesus Christ who took our humanity upon Himself and joined it to the divine triune existence forever.

The three-dimensional Triune Life/Love is opposed to living the one-dimensional solitary life of the fallen humanity inherited from Satan through Adam’s rebellion. For additional information about the Triune Life: http://bulamanriver.net/?p=8036. Also at: http://bulamanriver.net/9092.

**Bulamanriver: To read the different facets of the life of the Bulamanriver, you may obtain a copy of my book, “Bula” Man-River, from Amazon.com; xulonpress.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other online book stores. All proceeds will go towards furthering the work of Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.

Mission Statement: Read the Triune Love Mission, Vision, and Value statements at: http://bulamanriver.net/8664

All scriptures are taken from the NIV Version 2011, unless stated otherwise.

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