Like Begets Like

From the Pastor: Dr. M. J. Seymour, Sr.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; …” (Gen. 1:27) “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; …” (Gen. 5:3) “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:15)

There is a false philosophy that asserts God personally created all mankind. This thought is foreign to the Holy Scriptures. God created, not begat, Adam and Eve, and only them, “in his own image”. When they sinned against God, they were plunged into the bondage of sin and death. They were no longer in the likeness and image of God who has no sin in him. Adam and Eve became the very nature of the penalty of sin. Adam, as we read, “begat a son in his own likeness”, that is to say, in his spiritually dead nature and with the destiny of physical death. They could not give birth to one who was contrary to their likeness. In their lust for each other they conceived and begat a sinful creature; which, because of its likeness to Adam and Eve, must by the course of nature suffer the sentence of death, spiritually and physically. It is the order of God’s decree. The whole human race descends from the impurity of the sin nature. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” (Job 14:4)

To this predicament Jesus heralds, “Ye must be born again.” (Jn. 3:7) Apostle Paul reveals, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (II Cor. 5:17) It is this new creature born into a person that changes half of the equation. The temporal flesh must suffer the punishment of sin in death, but the new creature is not born of sin. John said, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (I Jn. 3:9) He who is begotten out of God is born in His likeness – sinless and eternal. The outward flesh is begotten of Adam unto death, but new inward man is begotten of God unto life.