God created this man, named him Adam and gave him dominion over the earth. Genesis 3:8 says that God and Adam walked together in the cool of the day. God created Adam in His exact likeness and image because He wanted Adam to be on His level, able to walk and talk with Him in sweet fellowship. He offered Adam the very highest kind of life—to be His family in the earth. Adam was instructed to subdue the earth and replenish it with beings in his own image, which had been created in the image and likeness of God.

God gave only one requirement to Adam: “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” (Genesis 2:16-17).

The only thing God required from Adam was obedience, but the day came when he chose to exercise his own will and disobey God’s command.

The moment Adam ate of the forbidden tree, the very life of God was cut off from him. Adam, by his disobedience, had made himself subject to and less powerful than God’s enemy, Satan. The intimate fellowship, communication and relationship he had so enjoyed with God, was over. When he broke fellowship with God and made Satan his Lord, he was immediately separated from God, and died spiritually just as God had warned. Satan is a dead spirit. Separation from God is spiritual death. He became separated from God, his spiritual life source.

By disobeying God, Adam chose death as surely as if he had signed a legal document saying, “I choose death.” Because of his disobedience, the future of the world was affected—all of Adam’s seed were born into this world with the nature of sin instead of righteousness—with the nature of Satan instead of the nature of God. Adam had committed high treason against God and Satan became his master. Disobedience and rebellion became dominant in the earth. Sin put man in opposition to the thoughts and ways of God. Thus, through one man’s disobedience, death reigned. “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

Gloria Copeland

From Paul we can see that mercy is not only the
pattern we are to follow, but a spiritual force. At the new
birth, the Holy Spirit imparts to us what the English Bible
calls everlasting life. In Greek, it is called “zoe life” or the
life of God. “Zoe” is the element that makes God, God. It is
eternal because you cannot kill or stop it.

Jesus said, “I have come that they might have ‘zoe’ and
have it in abundance” (John 10:10). We are forever as God is
forever, because we have the substance of “zoe” life within us.

Receiving everlasting life is not the same thing as
living forever. You were created a spirit and a spirit can
never cease to exist. To a spirit, death is being separated
from the life of God. You will exist forever whether you
serve the devil or whether you serve God.

In the second resurrection, the graves will give up
the bodies of every person who has died without the Son
of God. Those who have died without obtaining God’s
everlasting life will manifest for eternity the presence
of sickness, disease and death just as they did in their
physical life.

When someone loses his soul, he loses control of it. A
person who goes into hell does not go blank. He has a better
memory and consciousness than he had when he was in his
body. Look at the rich man in Luke 16 who died and went
into hell. He lifted up his eyes and said, “Father Abraham.”
Not only did he recognize Abraham, but he knew his
brothers and Lazarus the beggar. He said, “Send Lazarus
down here with water to put on my tongue (v. 23-24).” He
was wiser in the spirit after he died than he was before.

One time God opened my eyes and allowed me to
see what people’s spirits looked like when they were not
attached to their physical bodies. I saw good Christian
people with undeveloped spirits that looked awful.
They had great big heads because they were mentally
developed and little, spindly, scrawny, spiritual bodies
caused by a lack of spiritual food. These people had fed
on religion, the junk food of the spiritual realm. It had
ruined their bodies.

Gloria Copeland

But with God all things are possible! There
are no limitations in the kingdom of God! It
knows no impossibilities! So what we need
to do is obey the instructions Jesus gave in
Matthew 6:

Take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink;
nor yet for your body, what ye shall
put on…. (For after all these things
do the Gentiles seek:) for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things. But
seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you
(verses 25, 32-33).

The Amplified Bible clarifies that last
verse even more. It says, “seek (aim at and
strive after) first of all His kingdom and His
righteousness (His way of doing and being
right).” In other words, if we want to operate
in the dominion of God, we have to find out
His way of doing things and then do things
His way. We’ll have to change the way we
think. We’ll have to start thinking and acting
like He does instead of thinking and acting
like the world.

We’ll have to seek Him and His principles,
put our dependence first and foremost on
Him, and then He’ll see to it that our natural
needs are met.

You see, the principles of the kingdom of
God always work. God has spoken and set
them into motion by His Word. They will
work for anyone who will put them to work.

For example, one of those principles, the
primary one, is the law of sowing and reaping.
Galatians 6:7-8 states that law very simply:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the
flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

Actually, the law of sowing and reaping
works in both the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of this world. If you sow into the
kingdom of darkness, you reap the harvest
of that kingdom––death in all its forms.
If you invest your time and money in the
concerns of the world, you’ll end up on drugs,
pornography and alcohol. You’ll end up sick
and unhappy.

On the other hand, if you sow to the
kingdom of God, you’ll reap the harvest of
that kingdom––abundant life in all its forms.
As Romans 8:6 says, “For to be carnally
minded [to think like the world thinks] is
death; but to be spiritually minded [to think
like God thinks] is life and peace.”

Gloria Copeland