(Ver 1.1)  There are so many things to learn in the Bible it is a challenge to figure out what do people already know, what do they need to know and what is important.  So I plan on wrapping up my blog on Day 6 of creation with this last bit of information.  When I worked for a small software company many years ago, I met a man there that had graduated from a seminary (which will remain nameless).  He had some very strange ideas about the Bible and had been taught many things by people who obviously didn’t know God.  There is a difference in knowing about God and knowing God.  Well any way this man told me that in first chapter of Genesis when God said “Let them have dominion”, that didn’t mean they were in control of anything.  In other words he read the scripture and immediately threw away the verse because it did not fit his theology.  That of course is a huge problem.  We should always make our theology and beliefs fit what we read and learn and not the other way.  What does it mean to have dominion?  Here is what Webster defines the word as:

Dominion:  dominance or power through legal authority

Adam was given legal authority over the planet.  That would make him the ruler of the earth, wouldn’t it?  If you are brave you might have called Adam the “god” of this world”.  God’s statement gave Adam dominion, and that implies a transfer of ownership.  A legal status change or transfer from God to man.  Legal authority is a right that is bestowed upon you, something that can only be transferred upon you by a higher authority.  You can’t make your self a policeman, but if you sign up go through the training and are accepted you can be given the authority of a policeman by the local city government.  A policeman has a transferred authority to carry out and enforce the law.  Power and authority are sometimes used as synonymous terms.  But really they are quite different, many strong men have the ability to exercise power over people to make them do what they want, but most do not have the authority backing them.  When God created the world he turned over the authority to rule it to his creation.

Psalm 115:16  The heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s:  But the earth he hath given to the children of men.

This verse in Psalms tells us very clearly that the earth was given to the children of Adam.  Do you recall in the Gospels when Jesus walked the earth he constantly referred to himself as “the son of man”.  Jesus of course was a Hebrew and in the Hebrew he was saying I am a son of Adam.  Remember man and Adam are the same Hebrew word.  The Pharisee’s would ask him where do you get your authority to do these things?  They recognized that he taught with authority, spoke with authority, cast out devils, healed the sick and did many other miraculous things.  But Jesus never told them where he got this authority.  I personally believe that God had given it to him when he created Adam.

So what is the huge controversy about this delegated authority of man?  The main problem that the seminary graduate had was that it violated his idea of God’s sovereignty.  If man was in control of the planet, that meant God was not.  If man was responsible to work and keep the garden, then that means God was not.  The implications are huge and it helps to explain a lot of things in the Bible when we see these things clearly.  Why did Jesus have to come in the form of a man in order to redeem us?  Why did the omnipotent God have to be birthed through a woman on this planet to do everything he needed to do to free us from sin, Satan, death and evil.  There are so many things to think about and to consider.  But, we first must start by reading the Bible finding out what God says happened and then attempt to understand how that affected us.

When I started this blog, one of my statements was probably very offensive to some.  I called Adam the god of this world when he was created.  It is funny how many things that are in the Bible that people ignore.  In 2 Corinthians 4:4 God calls Satan the god of this world, how did he get this title?  It had to be transferred to him from Adam.  Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil?  Satan came to him and said “worship me and I’ll give you everything that you can see.”  Satan told Jesus that it had all been given to him.  So who gave it to him?  It had to be Adam, because God had given it all to Adam.  Only the owner has the right to transfer ownership.  I can’t come up to your house and tell you that I am giving your house to someone else that wants it.  If I don’t own your house I don’t have a right to tell you who lives in it.  So many things to consider, isn’t there?  So then what do Christians do with John the 10th Chapter when Jesus tells humanity, “Is it not written in your book of the law, I said you are gods.”.  Most religious people and denominations stay very far away from that verse and never touch it.   Act like it does not exist and we don’t have to address it.  If we acknowledge that it’s there, then we have to come up with excuses of why it’s not true.  Heaven help us all!

When Jesus was raised from the dead he makes a statement that blows you away.  In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says this “All power is given to me, both in heaven and in earth.”  What a radical statement, according to what many theologians teach, you would have thought that God already had all power in heaven and in earth.  Apparently Not!  Do you see the problem?  Here we have another very direct statement that God (the highest authority) has delegated all authority to Jesus both in heaven and on the earth.   How could God do that?  It was because Jesus was a son of Adam and had the right to take back what his father Adam had given away.  See right there so many religious people are going to scream and say I said Jesus’ father was Adam and not God.  But I didn’t say that.  Jesus was the Son of God, but He called Himself the son of Adam.  Naturally born a child of Adam a man, but spiritually conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary.  The combination of God’s word and Mary’s egg, produced a man called Jesus Christ.  A man who was 100% God and 100% man.

That concludes my short lesson on delgated authority.  If you study the subject you will clearly see that God had the right to do whatever He desired with His creation and He clearly desired to create a man and give it all to him and his children.  Jesus came to the earth to get back what Adam had given away to Satan and do other things that I have not touched on as of this point in my Bible lessons.  Please continue to read and to learn what Jesus has done for us.  God Bless!