( Gen. 2:7 ; Phil. 3:8 ) God formed man out of the dust of the ground. By God's breath, man received consciousness, a capacity to think, and an awareness of his environment and surroundings. Man's very being depends solely upon God.
Man without God is nothing. ( Gen. 1:26-28 ) God created mankind, Adam and Eve, as one entity. Mankind is mated to God and through the imaging process to be the revelators of God's love to the world. God blessed them, and endued them with power to be prosperous in all areas of living. All that was required was for man to voluntarily stay mated and submitted to God's authority - His word. ( Eph. 5:21 ) Both husband and wife, as separate entities, are subject to the Lord first, then to one another. By this act of obedience, recognizing God as Creator and Sustainer, they would merge into one flesh. The concept of marriage applies to the body of Christ as His bride being merged into one by obedience - individually and collectively.
Loss of Image ( Gen. 3:1-6 ) Man tested to choose to be dependent upon God or to be independent - to become their own gods. The desire that was put into them to please God, now turned to lust to please themselves. Becoming gods they looked to themselves for resources to handle life, to find within themselves wisdom, strength, and ability to understand and control life in all its manifestations. By this choice, as they changed from self-lovingothers to self-loving-self, fear became their constant companion.
Self Promotion
( Gen. 3:7-10 ) Reverential fear and awe of God and His magnificence changed to fear of punishment and a concern for the survival of the self. All man had to do was look to God, obey His word, and God would take care of everything else.
Separated from God man has to look to himself for security, God no longer there to provide. Man now looks horizontally to find acceptance and approval by performing and impressing others how great he is, by controlling others, by seeking power over others: by wealth, by position. Man is always seeking to find the meaning of life within himself when the meaning of life can only be found by manifesting the glory of God in his behavior.
Remarriage ( Luke 9:23-24 ) By and through the Cross of Christ, we are enabled to resume the original relationship with God before the fall. By the cross, we are freed from the selfloving-self and become the self-loving-others, expressing the glory of God in our behavior to others. ( Eph. 4:22-24 )
We are all conditioned by life's experiences. We are the sum of all that we encountered in life. Our culture, our environs, our circumstances in life have impacted our lives and has affected our reactions. Thus, our coping mechanisms are sensitized to cover and protect the self in competition with others. The answer to this worldly, fleshly self is to study our union with Jesus Christ, and this by the daily putting-off of the corrupted self and the putting-on of the new self by the renewing of the mind.
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