'Appreciating God's Love'
A) Image of His Divine Love
Gen 1:26a Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness."
I believe that when the Triune God created Adam and Eve, He created them in their image with their divine love so that man will be able to love one another just as Each Member of the Triune Godhead loves one another.
Oneness in Adam and Eve
Gen 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
This divine love in Adam and Eve will help them to live in harmony and unity (oneness) as they dwell on this earth. The same harmony and unity was displayed by the Triune Godhead during their creation of the heaven and the earth and later in the salvation and transformation of the fallen man back into His own image.
John 17:11 "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are."
B) Impossible Task for Adam
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
After the creation of Adam, God tasked him to have dominion over and name everything with life on earth and in the sea. In the flesh, this was an impossible task.
Just imagine Adam enjoying the beauty of the garden of Eden while riding on the back of the giraffe, rhinoceros, wild elephant or possibly the back of birds.
Or Adam on the back of the killer shark controlling it to drive into the deep blue sea and then surface for Adam to have his oxygen.
What great joy it was to Adam when he could perform the possible with His empowering.
Gen 2:19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Jesus has redeemed us from our fallen nature, and like Adam we must do good works which always look impossible.
C) Oneness with God
Gen 3:8a And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
In the cool of the day God, who loved Adam and Eve very much, would come down from heaven to fellowship with them for they looked forward to His wonderful presence.
I believe that our Father came down purposely to carry and lift Adam and Eve to pick the fruit they wanted to eat that evening for He enjoyed their warm just by holding and comforting them.
He also enjoyed Himself riding with Adam and Eve on the backs of sharks, wild elephants and big birds while Adam named and dominated them.
With this divine love flowing in the garden of Eden, heaven was on earth then. There was oneness with Adam and Eve and also oneness of Adam and Eve with God.
So Christians with perfected love will be able to be 'oneness with one another' and 'oneness with the Triune God' in the New Heaven.
John 17:20-21 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
