John 1:16-17 (Amplified) says, "For out of His fullness (abundance), we have all received, all had a share and were all supplied with, one Grace after another and Spiritual Blessing and even favor upon favor and Gift heaped upon Gift. For while the Law was given through Moses, Grace (unearned, undeserved favor) and Spiritual Blessing and Truth came through Jesus Christ."
The Spiritual Blessing couldn't come into the lives of those before, because the new birth (being made alive in spirit) couldn't come until Jesus bought and paid for Adam's transgression. As a whole, we have never really understood that we were dead in spirit, before being born-again. We were alive, but unto God. Adam's fall in the Garden of Eden resulted in man's connection to God's Holy Spirit to be broken, which left mankind in spiritual death and brokenness. Our only source of connecting with God, now came through those whom God could speak to and would obey His commands.
God's covenant or His family, were started out in Grace and Truth. There was no Law, only Grace and Truth at the beginning. God's family was to walk with and fellowship with Him, by Grace and Truth. After Adam's fall, God Promised that the Seed of a woman would crush the devil's head in Genesis 3:15 (Amplified), saying, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel."
God's entire Plan of redemption was to be determined by the Seed, that would bring His sinless Son Jesus into this world. Mankind was sinful and could only produce "after kind." Genesis 1:12 (Amplified) says, "The earth brought forth vegetation; plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which was their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, suitable, admirable and He approved it."
This Law of Genesis still works and everything (including man) can only produce after kind. One can't plant corn and get green beans. One can't plant peach trees and get apples, because everything still bears fruit after its own kind. Man was to bear the seed, in order to continue and preserve his kind. After the fall, God now needed to protect the seed of man, until The Seed could be sown into the womb of a woman and produce after kind. The Seed that God Promised in Genesis 3:15, must be preserved and protected until the appointed time.
Mankind must continue on until the Plan of redemption could be brought into the earth. We were born on the earth as children into sin and death and couldn't be in God's Image and Likeness anymore. The physical image and spiritual image of satan could produce after kind. Man produced man, according to the seed of man and satan could only produce sin and death in man's spirit, after kind. Genesis 6:5,8 (Amplified) tells us, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually."
The wickedness was so great, that God Himself was to blot out mankind. He still needed a seed to produce mankind until Jesus. In Verse 8, we find God's Grace and Truth in operation, as He searched for a source to man to propagate and bring forth fruit unto righteousness, for man's continuation. Verse 8 says, "But Noah found Grace (favor), in the eyes of God." God tells Noah in Genesis 6:13-14 (Amplified), "I intend to make an end of all flesh, for through men the land is filled with violence; and behold, I will destroy them and the land. Make yourself an Ark of gopher or cypress wood, make it in rooms, stalls, pens, coops, nests, cages, and compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch (bitumen)."
This Ark would preserve the seed of mankind (everything produces after kind), because God needed the seed of man to bring Jesus into the earth. This Ark would preserve God's Promise to Adam, for future generations to come. As the Promise of God floated above the flood, Noah's seed was producing a way for God to work in the earth again.
God once again pronounced His Blessing upon man (like He said to Adam), in Genesis 9:1-3 (Amplified), which says, "And God pronounced a Blessing upon Noah and his sons and said to them; Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread and terror of you shall be upon every beast of the land, every bird of the air, all that creeps upon the ground, and upon every fish of the sea; they are delivered into your hands. Every moving that that lives shall be food for you, and as I have given you the green vegetables and plants, I give you everything."
God's Promises to mankind, were contingent upon the preservation of the seed to produce those whom God could use. We see the seed of man being preserved through Noah's son Shem and his seed. Terah was from Shem's lineage and Abraham came from him, according to Genesis 12:1-2 (Amplified) which says, "Now in Haran the Lord said to Abram, God for yourself, for your own advantage away from your country, from your relatives and your father's house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you with abundant increase of favors and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a Blessing dispensing good to others."
Abram became Abraham, the father of our faith, and like the other Arks, it was through him that God preserved and protected His Word and Promises, from Adam to the Church. We read the story of the Ark of Moses in Exodus 2:3 (Amplified), which says, "When she could no longer hid him (Moses) she took for him an Ark." God used the first Ark of the Covenant and then He made a second one to hold the ten commandments tablets and the Law of Moses. God placed restrictions and Laws upon His covenant, allowing men to still walk in His Grace and Truth and not being destroyed in their sin, This, though, wasn't God's Best for them.
God's Word and Promises were wrapped up in His covenant, in order to protect mankind until the Day of Deliverance. The Spiritual Blessings of Grace couldn't function in liberty, to a spiritually dead people. So, the Promise and Spiritual Blessings were withheld until the Seed, Jesus, could be birthed into the world. Romans 3:23-24,20 (Amplified) says, "Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and Glory which God bestows and received. All are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His Grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is provided in Christ Jesus."
We can see the results of the Ark's protection of God's Promises and how God's Grace kept His covenant in Verse 20, which says, "For as many as are the Promises of God, they all find their Yes answer in Him, Christ, for this reason we also utter the Amen (so be it) to God through Him (in His Person and by His Agency), to the Glory of God."
When we understand how God used the Arks (whether it's Noah's Ark or in our time, Jesus Who is the Total Ark of the covenant) to protect His Promises, we realize how now in Jesus Christ, the Ark is restored back to all those who enter in by the Door. Jesus tells us in John 10:9 (Amplified), "I Am the Door, anyone who enters in through Me will be saved (will live). He will come in and he will go out freely, and will find pasture."
We find the Ark of God's covenant, fully enveloped in God's Own Glory, standing in the sanctuary in Revelations 11:19 (Amplified) which says, "Then the sanctuary of God in Heaven was thrown open, and the Ark of His covenant was seen standing inside His sanctuary; and there was flashes of lightning, loud rumblings, blasts, mutterings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a terrific hailstorm."
Jesus has fully protected and delivered the Fullness of God's Word, covenant, Promises, and the restoration of His Grace and Truth. Jesus has restored the desire God had for His children from the beginning until now.
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