Unlocking the Secrets of the Breath of Life – Genesis 2:7

Does everyone get the same reward?

Let’s start with the breath of life

Colossians 3:23-24 is one of the places in the Bible where the idea of Christian socialism originates. Christian socialism is the idea that Jesus is a socialist who hands out the same reward to everyone, no matter what they have done for the Kingdom of God. Everyone in Christian socialism gets the same reward in the end. Everyone gets a trophy.

Not only is that thinking wrong, it is also unbiblical false doctrine. We already learned about what reward means in Colossians 3:23-24 in this post https://ministryjesus.com/beyond-salvation-eternal-rewards, but if you have not read it and want to know right now, here is an excerpt from that post:

     Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. -Colossians 3:23-24.

This word here for reward is the Greek word antapódosis and it is only found in Colossians 3:24. It is a unique Greek word used only in the context here. All other times the word reward is mentioned in the New Testament, it means something different.

antapódosis means Heavenly payback. It is an award of compensation, a paycheck from God, where God gives us our glorified bodies as the payment we deserve just for being a Believer. Our individually unique glorified body is the equal reward all Believers will get from God. That is our salvation.

This word for reward actually focuses on God. It does not focus on Believers. It focuses on what God gives us that He thinks we deserve. All people who ever lived will get this reward from God, but not all people’s reward will be salvation.

Where does it say people who make it to Heaven get different rewards?

Let’s go to the beginning of 1 Corinthians 3, where it is titled in the NASB Foundations for Living.

I hope you watched at least enough of the above video to at least get through most of 1 Corinthians 3 because he explains things I won’t explain here. 

Paul was writing this letter to the Corinthians. He had previously not been able to give them more than basic lessons on Christianity because they could not handle the deep things of God. They were still baby Christians. A lot of people call baby Christians Carnal Christians. Have you ever heard of The Six Stones? That is the basics of Christianity.

Paul told the Corinthians they were still fleshly. At first, Paul called them men of flesh, which just means they are human, but he soon calls them fleshly, which is the Greek word sarkikós, and it is a direct accusation by Paul.

Humans do not have 2 fleshy natures, where one is good and one is bad and they battle each other for control of our self. All human nature is bad by birth. Becoming born again is when our single human nature that is bad by birth begins to become one with God. Our human nature weds God’s divine nature, just like it happened when God made Adam.

These are exciting times God chose for us to be created into, times unlike anything before Jesus’ time, except for the time of Adam. When God breathed His life into Adam, that was unique to Adam. That was God’s Holy Spirit God breathed into Adam.

People make the claim they were made in the image of God all the time, without really understanding what they are saying. Just being born a human is not being made in the image of God. Well, it is on the surface, on a baby Christian level of understanding, where we are different than the angels.

Adam was not born, he was created. Adam’s body was roughly that of about a 30 year old man when God created him. Genesis 2:7 tells us “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” This one sentence in the Bible tells a lot more about God’s plan for redemption than most people realize.

First of all, dust. Don’t think of dust in your house. Think of thick coarse dust, dirt from the earth. This dirt is a symbol of vanity, a clue to humanity’s sinful nature. Dirt from the earth is the scattered remains of all that once was, useless without God putting it together and forming it into something useful.

So, God formed man out of the earth’s dirt and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Nostrils, most of us have nostrils, the two holes in our nose we breath in and out of, but nostrils here in Hebrew ( ap̠ ) is a noun that is shortened from its root word ’ānap, which means to be angry, like when your nostrils flare up from breathing in and out so furiously.

What is interesting is this word ’ānap is most often used to describe God’s extreme hatred of sin, not the action of people sinning, but of God’s hatred for sin itself. The Bible talks about divine anger 178 times and 130 of those times sin is the cause of God’s divine anger.

What is even more interesting is ’ānap normally occurs where God’s anger can be avoided, delayed or even lessened if people would repent. This is a foreshadow of our time we live in since Jesus, a time when God’s anger caused by his intense hatred of sin can be avoided in our lives through repentance and becoming born again. We can choose to no longer be children of wrath.

Breath of life, this is where it gets a little tricky. Many people will say this just means the ability to breath. God simply breathed into Adam and Eve the animation of life. They will cite animals going into the ark having the breath of life. Genesis 7:15, “So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life.”

But, breath of life in Genesis 2:7 is not the same Hebrew word that is in Genesis 7:15. In Genesis 2:7, the Hebrew word is nĕshāmâ, and it is also the same Hebrew word used in Genesis 7:22, where a distinction is made between humans and animals.

At first glance, Genesis 7:22 looks like animals and humans are grouped in together, but after some study, you will see a distinction between the two is being made.

“And man became a living being.” Most people will read Genesis 2:7 and come to the same basic conclusion. God created Adam, breathed life into him and Adam became alive, just like any animal comes to life, but a living being means more than just something that is alive.

Living Being is the Hebrew word nephesh, and it means the entire person – spirit, soul and body. It literally means the personal identity of the individual, and it ultimately means the description of the person’s eternal spirit shaped by his or her choices while on earth.

Living Being is also the end result of the person based on how much of God’s gift of life the person invested in the Kingdom of God.

Living Being mainly means the soul of a person, not as any part of us separate from ourselves, but as the whole of who we are. Only humans possess a soul that is capable of making moral choices.

I said all that to say we are not truly made in the image of God until we are born again. When God breathes His Holy Spirit into us and we become a child of God, when God breathes His Breath of Life in our nostrils, that is when our human nature begins to become one with God’s divine nature, but as long as this flesh is still a part of our Living Being, there will be a battle within ourselves to sin or not to sin.

This battle to sin or not to sin is the battle the Corinthians were losing and one of the reasons Paul wrote this letter. The goal of a Christian should be to mature in our faith, to bring our body and soul into submission of our spirit. This is the point the Corinthians were not getting past, the reason Paul called them fleshly.

Jesus said in Matthew 13:17, “For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Jesus was talking about Himself, how all their religion was leading up to Jesus, but no one was quite sure what the future beheld, they just lived on faith. Jesus could say the exact same thing to us today. I don’t know if you have noticed, but we are living in the times prophesied to us 1000s of years ago.

This time we live in is a time when we can personally know God, just like Adam personally knew God. We have the ability to make choices that God will reward us for later in the next phase of our lives.

to be continued…