The Eyes of a Son

Man was the most unique of all God’s creation. The angels must have watched with wonder as God fashioned this creature from the clay of the earth. Heretofore he had simply spoken and it was done. Now the Lord used his hands to mold and shape the man. Imagine the gasp of amazement from the angels as they beheld the face of this new creature—he was the very image of the invisible God.

This man, Adam, was unlike anything else in the created order. He was the created son of God. And as such he did something that not even the angels could do—something that only God could do up to this point—he moved and operated freely in both the natural and the spiritual realms. Adam was at home in the physical and visible sphere of earth but also in the invisible sphere of heaven. He could see clearly and commune freely in both places. Wow! What an awesome existence!

Then something went terribly wrong. The serpent approached the woman and tempted her to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. His words haunted and captivated the woman, In the day you eat of this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods. The following verse is quite interesting. It says that the woman saw and that it was pleasant to the eyes. She and her husband then ate the fruit and the eyes of them both were opened.

The woman saw the fruit with her eyes, but upon eating the fruit her eyes were opened. How could they see with their eyes and then have their eyes opened? The man and woman were not blind. They could see everything with their physical eyes. What eyes were then opened by the eating of the fruit? The eyes of their soul were opened that day and their lives and those of all Adam’s race were radically changed forever.

But let’s back up for a moment to the time before this horrible fall of man. When Adam was created he could see with the eyes of his physical body and with the eyes of his spirit. Everything that he saw with his physical eyes was filtered through his spiritual eyes. He interpreted all that he encountered in the natural realm from heaven’s perspective. Adam did not have an opinion about good or evil because he saw everything through his father’s eyes. That’s why the man and the woman were naked and not ashamed. Their emotions and thoughts were driven by the atmosphere of heaven and the heart of their father, not by their own understanding.

Moreover, everything Adam did in the natural realm was based on what he saw his father in heaven doing and what he heard his father in heaven saying. He was the son of God. He was the created son, but nevertheless, a son and he operated the way a son operates—living in the natural realm out of heaven’s reality. The man’s existence as the son of God was one in which he lived in both heaven and earth at the same time and he did on earth what he saw in heaven. The result is that God’s will was done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s called the kingdom of God—heaven touching earth. And it happens when we see with the eyes of a son as the first Adam did before his fall and the last Adam did when he came to restore what was lost.

This article is part 1 in a two part series. Check back soon for part 2