The LORD repented when He made man.
Satan, fresh from being cast down from his bench—
So the old Fables go—
Came through the abyss to frustrate God’s Creation;
Jealous of us, the LORD’s creation. To kill us.
And, being that we were new, and like little children
The temptation was put forth.
We, who are made in God’s image
Bearing the likeness of God the Creator Himself.
We like children staring at a burning torch
Were tempted to place our fingers on the wick.
Place we did, and it set us ablaze.
God saw that we had sinned…
That the sin had wrought death
And God, fashioning His living clay,
Forged the Law through Moses.
Yet, that law was insufficient.
It had been so
That every man, woman and child were condemned to death.
For Satan was too formidable a foe
And men had not faith enough to beat him.
Therefore, after marring the clay—
For we are clay worthy of God to fashion
A lump with which He can forge,
A free and worthy lump for God to fashion
Into beings fit for a kingdom—
Yes, after marring the clay,
The LORD took upon us a new lump,
The New Creature,
The New Creation,
The New Man,
And fashioned us after His Son
The Word Made Flesh.
For God, seeing that Satan was too formidable
Must needs now fashion a lump
Himself, and place His Son upon the potter’s wheel
Not we, but He, Who submitted to the fashioning hands of the
Most High Living God.
And fashioned, we now are represented by the Son of God
So our souls can have reconciliation with the Living God.
Why do the heathen, then, say,
“Why Christ?”
When Satan is too formidable a foe for each of us?
Each of us, against a Prince,
When we were but slaves.
How can we resist a Prince?
Only through another Prince;
For Satan is the Prince of Thieves
And Christ is our Prince of Peace.
We, now, choose our Prince.
And in choosing,
All are conformed into one of two images.
Either the lump which God had marred
In His faithful hands, and was worth nothing
Or the lump of the Son of God
Which God had fashioned for us
To bear a body worthy of Eternal life
Which cannot sin.
For, we are all sinners, and cannot but sin.
This was the woeful part of God’s design
That men cannot but sin
Because of temptation;
Therefore to resist, Christ was needed.
What was a great, and wonderous creation
Was marred by us, and marred by Satan
So that it could not be enjoyed to the extent it was meant to be.
Therefore, we must be conformed into the new man
The Imagebearer of the Christ,
And therefore, be like God
Sinless, which only Christ can be.
For we all sin, but have been fashioned a body
Where Christ was our clay
And that body we take for ourselves
As a crown, should we simply hold onto the confession
Of the Faith in the LORD Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega,
Amen.
B. K. Neifert 