When God first created man, he created him in His image, in His likeness. Man was created perfect and whole. We need to understand that God created man in His image and likeness spiritually and by doing so, man was a perfect creation. Man was born of the Spirit of God and he did not know lack, he was created a perfect being in the likeness and image of God.

We all know about the fruit of the forbidden tree that Adam and Eve ate. But do we really understand why it was forbidden and what it was all about? Do we see the bigger picture?

The world as it is today is not how it always was. Humans were not always subject to outward circumstances, physical decay, sickness and disease. Man was not always a slave of the material realm. Man was created in God’s own image, perfect, whole and without lack. Man was a spiritual being, possessing God’s own Spirit, the same life that God had, man possessed.

However, there was one key distinction between God and humanity.

Humanity was birthed of God in His image and likeness but without any knowledge of good and evil. Even though God Himself had the knowledge of both good and evil, He found a way to create humanity without the knowledge of evil, only with the knowledge of good. Yes, when man was created, he only knew blessing and had no sense of lack, want or need. Yes, man did not know evil.

How great a love: God created man in His own image and likeness but without any sense of evil, lack or calamity.

You might ask, if that is true and His love for man was so great, why did He have to put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the Garden of Eden? Why did He have to tempt man by putting the one thing he could not have, right before his eyes?

The answer is very simple. God is love and for love to be true love, He had to create humanity in His likeness and in His image. God’s love was so great that He did not hold anything back. We were created like Him. But in doing so, He had to give man a choice, a free will. If God would have created man without a free will, man would not have been created in the image and likeness of God. It wouldn’t have been true love.

That’s why the tree had to be placed in the middle of the Garden. It was a symbol of free will for mankind. Man was not created as a puppet. Man could make his own decisions. There were no strings attached to God’s love, it was unlimited!

By doing so, God issued a warning and essentially the only commandment man ever knew:

God knew that if they chose to eat from that tree, they would die. They would die to the life He had given them. They would no longer be a creation in the image and likeness of God. Death to the oneness and union with God that they had. If they chose to eat, God’s Spirit could no longer reside in humanity. They would become their own god. That was the death God was speaking of – death to the union between God and man. Spiritual death.

Even though man was created in the image of God and was one with Him in Spirit, he believed a lie. Satan planted a seed of doubt and division, questioning man’s oneness with God.

“If you eat of this tree, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Man was already like him, created in His image. Yet, Satan tempted man with the one and only thing that man lacked: The knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of evil. Yes, Satan tempted man with the only thing he did not know and it was not a good thing.

Man made his choice. Man became its own god and created a world full of evil. That is how evil entered the human race. That is how sin entered the human race. Before that incident, man only knew good, there was no evil in humanity, there was no lack, there was no sense of incompleteness.

Therefore we can never blame God for what is happening in this world, the solution lies always with men. Thanks to Christ’s perfect sacrifice, we have been restored back to His image and likeness in perfect authority. But if we don’t realize that we have this new spiritual life and perfect authority, then the result is what we see and experience in this world on a daily basis: sorrow, lack, frustration, sickness, disease, depression, etc. They are dominating the human race.

The Good News is that spiritual life (God’s life) has once again been restored to mankind through the finished work of Jesus Christ! Let’s find our new identity in Him. Let’s focus on our new life in Him. Let’s create a new reality in Him.

Yes, let’s live in the Kingdom of God today!