APOSTOLIC EXILES: Distinction Revisited

Psalm 8:3–6 (ESV) When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,  what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?  Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

DISTINCT: recognizably different from the group

  • Genesis 1:24 (ESV) And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds…

  • Genesis 2:7 (ESV) then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

  • Genesis 1:26 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Adam was an Apostle: representative, messenger, colonizer on behalf of his kingdom

Adam was an Exile: because he’s away from the kingdom of his citizenship

REALITY: Adam Failed As An Apostilic Exile

Instead of representing, delivering the message or colonizing he was flipped and surrendered his citizenship

Genesis 3:23–24 (ESV) therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.  He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

As Adam was exiled, many of his distinctions were silenced, through the generations some of his distinctions were fanned into flame. Glimmers. Shadows. Reflections. Until Jesus… and with His coming, our roles as Apostolic Exiles has been reestablished.


DISTINCTION REVISITED: HIS SPIRIT WITHIN, HIS PRESENCE WITHOUT

  • ADAM/SPIRIT - Genesis 2:7 (ESV) then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

    • REVISITED: Acts 2:1–4 (ESV) When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

  • ADAM/PRESENCE - Genesis 3:8 (ESV) And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

    • REVISITED: Hebrews 13:5 (ESV) …for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

DISTINCTION REVISITED: HIS CALLING, AUTHORITY & POWER

  • ADAM: Genesis 1:26–28 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

    • REVISITED: Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV) And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

DISTINCTION REVISITED: SUPERNATURAL RELATIONSHIPS

  • ADAM - Genesis 2:20–24 (ESV) The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.  So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”  Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

    • REVISITED John 17:20–23 (ESV) “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

DISTINCTION REVISITED: SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCE

  • ADAM - Genesis 1:31 (ESV) And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

    • REVISITED John 14:12–14 (ESV) “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Leslie ParrishSteve ParrishComment