What Has Religion Done For Mankind?

CHAPTER III

When There Was One Religion

CAN you imagine our earth without a temple, a shrine, an altar, an image, a priest, or a sacred holiday? Well, that is the way it was on earth when there was but one religion throughout the universe. You are interested in how this could be, seeing that these things have become so associated with the various forms of worship. So let us examine the inspired Record of those days.

² The first book of the Bible is entitled "Genesis". This is a word drawn from the Greek language and meaning "beginning". It corresponds with the opening words of the book in the original Hebrew, "In the beginning," and which words the Hebrews use to designate that book. From the first verse of Genesis on we are taught that there is but the one God, the Creator: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) Here the Hebrew word for "God" is Elohím. This Hebrew word Elohím is in the plural number, not to indicate that there are several persons in God, but to indicate the excellence

of God, just as when, in old English, the king of England used to be addressed in the plural number, "Your Majesty," not, "Thy Majesty." For this reason Elohím, when meaning "God" the Creator, is always used with an adjective and a verb in the singular number. Does God give himself a name? Yes. In Genesis, chapter 2, verse 4, it first occurs: "These are the histories of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens." —Darby's translation; see also American Standard Version, also Young's.

³ That is the name which He has exclusively given himself, and no creation of his may take it to himself. "I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images." (Isaiah 42:8, AS) Testifying to God's exclusive possession of this unique name, the sacred song writer prays to Him against his enemies and says: "That they may know that thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth." (Psalm 83:18, Da; AS) His name is to be held sacred.

⁴ The materialistic scientists are led by their investigations and discoveries to appreciate only more and more the wisdom with which God created the heavens and the earth. The reverent psalmist long, long ago showed his appreciation of that when he said: "O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the

earth is full of thy riches." "Jehovah by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens." (Psalms 104:24; 136:1,2,5, AS; Proverbs 3:19, AS) At the time that Jehovah began creating the earth there were heavenly spiritual creatures in existence. Men who cannot see spirit creatures could not know this, but Jehovah God himself informed us of this fact when he put questions to the faithful man Job on what he knew concerning the construction of the earth: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy [all the heavenly beings shouted for joy, AT; all the angels chanted in their joy, Mo]?" (Job 38:4,7) Since these spiritual sons of God came ahead of man, one of these heavenly sons of God must have been Jehovah's first creation. Does the Bible bear that fact out? Yes, and it shows us who he was.

⁵ Like endless space, God has no beginning and no end. He is the source of all creation and of all life and intelligence. To show his everlastingness in the past and in the future he described himself as "I am that I am" and spoke of himself as the "I am". He used the name 6,823 times throughout the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, and that name "Jehovah" is understood to mean "He causes to be". Thus he declares himself to be the Creator of all things, the great First Cause. (Exodus 3:14, 15, AS) He gives life to all his sons, whether they

are in heaven or on earth. He is their heavenly Father, and as such he precedes every one of his sons.

⁶ There is one of his heavenly sons whom the Bible calls "his only-begotten Son". This was the one who became for a time a man on earth named Jesus Christ. In order to return to heaven this only-begotten Son of God died so as to sacrifice his human nature for mankind's restoration to everlasting life, and God raised him from death to heavenly life again as a spiritual Son more glorious than ever before. This glorified Jesus confessed to being the first creation of God. This he did when he gave a revelation to his apostle John and said: "These are the things the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God." (Revelation 3:14, NW; RS; Ro) So he was the chief one of God's creation. (Yg; Mk) Since God created him first, without the co-operation or agency of anyone else, because there were no other creatures then existing, he is rightly called God's "only-begotten Son". He is also called "the only-begotten god" in these inspired words: "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom position with the Father is the one that has explained him." —John 3:16; 1:18, NW; Ro; Sp; Ly.

⁷ The eternal Jehovah filled his only-begotten Son with wisdom. He became the very symbol of

wisdom. In the proverbs of wisdom he speaks of himself as wisdom and calls attention to his being a creation of the eternal heavenly Father. He says: "The Eternal formed me first of his creation, first of all his works in days of old; I was fashioned in the earliest ages, from the very first, when earth began; I was born when there were no abysses, . . . when he laid foundations for the earth; I was with him then, his foster-child, I was his delight day after day, playing in his presence constantly, playing here and there over his world, finding my delight in humankind." (Proverbs 8:22-31, Mo; AT; Ro) This Son's wisdom must not lie idle. So God his Father gave him something to do. God used him as his agent or servant in creating all other things. Because this Son was his chief representative and was to be his spokesman to all other intelligent creatures, God gave his only-begotten Son the title "The Word". How this Son was used in making all other creations we read:

⁸ "In the beginning the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was divine [and the Word was a god, NW]. It was he that was with God in the beginning. Everything came into existence through him, and apart from him nothing came to be. It was by him that life came into existence, and that life was the light of mankind." (John 1:1-4, AT; Mo; NW) "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the

things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him. Also he is before all other things and by means of him all other things were made to exist, and he is the head of the body, the congregation. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he might become the one who is first in all things, because God saw good for all fullness to dwell in him."  —Colossians 1:15-19, NW.

⁹ In harmony with this all-inclusive statement the only-begotten Son was used in creating the earth and man upon it. Although it is not said who it was, this must be the one to whom God. spoke, when the account of creation tells us: "And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:26,27; also 3:22; 11:7) The credit for man's creation was given to God, but the rest of the Bible testifies he used his wise Son. The way man has been made bears witness to the wisdom and understanding with which God made him. Man was a perfect piece of workmanship. It could not have been otherwise, for God was his Creator, and concern-

ing Jehovah God it is written: "His work is perfect; for all his ways are justice: a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he." (Deuteronomy 32:3, 4, AS) Consequently, when he finished his earthly creation by making the perfect man and woman, he could approve of what he had made. He did so on the sixth and last day of such creative work. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Thus mankind started out perfect. —Genesis 1:31.

¹⁰ Did God place man on earth to stay just a while in human form and then to pass on and assume some other form and nature, that of a lower animal on the same earth or that of an angel in heaven? Was man made with a thing called a "soul" which was separate and distinct from the human body? And could this soul exist apart from the body and also go into other bodies, that of say a cow or an insect or a spiritual angel? You might not believe us if we answered for ourselves. So we let God's own inspired Record speak for itself, at Genesis 2:7,8, quoting from a Roman Catholic translation: "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed." (Dy; also Kx) The Christian apostle Paul endorses that account of man's creation by quoting from it and saying: "The first man Adam was made into a living

soul." (1 Corinthians 15:45, Dy) There we have two inspired statements, fifteen centuries apart, that man became or was made into a living soul. God did not breathe into him an immaterial, invisible soul that could exist independently of the body and leave it and go somewhere else. A living soul was what the perfect man became and not what man had inside him. A living man has soul, that is to say, he has life or existence as a human soul, but he does not have an intelligent, separate something inside him which can abandon his body for a new existence elsewhere. Man and woman are human souls. But how the religions of this world, including those of Christendom, have twisted that fact and deceived mankind!

¹¹ Man was not the first material soul on earth.

On the fifth and sixth days God created material souls ahead of man. They were the lower animal creatures. "And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let fowl fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens. And God created the great sea monsters, and every living soul that moves with which the waters swarm, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. . . . And there was evening, and there was morning—a fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after their kind. And it was so." These animal souls were kept alive with food. God told man of the food provisions for him and said: "It shall be food for you; and to every animal of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth on the earth, in which is a living soul, every green herb for food. And it was so." —Genesis 1:20-24, 29, 30, Da; Ro.

¹² Every animal soul was made after its kind. No such animal soul could transmigrate out of its body and go into the body of some different kind of animal. The first man did not receive a soul by transmigration from some heavenly angel or from some lower animal or insect. Those animal souls were not immortal and able to pass on after the animal or insect died. This is a fundamental fact of inspired Scripture, and the rest of the Bible does not contradict it. In the very last book of the Bible we read of these animal souls: "A third

of the creatures that are in the sea which have souls died, . . . and every living soul died, yes, the things in the sea." (Revelation 8:9; 16:3, NW; Ro) Man's creation toward the end of the sixth creative day was separate absolutely from that of the lower earthly creatures. God breathed into the created human body the principle of life which is sustained by breathing and man became a living soul. Being God's perfect workmanship, with no parts lacking and with no useless, unnecessary parts, the first man was no product of a supposed law of human evolution. Human souls cannot mix with the lower animal souls. Not such animals, but man alone on earth was made in the image and likeness of God.

¹³ The loving Creator gave man a perfect home. He put him in the paradise of pleasure or garden of Eden. That man might not be alone in Eden God created for him a human counterpart, in this way: "Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:21-23, AS) Jesus Christ, who in heaven had served as God's agent in creating man and woman, confirmed this account as true by quoting from it. He showed that it set out God's law

governing the relationship of man and woman, husband and wife. —Matthew 19:4,5.

¹⁴ Did man in Eden's paradise have communication with God? Did God leave the perfect man to develop a natural religion by merely what he saw, felt and heard, or did God make a revelation to him for his perfect guidance? God made a revelation, and that evidently through his only-begotten Son, the Word, who acted as spokesman.

¹⁵ In this way God assigned the man to his work and gave him the divine commandments. "And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It was after God had presented man with a perfect wife that he revealed to them both the purpose of their being together on the earth. "And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 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 moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed;

to you it shall be for food." (Genesis 2:15-17; 1:28, 29, AS) However, the prohibition which God had expressed to Adam regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil still stood, until they passed the test which God had imposed upon them. Then they might eat of it with divine approval, and also of another tree, "the tree of life also in the midst of the garden," as an indication of their God-given right to live forever in the paradise. —Genesis 2:9.

¹⁶ There was just one religion on the earth, just one form of worship, and that was according to the truth of the divine revelation. But how was it carried out? Did not God command the man to build him a temple for the worship of his Creator there? Search the entire Record, and no such command to Adam will be found. Surely God himself could not dwell in such a man-made building. Thousands of years later the wise King Solomon who was commanded to build a temple to Jehovah at the city of Jerusalem correctly sized up Jehovah when he said: "But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!" The holy of holies of Solomon's temple was only a small picture of the heavens where God actually dwells surrounded by his heavenly hosts, and where he in due time received his great High Priest with the sacrifice for the everlasting life of humankind in a righteous

new world. —1 Kings 8:27, AS; Hebrews 9:23-26; 8:1-5.

¹⁷ Because of the costly, imposing temples, basilicas, cathedrals and "churches" which the various sects and cults have built in Christendom, the uninformed persons are liable to draw wrong conclusions. God's Son Jesus never commanded his followers to waste their time, money and energy in rearing such proud structures and putting the poor people to the expense of maintaining them. Because of his life-giving work he is called "the last Adam", and he foretold a return to the simple worship such as the first Adam offered in Eden's paradise. He told the Samaritan woman near Mount Gerizim: "The hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you people worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth." His faithful follower Stephen, just before suffering a violent martyrdom, said to the Jewish court at Jerusalem: "The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands; just as the prophet says: 'The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? Jehovah says. Or what is the place for my resting? My hand made all these things, did it not?'"

¹⁸ Years afterward Saul of Tarsus, who was a witness of Stephen's death, stood in the Grecian city of Athens which was full of temples, altars

and images for worship, and he said to the Athenian court: "The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples, neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all persons life and breath and all things." (John 4:21, 24 and Acts 7:48-50; 17:24, 25, NW) True Christians who obey Jesus' example have not engaged in building temples. In describing his vision of the righteous new world that is near at hand the apostle John said: "I did not see a temple in it, for Jehovah God the Almighty is its temple, also the Lamb [Jesus Christ] is." —Revelation 21:22, NW.

¹⁹ So in that righteous first world God acted in harmony with his own being and did not order Adam to construct a temple or even an altar. God dealt with the perfect man Adam without even a priest or a human mediator. Such things were not needed. No sacrifice was necessary to be offered, for Adam was perfect. Neither was he instructed to act as priest for his wife Eve, for she, too, was perfect. There was no need to appease an angry God. Adam in his innocence was "the son of God", a human son, and the relations between God and him were those of a father and a son. (Luke 3:38) His form of worship toward God was that of the obedience of a son toward his Father, according to God's revealed will. He could

worship him every day by such obedience and service.

²⁰ God gave him no religious holiday to observe or celebrate. It is true the account of creation says: "On the seventh day God brought his work to an end on which he had been engaged, desisting on the seventh day from all his work in which he had been engaged. So God blessed the seventh day, and consecrated it, because on it he had desisted from all his work, in doing which God had brought about creation." (Genesis 2:2,3, AT) This was merely a revelation to Adam of how God was proceeding, but it was no command to Adam in Eden to keep a weekly rest day or sabbath day of twenty-four hours.

²¹ That "seventh day" on which God desisted from work and which he consecrated was not a 24-hour day, but is of the length of the preceding six days. The Bible speaks of this "seventh day" as still continuing, because it is 7,000 years long. During it God has been desisting from earthly creation. Soon he will usher obedient men of good will into his great rest. (Hebrews 3:18 to 4:11; John 5:9-17) So there is no inspired record that the first man observed any religious holiday in his paradise of pleasure. He and his wife worshiped their Creator and Father as God with spirit and truth, in harmony with the divine revelation. So there was just the one religion on earth, the pure and undefiled kind.