tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88865676139054900712024-03-18T22:44:15.925-04:00Thunder SoundsThe sounding board of Pastor Stephen L. Winters for Biblical Theology and things that concern him as a preacher of God's Word and a shepherd of God's people. What is shared here is Informed directly or by implication from the scriptures and hopefully requires little else to make its points.SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.comBlogger466125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-45810880866022443422023-07-20T00:02:00.018-04:002023-10-04T11:25:41.072-04:00How Does God Know Our Thoughts?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalms+139%3A1-16&version=NIV">Does God know our thoughts</a>, all of them from start to finish, before we even think them? </i>Of course he does, but how?</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Perhaps he knows them b</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">y the brute fact of his essence, i.e. everything knowable is necessarily known by an omniscient God. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-limits-of-omniscience.html">If God knows everything essentially</a>, just because he is the omniscient God, there would be some issues. The implication would be that what he knows is timeless, part of his very being. Our thoughts-- the good, the bad and the ugly-- would be part of who and what God is<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">from all eternity quite </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">apart from our existence</i><span style="font-family: verdana;">.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If that were the case, sin's expression in creation could only be the instantiation of what was in the thought of God apart from creation.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Our thoughts would be, in fact, the very thoughts of God and </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">there wouldn't be any way to prove them otherwise</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">. Could our actions be free or blameworthy in the sense of being ours and not his? In the chicken or the egg argument about the matter, I think we would have to conclude that e</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">verything in our lives was an expression of the essence of God, including sin. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If God knows our thoughts because he has predetermined them along with all else that occurs, there are some issues as well. In that case, every act of even apparently free creatures is not actually the acts of those creatures but God's. He would have first thought them up and then actuated them through creation. Under this regimen too, there is no actual freedom, nor could any blame be ascribed to anyone other than he who premeditated those actions and then enacted them. God would be the only sinner.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Habakkuk+1%3A13&version=KJV">contemplating evil or cogitating sin within himself</a> apart from the existence of creation is a biblical impossibility. Even premeditating a plan which would <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1%3A13&version=KJV">pick and choose the temptations</a> which would fill the ensuing history of mankind is out of the question. God is not against himself, ever! He's not divided or impure. Those things which are contrary to him could only have come into existence after an agency independent of him in will existed. Therefore any conception that has God, within himself, developing, planning, cogitating, or strategizing about evil apart from it actually having come into existence in creation fails.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">God could know, in a general sense, that if he created beings possessing freedom they would exert that freedom in opposition to him, but <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A5-6&version=ESV">he wouldn't have known to what degree or how deep or to what end until he actually created them</a>. Then he would see it, transparently, all at once from outside of time. So, i</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">f God knows all our thoughts through all time </span><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2014/08/omnitemporality.html" style="font-family: verdana;">by omniscient, omnitemporal observation</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> there are issues for our comprehension, but none at all in regard to </span><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2010/06/sufficiency-of-word-in-describing.html" style="font-family: verdana;">what is revealed in the scriptures</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In that case, God sees all that happens in time without regard to time passing. All time is equally before him and accessible to him. He is neither </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">in</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> time nor constrained by it anymore than he is by space. He knows all that will ever be in time because he is "already" at each millisecond of time that will ever be in the fullness of his timeless being. All time was before him, at once, from the instant he created.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is not the quaint notion of God "looking down the corridors of time." "L</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">ooking down a corridor" implies a helplessness in waiting that isn't part of God's omnitemporal governance. God has chosen for creation to elapse in time while he is outside time seeing all at once. When it comes to time we have to wait for the future, but in any moment in time, God as he is now is already there, and he's there "now." F</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">rom such a vantage</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> he is certainly free to affect the entirety of time in any way he wishes in order to cause whatever end he desires.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On this view, it is true that God does come to know something by creating that he would not have known apart from creating. Of course, if that isn't the case, then God ends up being the author of sin despite one's view of omniscience and sovereignty, <i>without exception</i>. That God comes to know something given his decision to create doesn't at all impinge upon his sovereignty nor his omniscience. It may have the appearance of contradicting aseity, but God's essential being is not made dependent on something else by this. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Can there be any real issue with saying that God would not have known the details of humans' thoughts apart from his decision to create humans? I think not, for if he'd had not made that decision there would have been nothing to know.<br />
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SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-24478785103640041372023-04-03T09:02:00.053-04:002023-10-04T11:21:02.464-04:00Understanding Each Other's Curse<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">What I am about to share is likely to strike some of you as controversial. Not because of how I interpret the Word of God in arriving at this, but because of how you have been taught to look at the subject by modern, secular culture. I suggest to you that the modern view is sundered from reality and leads to dysfunction in relationships and the psychological dissonance involved in the perception of gender today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">What is the essential biblical truth in this matter? <i>Biological males and females are different from each other both physically <u>and</u> psychologically.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our society, as most western societies, has been laboring for decades under the false assumption that men and women are basically interchangeable. Fundamental differences in outlook, values, ambitions, etc. are seen to be superficial trappings artificially foisted upon us by developing under outdated patriarchal societal norms. Under such a view, gender is actually nothing but a choice in perspective, not a physiological assignment <i>with</i> psychological implications.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">What I’ve seen anecdotally over my lifetime is that whatever our society has been trying to adopt in regard to the issue of manhood and womanhood has been a massive failure. I think we're collectively trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. It seems clear to me that the fallout has been the dissatisfaction, dissociation, divorce, and the sad state of gender confusion we see so prevalently today. </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">So what does the Bible say?</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A26-27&version=ESV">Genesis 1:26-27</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is but one creature God made in his image (imprint), man, of which there are two genders, male and female. Mankind, male and female, is one creature made with one purpose by God in his pristine creation--</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">to rule over earth. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">In this there was no differentiation between male and female, and no implication of preeminence or authority. There was, however, a differentiation in roles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A15%2C+20-24&version=ESV">Genesis 2:15, 20b-24</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Though male and female humans were undifferentiated in being (image of God), purpose (dominion), and authority (equivalent), they were made by God different in role, <i>even in his pristine creation</i>. The m</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">ale was made to till and care for the garden God had planted. The female </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">was made to relate to and accompany man, and eventually bear children.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Made as he was for his role, the male had a pristinely pure desire to plant, raise, maintain, and watch over the creation over which he exercised dominion. The female </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">had a pristinely pure desire to stand beside (aid) the male she cared for and who cared for her as she exercised dominion. This condition of either sex was implied by their created purpose and verified by the dysfunction imposed upon them by the curse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Secular psychology will not make this distinction, but the Bible can and does, and therefore, reality does</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Understanding this truth is to apprehend why males tend to be task-oriented and find identity in what they do, and females tend to be relationally-oriented and find identity in how they are connected to other people. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ask a man about his life and he’ll tell you about what he does or what he plans to do. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ask a woman about her life and she’ll tell you about the people in her life. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">A simplistic generalization, I know, but it certainly jives with my experience of people throughout my life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This difference between the sexes is deep-rooted. It goes back to the purpose of God in creating us, and persists despite the flaws pervading our being since the Fall. Regardless of what we may say about gender differences in our politically correct affectedness, the difference is genetic, biological, and defeats our best efforts to erase it by social posturing. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Even something as mundane as video game preferences betray our innate differences: female players prefer <i>The Sims</i> and male players prefer <i>Grand Theft Auto.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A16-19&version=ESV">Genesis 3:16-19</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since the curse, Adam and Eve and all that have followed after, are <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A18-23&version=ESV">frustrated</a> in their innate created purposes. Together in frustration, but distinctly so from each other, men and women live and die in an irreparably broken environment. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Man was struck in body and in what he did: now all that he was purposed to do fights against his doing of it and then he dies. W</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">oman was struck by death too and with increased difficulty in childbirth, as well as how she related to man. Instead of a mutually caring, egalitarian relationship, she is objectified by man, frustrated by subservience to him and then she dies.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In this age since the Fall, the differences between men and women are no longer strictly about their roles within a singular purpose (dominion in God’s image), but are also differences in the frustrations we experience with life led under the curse on the way to death. The things our natures were made to pursue are subject to struggle, are always out of reach, and then we die. So, w</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">e owe it to our husbands, our wives, and our children, by way of being examples of love, to understand the frustrations our mates experience because of the curse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Husbands and wives do not experience the frustrations of life and death in the brokenness of this world in the same way. With patience and consideration we can make each other’s world better than it would otherwise be by understanding the burden our spouse experiences because of the curse. Jesus has broken that curse, but we can't get back to the unbrokenness of Eden in this life. We can, however, with love and understanding live by the light of faith, together, rather than walking by sight darkened by the curse, apart.</span></p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-83006497457923329502022-10-15T12:20:00.010-04:002023-01-20T09:38:27.119-05:00The Epic of Gog of Magog<p>What circumstance is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+38%3A1-39%3A29&version=ESV">Ezekiel 38 & 39</a> referring to and when will it happen? This article takes a bite out of that question.</p><p>Let's identify the players involved before getting into anything else. Scholars debate the identity of Gog and the location of Magog, but <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+38%3A14-15&version=ESV">the description provided in the text</a> says enough--"the far north”-- to leave little doubt, at least in my mind. The word far, as in "far north," is translated from a word meaning extremity (Hebrew: yerekah). If the longitude of Jerusalem is taken northwards towards its farthest extent, ultimately, it leads to Russia, falling just a short distance to the west of Moscow. That line does pass through Turkey, which is interesting of itself, and Ukraine, but the farthest extent is in Russia, so Gog is the ruler of Russia, which is Magog.</p><p>The rest of the cast are easily identifiable, for the most part. Persia is modern Iran and Put is modern Libya, little debate there. Cush is often misidentified as Ethiopia but it really refers to modern Sudan, the area of ancient Nubia. Gomer is best identified, it seems to me, by ancient references from Assyria as the <a href="https://biblehub.com/topical/g/gomer.htm">Cimmerians</a>, which places them around or just beyond the Caucasus, most likely in southern Russia. Beth Togarmah is hard to place today with any definiteness. Beth means “house,” so this is a tribal or clannish designation, often it's placed in Anatolia, but it's probably refers to the Caucasus as well, so Georgia, Azerbaijan, or perhaps Armenia.</p><p>In modern terms then: Russia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, and some representation from Georgia, Azerbaijan, and perhaps Armenia make up the alliance of Ezekiel 38 & 39.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaJ4uz73cUt-yqKBMWYkBpmWn2ug-J78Jxg04PCkb8TyQfZBh5lPQtjBFwNumI-7Gz9P0_6H2NYqFe5aXUjeHGAD48L8hYToN8OWVXCKtOn4o8jGOKjh_YqzUOp1QGVh5i_tFg3k3yBUykhfXwQjYRFpU0DbPgnxAxfew6T7AO7G4l6IIz26ZWF07Kw/s960/Central%20Eurasia%20Ezekiel%2038.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaJ4uz73cUt-yqKBMWYkBpmWn2ug-J78Jxg04PCkb8TyQfZBh5lPQtjBFwNumI-7Gz9P0_6H2NYqFe5aXUjeHGAD48L8hYToN8OWVXCKtOn4o8jGOKjh_YqzUOp1QGVh5i_tFg3k3yBUykhfXwQjYRFpU0DbPgnxAxfew6T7AO7G4l6IIz26ZWF07Kw/w661-h378/Central%20Eurasia%20Ezekiel%2038.jpg" width="661" /></a></div><p>When will all this happen? The text says after many days, in the latter years, when the land (Israel) has been restored from war and the people of that land (Jews) have been gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a waste, but upon which they now dwell securely. That would be... <b><i><u>now</u></i></b>! In the aftermath of WW2, Jews began returning to the historic land of Israel (aliyah) in numbers, became an independent nation in 1948, and after several wars with her neighbors now dwells securely in this location. The land is restored and productive, so all that remains in this readied space is for the sudden surge, storm-like, of the Gog alliance attacking and invading Israel.</p><p>Why will they do such a thing? <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+38%3A10-16&version=ESV">Ezekiel says to loot</a>. Israel is wealthy in our day, especially in comparison to its closest neighbors. It is productive agriculturally, has a strong economy and it is well-stocked with armaments-- certainly a trove worth plundering. Israel's wealth is a recent phenomenon, however, the nation has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel">considered wealthy</a> by western standards only recently-- like in the last twenty years or so. From the perspective of the alliance I am sure looting is what they think their motivation is, but from God's perspective this is an action he's instigating and it occurs for his purposes.</p><p>God will put a hook in Gog's jaw and pull him <i>back</i> and into Israel for judgment, to express his fiery wrath, and to demonstrate his sovereignty over the whole world. In our day, Russia has had troops in Syria since 2015, some within 25 miles of Israeli-occupied Golan. Russians have supposedly been withdrawing from the neighborhood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/14/vladimir-putin-orders-withdrawal-russian-troops-syria">since 2016</a>, but conditions in Ukraine have given added impetus to moving Russian troops and materiel out of Syria <a href="https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/russia-begins-withdrawing-troops-stationed-in-syria-likely-to-transfer-some-to-ukraine-articleshow.html">since May of 2022</a>. As bad as Russia may need to get out of Syria to deal with issues elsewhere, Ezekiel 38 leads me to believe that God is likely to pull them back in, not stopping in Syria on the rebound but progressing all the way into Israel.</p><p>How will God judge the invaders? In several ways, but generally, it seems to me, some sort of volcanic cataclysm is the heart of the matter. Will it synchronize with the sixth seal, which <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2010/11/chronology-of-apocalypse-rapture.html">I also see chiefly in volcanic terms</a>? Perhaps, but not necessarily. There is that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+8%3A1&version=ESV">cryptic half-hour</a> to deal within the Seventh Seal which seems to imply a short break between the Sixth Seal/Rapture and the start of the 70th Week/First Trumpet. Regardless, I do think Ezekiel 39 ends with the beginning of the 70th week of Daniel, as we shall see.</p><p>As far as the identifying the judgment as a volcanic cataclysm, all we have to do is consider <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+38%3A19-39%3A6&version=ESV">the description</a> to arrive at that conclusion. There is a great earthquake, landslides, rain, hail, fire and sulfur-- all marks of a volcanic eruption. There is, fortuitously, a volcanic system near enough to propound the possibility: the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/DTM-map-of-the-Golan-based-on-the-Geological-Survey-of-Israel-database-showing-two-rows_fig1_234165848">Levant Volcanic Province</a>. It covers the Hula Valley in northern Israel, sweeps over the Golan Heights with its many cinder cones, and extends down into Jordan. Although considered extinct (e.g. Mts. Avital and Bental are said by geologists to have last erupted 10 kya.) I entertain the notion that what has happened there before could happen again.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUbeOJROBmm9NER8uHMRH91lRzzt2gHv2B3oL3t_7Suu5DNTuZlnDWGcZMDYZgGa4quCxE4C-HMNn6_wy_JTcMyOc8ut5OMTiefrLLlCuB9ds-Ii8Kmgg4bNxjMQ8RkQrlC6CSBxXUSs4e-wHa5OepkQ1xt5y9hlZ0NNYDAnUPJ7EyiHvMPWnctceLjQ/s1376/DTM-map-of-the-Golan-based-on-the-Geological-Survey-of-Israel-database-showing-two-rows.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1376" data-original-width="632" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUbeOJROBmm9NER8uHMRH91lRzzt2gHv2B3oL3t_7Suu5DNTuZlnDWGcZMDYZgGa4quCxE4C-HMNn6_wy_JTcMyOc8ut5OMTiefrLLlCuB9ds-Ii8Kmgg4bNxjMQ8RkQrlC6CSBxXUSs4e-wHa5OepkQ1xt5y9hlZ0NNYDAnUPJ7EyiHvMPWnctceLjQ/w173-h225/DTM-map-of-the-Golan-based-on-the-Geological-Survey-of-Israel-database-showing-two-rows.png" title="Cinder Cones in the Golan" width="173" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cinder Cones in the Golan</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In the chaos and confusion of the described events, presumably, the soldiers of Gog's alliance kill one another. Those not killed by another soldier die from sickness (pestilence), which I assume will be the effect of air fouled by volcanic gases and ash rather than some sort of contagion. This volcanism will occur on a scale large enough to affect the coastlands, likely in Lebanon, which would make this a larger phreatomagmatic eruption than what is witnessed in the geologic evidence in the area.</p><p>The end result of all this for the alliance is death. Their weapons end up providing Israel with fuel to burn for seven years (there's a span that rings a bell). Their bodies, exposed to the elements, carrion fowl and critters become the focus of a major effort to bury the bones over the next seven months. A burial site for the dead troops is made east of the sea-- whether that means the Mediterranean or Dead is hard to tell, but it makes sense to me that it would be east of the Dead Sea. The odd skeletal remain will be found occasionally long after the slaughter ends. </p><p>What is the end of all this for Israel, which is, after all, the focus of all end-times prophecy? A <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+39%3A29&version=ESV">spiritual awakening</a> is the obvious answer, but not just a period of revival. To catch the whole impact of this renewal we have to touch base with <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+9%3A24-27&version=ESV">Daniel 9</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+11%3A25-27&version=ESV">Romans 11</a>.</p><p>In the present age after the cutting off of the Messiah at the end of the 69th week of Daniel, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-diaspora">Israel was dispersed among the nations</a>. A partial hardening had come upon the Jews from God because of (the implication is) their rejection of Christ and their unwillingness to depend on faith in God's mercy in Christ rather than their status as Jews and their religious works. The history of this age might give the observer the idea that God was done with the Jews, having cast them aside, but this age of partial hardening will only last until God is done with the Gentiles. Once his redemptive objectives have been accomplished with them, God will turn his redemptive attentions back to the Jews and all Israel will be saved.</p><p>The word translated “until” in Romans 11:25 always means “up to that time” in the NT. Therefore, this hardening in part that has come upon the Jews will only remain in place up to the time that the fullness (completion, Koine: pleroma) of Gentiles has come in. Then, the partial hardening which has let the Jews stew in their unbelief, allowing only a trickle of Jews to come to Christ, will no longer be in effect. What can that something be that turns the tide and turns hardening into openness? There’s only one thing that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A8-11&version=ESV">convicts people of sin, righteousness and judgment</a> and woos them to faith in Christ, and that’s the Holy Spirit!</p><p>If you, like me, have wondered how anyone could be saved during the Great Tribulation if the Holy Spirit (if understood as "<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+2%3A7&version=ESV">he who now restrains</a>") is taken out of the way. The scriptural record is clear that people will reject the Antichrist, his mark and put faith in Christ during the Tribulation, how can they if the Holy Spirit is gone? Now, in my view, it is not the Holy Spirit who is taken out of the way, but the Holy Spirit in and with the Church extant at the time (Rapture), but that doesn't make the situation less impossible. Who can be saved if the Holy Spirit isn't poured out on the flesh getting saved? </p><p>No one can, but Ezekiel tells us that after the <i>Battle of the Gog Alliance</i> the Holy Spirit <i><u>IS</u></i> poured out on <i><u>Israel</u></i>. When Daniel was told of the 70 weeks of work that God had left to do with the Jews and Jerusalem before everything was complete, Gentiles were not included, they weren't mentioned, they weren't in view. The 70 weeks are about Jews and God's work with them, not about God's work with Gentiles. 69 of those weeks passed until the cutting off of Messiah, at which point, God cut off (at least partially) the Jews. That means one week remains, one seven year period in which God will finish his work with the Jews and then all Israel will be saved.</p><p>So Ezekiel 38 and 39, <i>The Epic of Gog of Magog, </i>is actually the story about what touches off Daniel's 70th week.</p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-85290176124702906592022-08-05T18:38:00.007-04:002023-05-15T13:18:45.431-04:00Interpreting the Story of the Nephilim<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since the Nephilim <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2022/08/angels-and-nephilim-what-are-angels.html">could not possibly be angel hybrids</a>, we have to ask ourselves what is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%206%3A1-13&version=ESV;NIV">this story</a> about. We know it's about God's wrath, but is there something in the broader context that explains God’s striving with mankind, the limiting of time for that to conclude, the declaration that man is flesh, and that this whole affair seems like it was touched off by a separation between the godly and the merely human being no longer maintained? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">YES! resoundingly so, YES! Let's jump in and see how it all comes together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It does need to be pointed out at this point that it wasn’t the separation itself that was important in causing God's judgment. That the <i>whole</i> race of humankind was becoming violent as a result of it no longer being maintained is what mattered. The story, after all, is about violence, and specifically, about God's wrath in response to it. In that regard, the story doesn't really begin in Genesis 6, but back in Genesis 4 with the violent death Cain visited upon Abel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+4%3A8-24&version=ESV">Genesis 4:8-24</a> lays out God's reaction to Cain's crime: he and his family were driven from the presence of the Lord; Cain was marked in case someone stumbled into him and wanted to take vengeance; he was enjoined from farming and sentenced to be a restless wanderer (hunter/gatherer is the implication) instead. His wife went with him into exile and so a race of people followed, separated from the rest of mankind and alienated from their <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A15&version=ESV">created purpose</a> of tilling. The lineage derived was more tightly constrained genetically than the Sethites, which had <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+5%3A4&version=ESV">many offspring of Adam and Eve</a> with which to reproduce.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+5&version=ESV">chapter 5</a>, the story of mankind is retold but <i>without any reference </i>to Cain and Abel (Cain’s line is treated separately in 4:17-24). Humankind without Cain is recast as God’s children, the creation of God through Adam and Seth as can be seen in the repetition of "likeness." Adam was made in the likeness of God, Seth in the likeness of Adam. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+4%3A25-26&version=ESV">With the appointment of Seth (which means put, set) to take the place of Abel</a>, and Cain segregated, a human line of God's children was reestablished.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Many sons and daughters were born to Adam after Seth, but Seth was the named successor and so the head of the line that were sons to God (remember <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+3%3A23-38&version=ESV">Luke 3</a>). At that time, the Sethite, human, <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2022/08/angels-and-nephilim-who-are-sons-of-god.html">sons of God</a> began to call on the name of the L<span style="font-size: x-small;">ORD</span>. So the situation leading up to the Nephilim account was that, near the beginning of human history, God's judgment had separated the line of Cain from the rest of humanity because of <i>violence. </i>The line of Cain was human, certainly, but it was the line of Seth, though human as well, that carried the name of God, called on that name and had the distinction of being called "sons of God."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">At some point in time, when Cain's line had multiplied sufficiently, the males of Seth's line began running into and noticing the daughters of Cain's line. They were beautiful. The Sethite sons of God <i>took</i> (in a replication of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A6&version=ESV">Eve’s sin in garden</a>) as many as they wished as wives and cross-bred. Since the cross-breeding was only one way (Seth’s line took Cain’s women, but Cain's line did not take Seth’s women) the inference is that unequal strength was brought to bear, perhaps even... <i>violence</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The interbreeding within Cain’s line up to the time of this cross-breeding produced a much more constrained gene pool in Cain's line as compared to Seth's. When the lines cross-bred, gigantism manifested, probably not dissimilarly to the production of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/liger">ligers</a> when lions breed with tigers. The giants thus produced were called “Nephilim.” These folks of great stature physically also gained stature socially, and I think the inference that they did so through <i>violence</i> is reasonable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It seems that the gene signal for gigantism remained a recessive trait in some of those descended from cross-breeding but not expressing it. This may have been the case for Noah's daughters-in-law, or Noah's wife, or maybe even in Noah himself, maybe even some combination of all those possibilities. Whatever the source, in the post-diluvian Sethite race derived from Noah's sons and their wives, gigantism manifested itself again. When it did, it seems the same proclivity toward violence and notoriety was manifested in Nephilim whether prediluvian or post.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The problem that led to The Flood, with all it's death and destruction, was that the human, but godly line of Adam and Seth had become violent, like the human but ungodly line of Cain. In the mixture of those populations, violence filled the earth and giants roamed the land. God regretted having made any of them and so judgment came in a deluge. So there it is, simple and straightforward—no angels, no angelic hybrids—just human sinners doing as sinners do, all the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Thankfully, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and so can we. </span></p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-44687861734540101472022-08-04T12:20:00.005-04:002023-07-25T05:00:14.846-04:00Nephilim, Angels & Demons<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">As we go on with the story of the Nephilim, getting a grasp on what angels actually are is essential, so let us look at a few of the biblical descriptions of angels to gain an understanding of what they are and what they are not:</span></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+1%3A14&version=ESV">Hebrews 1:14</a> tells us angels are "ministering spirits" (pneumata)-- creatures of breath, spirit-beings rather than flesh, that <i>do what God tells them</i> to benefit those about to inherit salvation (Christians);</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A39&version=ESV">Luke 24:39</a> tells us spirits have not flesh and bone, they’re not corporeal, <i>even if they take the form of man</i>;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+20%3A35-6&version=ESV">Luke 20:35-36</a> tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they do not die-- so angels do not die;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">Luke 20:35-36 also tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they neither marry nor are given in marriage-- so angels <i><b>do not reproduce sexually</b></i>.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Bible doesn't give us all that much information about angels, not near as much as humans have an appetite for anyhow. Problems arise when we try to fill the knowledge gap by turning to uninspired works of the ancient past, even if those sources are presumably Jewish. Even if those sources are cited or alluded to in the inspired scriptures we do have. Even if those sources were found among copies of writings which are inspired. One who takes <i>sola scriptura</i> as the rule of faith and conduct doesn't give credence to myths and endless genealogies, which can only promote unhelpful speculations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We are told in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+1%3A6%2C+2%3A1&version=ESV">Job 1:6 and 2:1</a> that Satan reported to God amidst the angels presenting themselves to God. Satan is referred to under the term "also,” (Hebrew: gam), which, it seems to me, is meant to distinguish him in some way from all the sons of God. Even though he was the same type of being (a presumption in Job rather than being explicitly stated), his distinction from the sons of God is pointed out unmistakably. He's definitely not treated as the same, as if he's just another angel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Which bring us to the lack of distinction in Genesis 6 that would be necessary if "sons of God" were fallen angels in that account. Presumably from Revelation 12, fallen angels, like Satan himself, fell in Genesis 3. Satan was cursed there, which is certainly not what happens to an unfallen angel. The curse kind of makes it impossible to not see Satan from that point on in a light that would preclude him from the company of the sons of God. It would make him an "other" from that point on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">To have disobedient angels mating with humans after Satan had been cursed would have required those fallen angels to be distinguished from sons of God in some way as well. Perhaps they would have been called "demons" or "unclean," or by some other distinction, but they definitely would not have been called "sons of God." If this circumstance is envisioned as the instance of their falling, that too is fraught with problems, because taking wives (plural) and having children doesn't happen in a moment. It takes time. At what point would it have been sinful, stopped by God and judged by imprisonment? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The only thing judged in Genesis 6 is <b>flesh</b> (human and animal) <i><b>for violence</b> </i>by <b>death</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In a nutshell, then, angels are incorporeal beings incapable of breeding among themselves, let alone humans. They do not die. Fallen angels are no longer called "sons of God" but evil or unclean spirits, demons, devils and Satan and his angels. The notion of them producing hybrid offspring which God had to judge by the flood is, well, ridiculous.</span></p><p><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2022/08/angels-and-nephilim-interpreting-story.html"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Interpreting the Story of the Nephilim</span></a></p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-56762920483031576112022-08-03T10:19:00.023-04:002023-10-04T11:07:54.619-04:00Who Are the Sons of God?<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The story found in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%206%3A1-13&version=ESV;NIV">first few verses of Genesis 6</a>, really the introduction to The Flood account, has been the subject of speculation, fantastically wild interpretation, and the bridge through which ancient, uninspired writings have walked their way into theology and doctrine within orthodox, evangelical churches. The fuss circling about this story is mostly centered upon the identification of "sons of God." So come, take a dive with me into the heart of the story and we'll see what we can see.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Let's start with those 120 years. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Some take this as a pronouncement of the maximum life expectancy for human beings. That fails immediately in the following narratives in the Bible which routinely report lifespans much longer than that. It also runs afoul of Psalm 90:10 which says that a human's lifespan is 70 years, 80 if by reason of strength. So 120 years is not the life expentancy of mankind.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The <a href="https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1777.htm">word translated</a> "contend" or "strive" is most readily understood in terms of judging. So the most reasonable explanation, in my mind, is that God's prophetic pronouncement of judging humankind concerning sin would go on for 120 years before the literal outpouring of God's wrath began. No one knows exactly how long it took Noah to build the ark, but it doesn't seem a stretch to say he had 120 years in which to do so. Every time anyone saw it during that time it preached coming doom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Having gotten that out of the way, the next thing we need to glean from this part of the story is why there’s story at all (including The Flood account of which this forms the introduction). Simply put, this is a story about the wrath and judgment that God sent upon man and beast throughout the world for a very specific reason. Understanding God's reason for unleashing his wrath leads, ultimately, to understanding the broader context of this story (reaching back to Genesis 4) and brings into clarity that strange detail that is the particular focus of this post.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">To establish that premise (i.e., it's all about wrath and nothing but wrath) let me point out the glaring succession of statements in the text related to and about the wrath of God. With each statement through the account of the Nephilim and just beyond into the Flood Account, a growing clarity develops about the subject:</span></p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">v. 6:3 God limits the days of striving in judgment (contention) with mankind; humans are but flesh (NIV says mortal, but mortality has nothing to do with the issue, <a href="https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1320.htm">the word used</a> means meat, basically, and the reason to note that will become clear as we proceed)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">v. 6:5 - Humankind (note: no other kind referenced) had become saturated in wickedness </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">v. 6:11 - The whole earth was corrupt (ruined) and filled with <i>violence</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">v. 6:12 - All <i>flesh</i> had corrupted their way (and so were responsible for its ruination before God)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">v. 6:13 - The end of all <i>flesh</i> was determined by God because through them the earth was filled with <i>violence</i></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The reason that God's wrath spilled out in the flood is clear enough--<i><b>violence</b>. </i>What ticked God off to the point that he regretted creating life and moved him to destroy all the living was violence, pure and simple, and not just amongst humankind, but <i>with the animals as well</i> (v. 7). That reason had nothing to do with angels-- fallen, hybridized or otherwise. His wrath was directed toward all <i>flesh</i> that walked upon the ground save for that small sample that found grace, with Noah, in the eyes of the L<span style="font-size: x-small;">ORD</span>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But, the most critical issue in understanding the role the Nephilim account plays within its greater context is what, exactly, is meant by the phrase, “sons of God.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the OT, this phrase occurs in our text, at Deuteronomy 32:8, a few times in Job (1:6; 2:1; 38:7), a few in Psalms (29:1; 82:6; 89:6), and in Daniel 3:25. Though, at first blush, the phrase may seem to refer to angels in these texts, we know that is not necessarily so because of the testimony of Jesus. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10%3A34-36&version=NIV">Speaking</a> of Psalm 82:6, Jesus says that the “sons of God” are those humans (as context reveals) to whom the word came. So,<i> people God reveals things to are his sons. </i>Furthermore, Exodus 4:23 and Hosea 11:1 have God referring to Israel as his son. Not the same exact phrase, but the usage is clear nonetheless—God refers to humans, <i>as well as angels</i>, as his sons. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the NT, believers in God and those who are obedient to God are called "sons of God," too, note: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Matthew 5:9; Luke 20:36; John 11:52;</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Romans 8:14; and Galatians 3:26. There are many instances in which the phrase, "children of God" is used as well. Clearly, human followers of God are sons of God. The most telling reference of all is found in </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+3%3A23-38&version=ESV" style="font-family: verdana;">Luke’s genealogy of Jesus</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">, where, finishing a long line of citing whose son was whose son, the passage concludes with “Seth of Adam, Adam </span><i style="font-family: verdana;"><u>of God</u></i><span style="font-family: verdana;">.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Lucan genealogy relates directly to that in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+5&version=ESV">Genesis 5</a>, which is part of the greater context for the text we're examining in chapter 6. In reverse order from Luke, Moses starts with God's creative act of making humans in his image. Adam was created so and then Seth was from Adam. No mention of Cain, no mention of Abel is made. To understand the line of God's image (or as I contend, God's sons) the line of descent proceeds from Adam to Seth, and thereafter from Seth until time of The Flood. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Therefore, the force of “sons of God” cannot be seen as referring solely to "spiritual beings" or "elohim." Those beings created by God who hear his word and do his bidding are sons of God whether they're flesh and bone or merely spiritual. Those beings that do not are <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A41-44&version=ESV">sons of the Devil</a>. This is true for spiritual beings, such as angels and demons, or flesh beings, such as humans. In the case at hand, it is clear, I think, the phrase refers to humans, and I will finish demonstrating such in the <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2022/08/angels-and-nephilim-what-are-angels.html">next</a> <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2022/08/angels-and-nephilim-interpreting-story.html">posts</a>.</span></p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-62848574070846252952021-11-01T17:30:00.003-04:002023-09-19T09:51:59.709-04:00What We Never Were But Always Will Be<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Inevitability. That which unavoidably comes to pass. Not only predictable but certain. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the mind of God, I am quite sure, that is what the fall of a creature like man, made in God's image with its consequent independence and freedom, would have been considered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Line up a thousand people and test the premise and all one thousand would prove it true, as would a million, or billions, or whatever number might be selected. You see, it is impossible for that which is not God to replicate the free choice and will of him who is. If God could be replicated by that which isn't him, then God wouldn't be God. The very thing that grants the freedom to choose determines that choice will, without fail, deviate from God's and become sin.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Is there anything that God doesn't know about a course of action he intends to take? If he is omniscient, certainly there isn't. Since he is, God would need no more than one generic sample of a thing made along the line of a human in order to demonstrate by test the nature of this glitch to any and all observers (including <i>that human in the test</i>). One would be more than sufficient-- as that one went, so any others would go. The prototype is all that is necessary to make the proof that then would apply to all others.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Adam was that sample, the prototypical man. Eve was as well since "male and female he created them." Adam/Eve was not God, merely the image of God, and ignorant (innocent) rather than aware and knowing. They were created to do as they pleased, like God, but with one exception: they were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One pair of both models, one rule impinging upon their freedom was more than adequate to demonstrate that inevitable glitch that would manifest in all others of the type given the chance.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The prototype test in Eden proved to all creation that a human made in the image of God would rely on his or her own judgment rather than trust in the judgment of God. That is the particular choice from which deviation, any and all deviation, from God's will comes from. Had they trusted God there was nothing to hinder them from eating of the tree of life and living eternally. They didn't, demonstrated the inevitable glitch of which we speak and brought all of creation down with them into sin and death.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">They trusted themselves, trusted the Serpent, but they did not trust God. Thereby, they became disqualified and unsuitable for an eternal life walking in the freedom intrinsic to the image of God.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jesus was the prototypical <i>eternal</i> man. Not only was he flesh and bone and soulish in a human sense, he was also God in the flesh. Tested though he was, he stayed true to the Heavenly Father. He trusted his Father's judgment and stayed dedicated to his will. He never deviated, not even once from his Heavenly Father's will though he had at every turn the freedom to do so. He demonstrated that God dwelling within the soul and frame of a human made in his image was a sufficient synthesization to achieve perfection in being and eternal life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We were in Adam and did as Adam did. We were flawed and not capable of being truly righteous. By faith in Jesus and rebirth in the Spirit of God we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us. What he did, as he did, we also will do. As he is righteous so are we. He lives forever and so will we. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We were Adam, and never were nor could we ever be righteous. Now we are Christ and will be perfectly so hereafter, and as so, will always be righteous throughout eternity.</span><br /></p>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-68864206879403068092021-10-25T09:12:00.002-04:002023-01-02T10:24:17.564-05:00How Can the Imperfect Become Perfect?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Jesus said we must </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:48&version=NIV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">be perfect because our heavenly Father is perfect</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">. It seems an onerous demand to make upon </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalms%2014:1-3;%20143:2;%20Romans%203:9-12&version=NIV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">intrinsically imperfect creatures</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, so is that what it intended to convey? God is undoubtedly perfect and so are his standards, so if humans are ever to peacefully coexist with him we'll have to align with his standard rather than him to ours. That much is certainly true, but I doubt that Jesus' statement was a demand so much as it was a statement of fact.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">If God allowed imperfection to remain in his universe</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> he wouldn't fit </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perfect">the definition of being perfect</a>, and by extension, that of being God.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> If he did that, the best that could be said was that perhaps he understood what was perfect, maybe even that he wanted what was perfect, but he, himself, would not be perfect because he didn't or couldn't "</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jd1Ih8EUmw">make it so</a>.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">" "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" is not the mantra of perfection. So, Jesus spoke truth on that mount, really a logical necessity: if it wasn't so, God wouldn't be God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We, however, are not perfect, nor can we be. We are not God. There is </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2019:17&version=NIV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">one, alone, who is good</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> and it ain't us! But we must be, if we're ever to get along with him who is. We are made by a perfect creator and it is a necessity that we be perfect in all that we are. If not, <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2014/09/indestructible-human-souls-and.html"><i>we will have to be made perfect </i><strong><u>not</u> </strong><i>as we are</i></a>.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">What?</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Right now, we are free to think, desire, choose, act, create, etc. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">In order to continue to do so, we'll have to come into accord with, be perfectly aligned to, and be absolutely congruent with him who is perfect. If we willingly yield the degrees of freedom we have through faith (i.e. obey) because we trust God in his perfections, and are infused with the Holy Spirit throughout our being, we can thereby be enabled to walk in agreement with the perfect God. We can be like Jesus was as he walked among us.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Or...<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">We can be confined in hell, and by that I mean the </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=lake+of+fire&searchtype=all&version1=9&spanbegin=1&spanend=73"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Lake of Fire</span></a>.<span style="font-family: "verdana";"> As terrible, even barbaric, as that might seem, it is not the petty, vindictive, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">hissy</span> fit of someone really big and strong. <i>It is <a href="http://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-hell-with-it.html">a logical necessity</a></i>. In view of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfect God it is the only outcome possible. If those made in his image, and <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/03/if-we-would-just-catch-our-breath.html">are eternal as a result</a>, will not choose perfectly, then they must be <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+9%3A47-48&version=ESV">perfectly incapacitated</a> from making any choice whatsoever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana";">We are not perfect, nor can we ever be. Not of ourselves, not by our own resources. Yet, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%201:15-16&version=NIV">we must be perfect</a> nonetheless! The solution to our dilemma is simple-- don't be dependent on our own resources. God is </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=galatians%205:5&version=NIV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">willing, even desirous, to share his perfect Spirit with those who put their trust in Christ</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">. When he who is perfect</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> is abiding</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> in those who can't be perfect on their own, </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205:16-25&version=NIV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">perfection becomes remarkably possible</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">. When <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015:42-57&version=NIV">those folks are recreated at the Rapture</a>, then their perfection will be complete.</span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-21529284202589849162020-03-14T21:43:00.002-04:002020-10-30T01:52:45.753-04:00If We Would Just Catch Our Breath<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It has been broadly accepted that mankind is nothing more than a highly evolved animal, not really any different from any other living thing out there. No other animal is even remotely like us in the ability to reason, or to will, or to communicate, or to abstract, but according to the modern conception that is only a matter of degree rather than substance. I don't believe that, but then, what makes man so special in my view? In the early chapters of Genesis, we are told exactly what that is and especially with regard to all other life.<br />
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The creation account in the beginning of Genesis is really an elucidation of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A26-2%3A7&version=ESV">God’s determination to make mankind in his image</a>. The creation of the universe itself and all other lifeforms is treated as the backdrop to that ultimate aim. No more explanation than “and God said…and God saw that it was good” is offered for all of those creations, but for mankind a bit more needed to be said. The thrust is that mankind is unique, special among God's creations with something nothing else in all the physical world has.<br />
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Mankind was made in the image of God, which means they are a likeness resembling God. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4%3A24&version=ESV">God is non-corporeal</a> and outside of the created order (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+4%3A24&version=ESV">John 4:24</a>; <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+1%3A17&version=ESV">1 Timothy 1:17</a>), which means that man’s resemblance to God is not physical but something else. Physically, mankind is much like anything else that is alive and is separated by mere degree from all else. However, nothing else is like mankind in those areas of divergence noted above and that is where the image of God shines forth. <i>God is the only thing other than man (and angels) that shares those qualities</i>.<br />
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Presumptively, God fashioned man, physically, from the same material he had used to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A1-25&version=ESV">make other creatures</a>. Whereas they were brought forth from the earth by a mere word, mankind was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A7&version=ESV"><b>formed</b></a> [Hebrew: yatsar] by God in the manner of a potter and then directly breathed into by God which granted man soulish life. Although <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A19&version=ESV">later</a> in the creation account, that word (formed) was applied generally to all the creatures God had made, I find it interesting that in dealing with the detail of creation, a clear difference in how that played out is specified.<br />
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Whereas a general, creative word was sufficient for every other creature, with man God got his hands dirty and infused his own breath into Adam. Every creature had living being [Hebrew: nephesh chayyah<nishmat 2:7="" 6:17="" 7:15="" 7:22="" chayyim="" en="" nishmat="" or="" ruach="">, the animation of living being] </nishmat>granted by God<nishmat 2:7="" 6:17="" 7:15="" 7:22="" chayyim="" en="" nishmat="" or="" ruach="">, but had so </nishmat>without any reference to breath breathed into it by God himself. For creatures, God merely said, "Let the earth bring forth..." For man, God took dust in his hand and formed the creature, then breathed out of himself into man's nostrils the breath of life.<br />
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What is important about this distinction, it seems to me, is that the quality that makes mankind living souls uniquely from God is also the means by which God’s image was uniquely communicated to man. We are in God's image, not just because we are like God descriptively, but because we came directly from God substantively. We are, in essence, breath from God. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A24-29&version=ESV">Human beings truly are the offspring of God</a>.<br />
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As wonderful as that is, it has a drawback--it means <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+12%3A2&version=ESV">we last forever</a>, just like God. God is eternal and the breath that came out of God and was put into man (and made him a living soul) lasts forever too. Therefore, people never cease to exist, their soul is eternal. Ultimately, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A5%2C+12-15&version=ESV">body and soul will brought together, as at first, and permanently assigned to their place of eternal abiding</a>. So the only question about our future existence is not if we will, but <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21%3A5-8&version=ESV">where we will and under what conditions</a>.<br />
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<b><i>We certainly can't be destroyed, anymore than God can!</i></b><br />
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Most of us are only all too aware of our need for the redemption our broken, dying bodies: physical death, and what leads up to it, is enough to get that message across. Thankfully, we have the necessary vicarious sacrifice in the death of Christ and his victorious resurrection from the dead for that, provided we place our trust in him. But what is the more essential need included in the mix is the redemption of our eternal souls, those whisps of the very breath of God which last forever. Everlasting life is in our hands from the scarred hands of Christ, if we would just pause in faith and catch our breath.<br />
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SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-3975823782017985932020-03-09T10:26:00.000-04:002020-03-10T08:16:26.039-04:00A Christian Worldview: What Should We Do?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Solomon was an interesting figure. Blessed with incredible wisdom, intelligence, wealth and power, he decided to test drive life by his own wits. He set out to figure it all out and experience everything he could. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1%3A13&version=ESV">He studied everything he could</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+2%3A1&version=ESV">sought out every kind of pleasure</a> he could find, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+2%3A4&version=ESV">built great projects</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+2%3A8&version=ESV">amassed fantastic wealth</a>, and at every turn felt nothing but emptiness. Famously, he decried, "<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1%3A14&version=ESV">All is vanity and a striving after the wind</a>," in despair at the discovery.</div>
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He looked at the people around him and saw they experienced the same thing—emptiness. The Hebrew word translated emptiness or vanity throughout Ecclesiastes (hebel) literally refers to breath or vapor. Quite accurately it conveys the fleeting quality of thing that seemed to be there but then wasn't. For Solomon, after all of his efforts, achievements and experiences, life boiled down to a merciless sentence with emptiness at every comma and a period ending it all in the suddenness of death.</div>
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A very dour perspective, to be sure, but all that matters is whether or not it’s true. </div>
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Despite the endless despair over the emptiness of human existence cited throughout Ecclesiastes, a <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%2012%3A13&version=ESV">positive conclusion came at the end</a>. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man,” Solomon averred. Now that is a perspective we can live with! In very practical terms it makes living through so much meaninglessness meaningful with the added benefit that it's easy to remember.</div>
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<i><b>"Recognize God, respect him as your creator, live life in regard to him"</b> </i>is how I would state it. That may seem very “Old Testamenty” from a New Testament vantage, but it translates readily into a Christian worldview. For Christians, life revolves around recognizing Christ as God in the flesh, respecting him as Savior, and living in regard to him. What Solomon learned the hard way Christians can adopt by faith, and without all the bumps and bruises along the way that come when one of trusts in oneself.</div>
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Honestly, there is only thing in life that isn’t wasting away, that crosses the threshold of death and remains in eternity--our relationship with Christ. This is the only thing of worth we will ever have in this life and the only thing we can improve upon and have stand the test of time. It certainly is the only thing we can take with us. All the things that humans treasure and labor for and try to preserve and protect from the savages of time (and savages themselves) matters not a whit in the end.</div>
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<b>Only what we have with Christ matters</b>!<br />
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The only thing of any real value in life is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A3&version=ESV">knowing God on friendly terms</a>. So why are people, supposedly with a Christian worldview, working at anything else? By not developing this kind of Christian worldview and living by it, believers end up living in a tug of war between the flesh and faith, between the world and the Spirit. They live defeated, worldly, empty lives and feel uncertainty about their place in the end. It doesn't have to be this way, vanity is not unavoidable.<br />
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Living with Jesus eyes is the only way to live at all. <b>Anything else is a waste of time</b>.</div>
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So put first things first. Above all, know God, not as a precept or a theory, but personally, as a constant companion that you want to be with. Then, simply <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A14&version=ESV">go where he goes</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+5%3A19&version=ESV">do what he does</a>, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+12%3A50&version=ESV">say what he says</a>. Live with life revolving around Jesus. If we don’t put the most important thing first, in the end, we’ll have nothing. That would be the vanity of all vanities.<br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-it-is-adopted.html">What went before</a>...</div>
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SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-6967145245915819552020-03-04T09:19:00.005-05:002020-03-09T10:59:56.223-04:00A Christian Worldview: Where Are We Going?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-did-we-get_26.html">last post</a> I mentioned that the antidote to the place we find ourselves in is Jesus Christ, but what is it that gets people to come to Christ the antidote? Certainly, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A44-47&version=ESV">God</a> is the most fundamental answer, but if God's effort was all that was needed to get people to the antidote, God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+2%3A1-6&version=ESV">would bring</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+3%3A9&version=ESV">everyone to Christ</a> and everyone would be saved. But that is not what happens--it does not comport with reality scripturally or materially. Whatever God does in the hearts of people to draw them to Christ has to be coupled with something that is not up to God to accomplish, otherwise, everyone would come to Christ and be saved.<br />
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That something is faith.<br />
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<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A14%3B+Numbers+21%3A9&version=ESV">It takes faith in the antidote to actually avail oneself of the antidote</a>. Faith in Christ like this is impossible for the depraved mind we spoke of in the last post to express, but it is also impossible for faith like this to be imposed. It wouldn't be faith in that case, it would be something more akin to instinct. So two elements need to come together to produce the faith connection to Christ: God, the Spirit empowering; and a willful reaction to trust God from the human heart. Like epoxy, two elements mix together to make a bond that works.<br />
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The old adage says that one can lead a horse to water but he can't make him drink. The Holy Spirit convicts, draws, we might go so far as to say woos the sinful human, but the Holy Spirit cannot and does not believe for him. <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2014/01/enabled-to-respond.html">Enabled by the Spirit's action</a>, we must believe for ourselves. If we won't, God will not do it for us, and we won't be saved. The snag in all this, it seems to me, is that big word, REPENTANCE.<br />
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Repentance means to change one's mind, to realize after determining a course, that it was not the right course, and so changing directions. We tend to fixate on the small population of our own misdeeds when thinking about repentance, but that doesn't really get to the root of things. To repent of the thing that really ails us we have to go back to Adam and Eve in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A1-8&version=ESV">Genesis 3</a>. True repentance lies in undoing what Adam and Eve did.<br />
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Adam and Eve thought their judgment was as good as God's, we have to unthink that. Adam and Eve saw themselves on par with God as to determination of the what and wheres of life, we must "unsee" ourselves as like that. The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A10&version=ESV">thing Adam and Eve despaired over</a> with regard to God, we must repair by the application of the cross and the victory of the resurrection. Simply put, we must stop trusting ourselves and start trusting God.<br />
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Pop psychology pushes people to trust in themselves, and seems to assume that people don't do so enough. As far as I have seen, most people have “trust-in-self” in spades. They really aren’t interested in trusting God, but they'll trust in their self, independent of God, even if their lives are falling apart. Pride? Perhaps. Yet, so many of those same folks still want eternal paradise, they're just not so hot on the whole overbearing God thing.<br />
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<i>But if one doesn't love and trust God, one wouldn't like heaven.</i><br />
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An all-expense-paid trip to Disney World would be totally unappealing to me. I’m not interested in Disney characters, I don’t like standing in line, I have no interest in animatronics and I’m much more interested in experiencing a thrill in movement than watching a cheesy production. To top it off, I hate Florida! The heat and humidity are as close to hell as I hope ever to be. Why would I ever want to go to Disney World, even if offered an all-expense paid trip?<br />
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A similar question could be posed rhetorically to some folks regarding heaven. <i>Heaven is <b>all</b> about God</i>. Everyone there trusts him implicitly, everything there serves him unquestioningly, everyone there is fascinated by him, everything there is perfectly aligned to his will (and the people and angels there, willingly so). You see, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A29&version=ESV">everyone there is conformed</a> to the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A2&version=ESV">image of Christ</a>. For some folks that holds no allure. They may not want to go to hell, but they really don’t want to have life revolve around Jesus either!<br />
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The point of this life is not to get an all-expense-paid trip out of hell, nor to have life cease working against us (as in reversing the curse here and now). The point is changing our mind about God and ourselves, about realizing our need for Jesus and embracing a framework for living that revolves around trusting God rather than ourselves. A Christian worldview arises out of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+20%3A21&version=ESV">repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ</a>.<br />
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So where are we heading as Christians?<br />
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Toward Christ in trust. Toward knowing Christ as Lord. Toward becoming just like him. A Christian worldview sees life revolving around God. <i>Anything less is a fallacy</i>. So turn to him today. Follow him tomorrow. Be at it next week. Make it <b><i>the</i></b> principle that governs all your living. That's where a Christian needs to be going.<br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-christian-worldview-what-should-we-do.html">How then shall we live</a>...</div>
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SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-90360281494200701792020-02-26T11:12:00.007-05:002023-08-25T10:45:49.363-04:00A Christian Worldview: How Did We Get Here? Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
As established in <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-it-is-adopted.html">the first post in this seriest</a>, seeing life through Jesus eyes entails seeing the world and the life in it as created by God. None of us is an accident of chance (not even the lowly amoeba is); instead, all life is the result of God actively creating life at some point in the past and then ceasing thereafter from creating life. Furthermore, this perspective is one that actually comports with reality, whereas any viewpoint excluding the existence of a creator and relying upon random chance and processes that could be active today does not.<br />
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That, however, leaves us with the questions of why life is what it is and why humans are what they are. What of suffering, and death, and evil? What kind of Creator must we have when there is such misery in the creation that creator has made? The texts of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A14-24&version=ESV">Genesis 3:14-24</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A18-32&version=ESV">Romans 1:18-32</a> yield an answer, which is really quite robust and needs to be braided into any Christian worldview.<br />
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Simply put, the reason that conditions are what they are is that God is angry. The word used to describe God’s attitude toward life, particularly human life (Romans 1) is wrath [Koine: orge]. Literally, the word refers to a swelling up, figuratively it refers to the state of being teeming in opposition. In other words, the wrath (orge) God feels towards humanity moves him to stand up and fight against them. That might seem a quaint idea to modern sensibilities, but it is biblical and <i>it lines up with reality</i>!<br />
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But why is God so wrathful? According to Romans 1, it is because mankind has endeavored, from the beginning, to marginalize and dismiss God in order to do whatever they have wanted to do. Whether we look at the story of Adam and Eve, or at the generations leading up to Noah, or at those who built a tower in opposition to God’s right to rule over and judge us, or anything since, the biblical history of mankind is played on one note: resistance to God. His counterpoint is wrath.<br />
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In this day and age, is that an idea that has any merit, any truth value to it? Look for yourself. Are people willful while they put their Creator on a bookshelf or ignore that Creator altogether? Does dismissing or neglecting the Creator allow them to pursue whatever course of action they see fit? Do they project upon God what they want him to be or what conveniences their willful agenda? That certainly jibes with my observations.<br />
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<i>Even good people, the very best people, don’t take God seriously.</i><br />
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If they're not projecting their wishes and excuses upon God in one way, then they're dismissing and neglecting him on another. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A10-18&version=ESV">No one in the natural</a> is truly unselfish or unwillful or God-seeking, and it has always been so.<br />
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God’s reaction to such was to pull the plug. Pull the plug on perfection, pull the plug on life, pull the plug on health, pull the plug on relationship, and leave us to our own devices since that’s what we wanted. The plug pulled, God removed himself from our realtime perception of him and left humankind to themselves, given over to a mind without God in it. As a result humankind lives flawed lives in a flawed world <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+9%3A27&version=ESV">until death comes and each faces ultimate judgment</a>.<br />
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Philosophers worry about theodicy, the justification of a perfectly good God given all the suffering and death here on earth. It’s not a thing a person looking at the world through Jesus eyes needs to worry about, for the fault lies not in God, but in humankind. The question is not how can God be all-good in the midst of so much evil, but why, since God is only good, it’s not a whole lot worse! <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21%3A1-8&version=ESV">At some point in time, given God's perfections, it will have to be</a>.<br />
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So we wonder, “How did we get here?” and we see the Bible has an answer. In the beginning, God made everything, including life, and then he rested. He made humans in his image with divine-like powers of will, choice, creativity, etc. and placed them in a perfectly made world. But humans, in their god-like abilities, opted to trust their own judgment and do their own will rather than God’s. They rebelled and triggered the judgment of a perfectly just God.<br />
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Death and all the misery, weakness and suffering that comes with it is the price humans pay in the here and now for wanting God as he truly is out of the picture. Not only in themselves was the penalty inflicted but also upon the world around them God made for them. As it was for Adam and Eve, so it is for the rest of us. We have been given over to ourselves, separated from God, and the result is a depraved mind in a world broken beyond repair, leading to death.<br />
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<b>But there is an antidote</b>. God has a plan for fallen humankind, lost in isolation, brokenness and death--a redemptive plan. If we turn from our rebellion, from our rejection of God, and embrace him in our lives and living, he will welcome us into fellowship with himself and give us his very own breath so we can live in soundness of mind and fellowship with him now and forever. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1%3A14-15&version=ESV">This is the message of Christ</a>, this is what his death and resurrection secured for all who <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+20%3A20-21&version=ESV">repent and accept the gospel</a>.<br />
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A Christian worldview perceives that we are not accidents of chance but the creations of purpose--the purpose of God. A Christian worldview sees everything as a creation made by God but broken by sin, wrecked by death, and thankfully, redeemed in Christ. A Christian worldview sees that God has put us in this broken place so we would see the folly of our rebellion, repent, and put our trust in him.<br />
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<i>A Christian worldview sees God in the face of Christ and realizes he is the only way out of the here we've gotten into</i>.</span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-9324064727873606152020-02-21T13:29:00.005-05:002020-03-08T07:48:41.630-04:00A Christian Worldview: How Did We Get Here? Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Earth is a very friendly environment for life, even in places that seem completely inhospitable. Virtually anywhere one goes on or near the surface of the planet, life is teeming. In the biosphere of this planet the chemical processes of life find a safe haven for their action and interaction. And yet, whereas <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biogenesis">biogenesis</a> is rampant on the planet, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abiogenesises">abiogenesis</a> is non-existent, not even in experiments designed in its favor. Is that a problem?<br />
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It isn't for me, but then I'm a believer in biblical creationism. For the atheistic evolutionist, however, it is an insurmountable wall. If the evolutionist does not have a plausible, credible, demonstrable theory for how chemicals progressed from soup to life, they have <u><b>nothing</b></u> but a realization that species adapt because of breeding and mutation. They do not have an explanation for the origin of life, therefore no explanation for the origin of species, nowhere near an explanation of where we came from, and certainly no reason to pitch concerns about a Creator over us out the window.<br />
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There are really only two possibilities to explain the origin of life on earth: it arose by chance chemical reactions or it arose as the result of purpose. Those who favor atheistic or naturalistic explanations favor chance, folks of a more spiritual bent prefer purpose. The promoters of chance must embrace an existential nightmare springing from the meaninglessness of life, the promoters of purpose are faced with the weighty matter of whose or what purpose brought life into being. It seems to me the chance promoters have a bigger challenge that requires a greater faith!<br />
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The basic building block of life as we know it is protein, a polymer made up of varying units of some 22 different amino acids. Nucleic acids, enzymes, sugars, lipids, as well as liquid water, are essential, but everything truly alive is made of protein. The precursor molecules of these organic materials have been shown to self-assemble in both natural environments and experimentally, so it seems a simple matter to serendipitously get the right zap, and presto chango, life sparks into existence. But that didn't happen, it couldn't have happened, it will never happen because it's impossible. Why?<br />
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Probabilities for one thing. Life, even in its simplest forms, is actually very complex. It's not just the order of elements in biochemical compounds that matters, it's also the shape of the molecule. <a href="https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/University_of_Missouri/MU%3A__1330H_(Keller)/25%3A_Chemistry_of_Life%3A_Organic_and_Biological_Chemistry/25.07%3A_Chirality_in_Organic_Chemistry">Chirality</a>, as much as anything else, is what allows the proper shape to be possible: in living things amino acids are left-handed, sugars right-handed. To function in the processes of life, compounds must be made of the right stuff in the right order and in the right shape. If not, processes go wrong or don't function at all.<br />
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That said, what of the probabilities I mentioned? Given a rich chemical soup containing an infinite supply of amino acid residues, the odds of a single, specific, small (150 residues long) functioning protein self-assembling is more than astronomical--1 in 10 to the 1064th power (my thanks to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_in_the_Cell">Dr. Meyer</a>). To get a sense of that magnitude, there may be no more than <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/">10 to 86th</a> atoms in the entire universe! Even if there were natural, chemical ways in which these odds could be lessened they still would not become anywhere near probable, and we're only talking about one, small protein. Life requires multiple proteins, generally much longer.<br />
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<i>The likelihood of one small, specific, functioning protein self-assembling in a chemical soup is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.</i><br />
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<a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/origins-of-life-on-earth/a/rna-world">RNA-world</a> theories <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-end-of-the-rna-world-is-near-biochemists-argue-20171219/#comments">hardly fare any better</a>. Order in sequence is still necessary for function, particularly since protein synthesis is ultimately required to produce life as we know it. Even if the can is kicked down the ally a way, it still has to be picked up to clean up the situation. From my layman's perspective, the specificity of functioning proteins is still <i><b>the</b></i> hurdle (biologically and probabilistically) that a naturalistic origin of life must get over, <i>even if starting with RNA</i>. Self-assembling the thing that could code the assembling of a functioning protein is, if anything, more improbable than a functioning protein assembling itself.<br />
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I cannot see where experiments that demonstrate RNA's capacity for "natural selection" demonstrate anything other than RNA's replicative capacity. Has that not been understood since we've known about RNA? Those capabilities do not mitigate the probabilities involved. They certainly don't address the twin peaks of specificity and function. <i>The truth is that the only thing we know for sure about the generation of life is that it takes life to make life. </i><br />
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Given the extreme complexity in the chemistry of the cell and the time available for random sampling in any chemical soup (whether for proteins or RNA) the odds of useful, functioning, biochemicals self-assembling by chance are so insignificant as to be impossible. If all the universe were nothing but the chemicals needed, put into the most advantageous environment imaginable, the odds for self-assembly by chance would not be reduced significantly enough to change the impossibility. <b>Life was undoubtedly created on purpose</b>.<br />
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And even if one does not buy into purpose, the fact that life isn't coming into existence naturalistically on Earth now still has to be dealt with. The environment is very friendly now given the ubiquity of life now, and yet new life isn't spontaneously developing so far as anyone can tell. Whatever was happening to start life on Earth isn't happening now, despite how life-welcoming Earth is. We only see the unbending rule that life arises from life.<br />
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Naturalistic explanations for life's likely singular origin reach for scenarios that properly belong in the realm of imagination. The Bible, on the other hand, sets forth the scenario we see in reality--life was started at some point in the past and then ceased coming into existence--and it did so long before anyone ever did a scientifically sound abiogenesis experiment or knew just how ubiquitous life was. According <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A31-2%3A3&version=ESV">Genesis 1:31-2:3</a>, God exerted creative force in putting all creation into place, with all of its life, and then he ceased from his creative work. No more energy or mass and no more life was created afterwards.<br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-what-is-truth.html">Truth comports with reality.</a><br />
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Therefore, a Christian worldview perceives everything, including life, as arising from the hand of God on purpose. That is how here got here and that is how we got here. We all are creations purposefully made by God and our existence is lived in the light of our Creator who is over us. Are you ready to live life knowing there is a God who purposefully made you and to whom you must answer? Are you ready for truth?<br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-did-we-get_26.html">Part II...</a></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-52780985791727836962020-02-15T13:50:00.003-05:002023-04-03T08:34:38.735-04:00A Christian Worldview: What Is Truth?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+18%3A37-38&version=ESV">Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”</a></i><br />
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In a world where truth is asserted on the basis of consensus, or conversely, to be hyper-individualized, is there actually such a thing as truth? The contemporary search to uncover truth includes immense computing power sifting massive amounts of data and modeling at levels not possible just a couple of decades ago. Has it brought anyone closer to the truth? Who knows? Regardless, it seems to me that each person does have a conception that certain things are true, and that truth conception influences their lives, that is their decisions, direction, interactions, relations, and values.<br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-it-is-adopted.html">This series</a> is about the development of a Christian worldview, and in that matter the basis for one's conception of truth is foundational. In the above snippet from the Gospel of John the word used for truth [Koine: aletheia] communicates a basis for understanding truth objectively, namely, that <i><b>truth aligns with reality</b></i>. Whereas Pilate demonstrated a relativistic view on the subject, Jesus had a very definite position on the existence of truth, and that truth had to correspond to reality. Jesus came to tell the truth; the thing that was actually so, the thing that was perseveringly so, the thing that cut across that which wasn't so.<br />
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If a Christian worldview is about seeing life through Jesus eyes, then Christians who have such will also have a robust concept of truth, just like Jesus. According to that kind of view, whatever a person may say, or believe, or promulgate may not actually align with reality. It <i>is</i> possible to be right or wrong, for something to be true or false, justified or unfounded, <i>even in matters of morality, religion, and ideas. </i>Christianity itself rises or falls on the reality of a single truth claim, that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead. If that event did not actually comport with reality, then Christianity is false and claims that it makes concerning morality and metaphysics would be called into question.<br />
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If truth doesn't have to comport with reality we devolve into a wonderland where the difference between fact and fiction is indiscernible. Imagination would rule the day, until a two pound hammer fell on the imaginer's head from a scaffold and ended the dream. Consciousness may be a weird, subjective thing but it cannot shrug off reality or the environment in which it arises will end up turning on that consciousness and biting it on the rear. We don’t get to make up the world we want and call it truth, we’re stuck with the world as it actually is.<br />
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Even metaphysical and moral "truth" has to comport with reality, the ultimate reality that is... God. The metaphysics and morality of Judeo/Christianity arose from that ultimate reality speaking for itself. The unseen creating God told people what his supernatural power did and what his omniscient wisdom knew was right. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A14-18&version=ESV">Jesus</a> Christ <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+1%3A1-3&version=ESV">represents</a> the most <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1%3A15-20&version=ESV">direct sample</a> of this occurring, so to have truth in one's morality or metaphysical concepts those have to align with Christ and what he said.<br />
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Because truth comports with reality, it also will function within reality, it must. If something is true, it will work. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/#Revo">Nicolas Copernicus</a> (1473-1543 CE) famously dealt with this certainty in dealing with retrograde motion of the planets. Geocentrism didn't work, and couldn't possibly comport with reality. I deal with claims, similarly non-functioning, all the time, especially in the charismatic circles I run in. Doctrine that comports with reality, particularly the reality of Christ and his word, will work in reality. Doctrine that doesn't comport won't work and is bad doctrine.<br />
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<b>Inevitably, </b><i><b>bad doctrine leads to bad practice</b>.</i><br />
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Understanding the truth and looking at life on the basis of it is the heart and soul of a Christian worldview. Living by that perspective keeps followers of Christ from going off the rails; it keeps them from being deceived; it keeps us from being lost in the dark. It helps us to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+4%3A6&version=ESV">see the glory of God in the face of Jesus</a>. Show me a claimant to Christianity that doesn’t have this robust concept of truth and I’ll show you someone, undoubtedly, not living according to Christ. So dear reader, <b>how are you living?</b><br />
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<i><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A17&version=ESV">"Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."</a></i><br />
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<i><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8:32&version=ESV">"...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."</a></i><br />
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<a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-how-did-we-get.html">The next part...</a></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-2802623279360954222020-02-12T09:24:00.000-05:002020-02-29T12:20:17.683-05:00A Christian Worldview: How Is It Adopted?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The concept of worldview deals with the way a person or a group of people look at life and living. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It can be applied to the impact of language, or culture, or ideology, or at the level of the individual which focuses it upon a very personal and unique space. For purposes of this series, it is that last consideration I will be addressing--the context of the individual. Together, we will explore what it means for the individual follower of Christ to have a thoroughly Christian worldview.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Worldview is really about the glasses one looks at life through. Glasses, because we are not speaking about seeing objectively through the native or natural lens that's part of the eye, but of something that is adopted by the seer or instilled by the environment, and through which one sees their all-compassing perspective of life. Belief in Christ</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> is one such viewpoint, which when adopted is meant to impact the believer sufficiently to change, develop and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+1%3A15-23&version=ESV">instill an all-encompassing way of looking at life and living</a>. The gospel is meant to cause us to see life, not through blue eyes or brown eyes, but through Jesus eyes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, it’s important to understand the means by which one adopts such a Christian worldview. Using a phrase like this may lead one to think that a believer merely accepts a series of propositions and endeavors, as best he or she can, to apply those precepts to their living. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That is not at all the case, though I think sometimes Christians think that way and that teachers of the faith sometimes teach like that is the case. Whereas that certainly is the case in other ideologies, it is not at all the case in true faith in Christ.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Belief in Christ is about a quantum change in our nature. A metamorphosis so fundamental that the Christian, upon coming to sincere trust in Christ, becomes <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+5%3A16-17&version=ESV">a new being</a>--a creature different in its nature than it was before. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That is not to say that the Christian decides this, or adopts this by choice and thereby makes it so, even if by remarkable effort. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This change is the result of the introduction and infusion of a catalyst, a change agent, in this case a change person, namely, the Holy Spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The simple truth is that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A44&version=ESV">no one can even come to Christ and believe in him unless that one is drawn by the Father</a> (through <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A3&version=ESV">auspices of the Holy Spirit</a>, it seems to me). The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A8&version=ESV">c</a></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A8&version=ESV">onviction of heart and mind in regard to Christ</a> which undergirds repentance, in my mind, comes through the Holy Spirit as well. It is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+3%3A16-19&version=ESV">t</a></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+3%3A16-19&version=ESV">he Holy Spirit interacting with humans that empowers them to have a faith which allows Christ to dwell in their hearts</a> at all. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is that presence, power and action of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+2%3A12-16&version=ESV">the Holy Spirit which is the foundation of a Christian worldview</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The Holy Spirit is our lens.</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Christians do not see life in a Christian manner by mere choice, but through a lens actualized and activated by the Holy Spirit. The faith that responds to and partners with the Holy Spirit becomes an all-encompassing perspective on life for the one born again. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A9&version=ESV">If that is not present in one claiming the faith, there is no way that one can truly be in the faith</a>. <b>Actually <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A3&version=ESV">being born again matters</a>.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Are you born again? Do you have a Christian worldview?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-christian-worldview-what-is-truth.html">The next part...</a></span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-73727378221767668642019-12-03T08:56:00.001-05:002020-02-15T14:29:11.435-05:00Looking Out from the God Mirror<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am the shadow of the Lord<br />
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Like a shadow attached to a person I am attached to God<br />
I spring from him in the shape of him<br />
I am nothing apart from him<br />
Merely a projection separated from him<br />
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I am a reflection of the Lord<br />
More than mere silhouette with more substance than shadow<br />
Not truly freestanding but intimately analogous<br />
I have no being apart from what I reflect<br />
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I am not really a person without him or apart from his person<br />
To be what I am I must stay attached to the Lord<br />
And gaze out from the mirror upon him</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-86386714201190122432018-08-23T11:30:00.000-04:002018-08-24T11:00:06.862-04:00Faith Versus Works<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Not all works are equal, and even "good" works can be differentiated by quality. Some works are self-referent and so are not meritorious in the sight of God even if they <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+1%3A15-18&version=ESV" target="_blank">accomplish something worthwhile</a>. These are initiated by the self for the benefit of self and so are merely a selfish pursuit, <i>even if they seem altruistic</i>. They are only impressive among those who cannot see them for what they are, or those who do the same kind of works. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A21-23&version=ESV" target="_blank">They gain no favor with God</a>.<br />
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There are works which are not self-referent. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202:10&version=ESV">Those</a> are inspired by God, bidden by God, and carried forward at his instigation, impetus and encouragement. Even though such works are not truly capable of being credited to the ones doing them, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+2%3A6-10&version=ESV">God rewards them</a> as if they are. If God rewards them for being done they must be considered meritorious, despite the fact that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A20-26&version=ESV">in themselves they could never force him to declare their doers righteous on the basis of them</a>.<br />
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No work is meritorious of salvation, regardless of whether or not it is rewardable by God. No work has <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2064:6&version=ESV">the power to erase</a> the record of works which are not meritorious (i.e. sin), <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+17%3A11&version=ESV">only blood can do that and that by concession from God</a>. So at best, God-instigated works can be rewardable with benefits (even eternally) but never with forgiveness or righteousness. That is not surprising because forgiveness is an act of mercy or grace, and as such can never be earned, else it would <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2011:6&version=ESV">cease to be mercy or grace</a>.<br />
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Faith is always referent to its object. It can be misplaced, as it would be if directed at self or at false gods, and thereby be without any value whatsoever to God. However, if its object is God as he is, particularly his character and power, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%209:28-29&version=ESV">God does reward it</a>. There is nothing about faith in and of itself which would deserve such reward, the impetus for such lies completely in God's grace. Yet, because <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11:6&version=ESV">God responds rewardingly toward faith</a> in him, such God-referent faith would have to be considered meritorious.<br />
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However, even saving faith is not meritorious of salvation. There is nothing in such faith which has the power to wash away sin and restore righteous fellowship with God, even though it is essential to salvation. It is merely the reaction (trust) a believer has toward God's words and deeds, and even then not unaided. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2010:17&version=ESV">God's word (of promise) is what invokes faith</a>, while <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%206:44&version=ESV">God's presence (or Spirit) is what aids it</a>.<br />
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The Apostle Paul made it clear that works and faith are not the same sort of thing. He treated them <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%203:21-28&version=ESV">as diametrically opposed concepts</a>. While it is true that both faith and works can be rewardable, it is also true that neither is meritorious of salvation. So even though God promises salvation to those who put their trust in Christ, it is the blood of Christ which does the heavy lifting.</div>SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-59926098281759680402018-08-08T16:43:00.000-04:002018-08-20T13:22:17.371-04:00What Does It Mean to Be Regenerated?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Regeneration literally means to be born again. That is a biblical concept beyond doubt (e.g., clearly <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+3%3A4-7&version=ESV" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+1%3A23&version=ESV" target="_blank">here</a>, likely <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A3-8&version=ESV" target="_blank">here</a>), but what it entails and when it occurs is much more in question. Calvinists see it occurring prior to it's recognition in people, many as occurring before faith. Arminians see it as occurring after faith, as a result of faith. Calvinists see it as the fruit of God's monergistic efforts, Arminians see it as the consequence of faith enabled.<br />
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But what does it mean to be born again?<br />
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Being born again is a work of God whereby the Holy Spirit enters into the very existence of a human being to abide, thereby infusing <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+2%3A13&version=ESV" target="_blank">spiritual life</a> into and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+2%3A10-17&version=ESV" target="_blank">establishing an intimate, mutual fellowship</a> with that person. It is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+2%3A10-17&version=ESV" target="_blank">a transformative experience, but not so much</a> that it so thoroughly changes the person that he or she does not retain his or her personal self-awareness. It is transformation by addition rather than subtraction, which <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A27&version=ESV" target="_blank">allows the born again</a> person to begin to to experience communication with God, to perceive life differently, to relate to people differently, to valuate things differently and to live differently than they did prior to the experience. Before the experience, the born again are singular beings separated from God; afterwards, the born again are people with two natures with one connected to God.<br />
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Becoming born again is the result of a combination of faith and the Holy Spirit. We don't need to be born again in order to believe, that is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A1-9&version=ESV" target="_blank">over-stretching</a> a <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+2%3A11-13&version=ESV" target="_blank">metaphor</a> (i.e. being dead in sin); we are born again because <i>we</i> believe (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+2%3A3-6&version=ESV" target="_blank">otherwise</a>, <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2007/12/when-grace-leads-to-universalism.html" target="_blank">God would make everyone believe</a>). Human beings do have a God-given capacity to believe as is seen in the ability of natural people to believe in and trust all kinds of things quite apart from God. However, to believe in Christ <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2011/07/necessity-of-spiritual-encounter.html" target="_blank">we need an encounter with the Holy Spirit</a> sufficient to convict us concerning Christ and waken us to something we could not waken ourselves to in our metaphorical deadness.<br />
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Ultimately, the natural self, the sinful self, will be changed in the born again, completely regenerated into a new nature <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A2&version=ESV" target="_blank">like unto Christ's</a>. That new eternal creature will possess a singular nature in unity with the Father akin to that which Christ shared with the Father as he walked on the earth. Then, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13%3A12&version=ESV" target="_blank">we will be on the same page with God</a>, never to go astray again. Ultimately, regeneration is not being renewed to Adam's nature prior to the Fall, but surpassing it, and being transformed into Christ's nature as the second Adam, the Son of Man.<br />
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Our born again experience in the Holy Spirit now is the down payment <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+1%3A13-14&version=ESV" target="_blank">of that good thing to come</a>.</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-4285550824834908702018-07-25T14:47:00.001-04:002019-10-03T11:16:41.182-04:00What Does It Mean to Be Totally Depraved?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The one point that Calvinism and Arminianism agree upon is that humankind is totally depraved. It sounds like an incredibly harsh judgment against the creature, one that is not apparent, particularly, when looking at individual cases. This description, however, is not meant to suggest that everyone is as "bad" as they could possibly be, but to describe their spiritual condition in relation to God. In a nutshell, this characterization refers to the disabling brokenness that sin and death has caused to human nature since Adam's fall.<br />
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When Adam forsook God and was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A16-24&version=ESV">justifiably cursed</a> by him, his innate connection to God was broken and his physical being was stricken with death. Adam was cast from the presence of God (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A8-10&version=ESV">the place where God walked</a>) and frustrated in his relationship to the biosphere and with others of his kind (Eve to start). The individual became an island unto himself (so <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-is-sin.html">necessarily sinful</a>) with no ability to get back to God, nor to truly understand and relate to him nor, for that matter, to do so with his fellow human (as seen from <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17&version=ESV">Jesus' high-priestly prayer</a>). <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A18-32&version=ESV">Locked in a self-absorbed prison of death and decay separated from God</a>, debauchery ensued. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A44&version=ESV">If God did not initiate contact</a> with humans, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A9-18&version=ESV">no contact, no interest, no desire would be forthcoming</a> from Adam's kind.<br />
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Hopefully, <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2014/01/enabled-to-respond.html">it is evident that humankind's depravity should not be seen as something that renders humankind incapable, even in their depraved state, of responding to the interjection of God</a>. God showing up in a way that can be responded to is sufficient in itself to break any barrier that would have kept fallen, natural man in the dark concerning God. Such is demonstrated over and over again throughout biblical history (e.g. Noah, Abram, Moses, etc.). To posit a theory in which God has to fix the depraved human being (i.e. regeneration) before that one can respond to him is unnecessary and not validated by scripture.<br />
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The truth is that <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2011/09/death-and-depravity.html">what makes humans depraved in the first place is a lack of God in their lives</a>. People are depraved in that they are like God (i.e. in his image) but are <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2008/11/subtraction-by-addition.html">apart from and without God</a> who's presence is what makes that image work properly. In their depravity, they have no desire to have God (as he truly is) in their lives. What they need they neither discern nor want. When God comes near in the mysterious ways that the Holy Spirit can, that lack is addressed at least to the level that the fallen human is able to see, hear, and respond to what wasn't there before. None of this requires any change in their nature and none is ever mentioned throughout the biblical record.<br />
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Human beings always had and have always maintained since the Fall the spiritual capacity to recognize God. That capacity was <i><b>not</b></i> such that it could independently discover God or engage him on the basis of executing that capacity in and of itself. God's direct intervention is necessary for each and every human being to come to know and understand him and his ways, but upon that divine intervention, awareness of what we otherwise would not have been aware becomes possible. However, if Adam in all of his pristine purity and perfection could ignore and forsake divine connectedness, than so can all his depraved sons and daughters.<br />
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Even the best amongst humankind is totally depraved, broken beyond their ability to help themselves--and yet even the most depraved among us can respond to the gracious visitation of the Holy Spirit. Depravity will continue to be <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5%3A17&version=ESV">an issue for us</a> until Christ returns and our <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A50-54&version=NIV" target="_blank">old dead, depraved natures are done away with</a> once and for all, and new nature completely <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A2&version=ESV">like unto Christ's is put in their place</a>. That, of course, is predicated upon turning to Christ now. So let me ask you, have you responded to the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ yet?</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-42715619708596989702018-06-29T11:53:00.000-04:002018-08-18T12:15:33.391-04:00A. C.U.R.E.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The famous (or infamous, depending on your view) theological acronym </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TULIP#Five_points_of_Calvinism"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>TULIP</strong></span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> has </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">for centuries </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">served the Church well in summarizing the basic tenets of Calvinistic soteriology. It arose from the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Dordrecht"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">disputations the Arminian school of thought offered back in the 1600's</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. The Calvinists </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">carried the day at the Synod of Dort (the house was stacked) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">walked away from that debate with what became known as TULIP: the Arminians walked away ridiculed with nothing but the truth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There have been some good offerings for a similar acronym for Arminian soteriology (like <a href="http://evangelicalarminians.org/an-outline-of-the-facts-of-arminianism-vs-the-tulip-of-calvinism/">FACTS</a>), but I have never found them satisfactory because I didn't feel they were clearly descriptive. So, for the ailment of inexactitude, I'd like to offer <b>a cure</b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>A</strong>.= <strong>A</strong>bsolute Inability: mankind is so <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A22-24&version=ESV">incapacitated by</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A1-3&version=ESV">spiritual death</a>, that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A9-18%3B+Psalm+14%3A1-3%3B+Psalm+53%3A1-3&version=ESV">none</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A44-46&version=ESV">are able to turn</a> themselves to God apart from the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+12%3A32&version=ESV">gracious influence</a> of the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A7-11&version=ESV">Holy Spirit</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>C</strong>.= <strong>C</strong>onditional Election: God has chosen to save <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A14-18&version=ESV">all who trust Jesus Christ</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+10%3A9-13&version=ESV">as Savior and Lord</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>U</strong>.= <strong>U</strong>nlimited Atonement: the blood of Christ was shed <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A2&version=ESV">for the sins of the entire world</a>, and anyone who will <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A23-25&version=ESV">can avail themselves of its effects through faith</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>R</strong>.= <strong>R</strong>esistable Grace: The Holy Spirit's efforts at graciously influencing the sinner can be resisted by the sinner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><strong>E</strong>.= <strong>E</strong>xtinguishable Faith: the faith that the Holy Spirit's gracious ministrations made possible can be lost or shipwrecked by the person who had believed at one time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I think this is a little more clearly descriptive than the FACTS acronym, especially for those who believe in the possibility of apostasy (and it doesn't have to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.A.C.T.S.">shared with a toy convention</a>). It sure would be nice to have something as communicative as TULIP among those of us who actually got our soteriology right!</span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-10932445496718743152018-06-22T09:00:00.000-04:002018-08-25T11:19:43.436-04:00Faith Versus Fear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<strong><span style="font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: x-small;"><em>"For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me."</em> Job 3:25 (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ESV</span>)</span></span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I've often told my congregation that the opposite of faith, at least in the active sense, is not unbelief but fear. Fear is the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">electromagnetic pulse</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> that disables faith. How many times </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">in the Bible </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">is a divine encounter or a mission assignment prefaced by the encouragement, "do not be afraid?" </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=do+not+be+afraid&searchtype=phrase&version1=31&spanbegin=1&spanend=73&startnumber=51&startnumber=1"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">65</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, at least! The faith-stifling affects of fear can't be minimized and should not be ignored.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Fear is the Devil's calling card, his </span><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/modus%20operandi"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">MO</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">. It is his means of controlling the herd and driving it to the slaughterhouse. If the Devil can induce fear in people, he's got them. Like a venomous spider's strike immobilizes prey so it can be eaten at a more convenient time, so the apprehension and terror the Devil inspires allows him to throw his victims in his satchel at his leisure. Though it's completely speculative, I've always wondered whether or not he said something to Adam and Eve to make them </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3%3A8%3B&version=ESV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">hide from God in the bushes</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Fear of </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A18&version=ESV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">punishment</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, fear of </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+2%3A14-15%3B&version=ESV"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">death</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, fear of loss or failure--the Devil has game at any level and with any kind of fear. I cannot prove it factually (other than in Job's case), but fear, even secretly held in the breast, seems to be a harbinger of bad things to come. I've known people that wear their fear as a badge of honor, as if it proves they care. It only proves that they scare. Fear will not deliver us <em><strong>from</strong></em> any unfortunate end, but it sure seems able to deliver us <em><strong>to</strong></em> those ends.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana";">Faith on the other hand, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+9%3A28-29&version=ESV">portends good things</a> to those that possess it. Faith in God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+17:20&version=ESV">can move a mountain</a> or <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+4%3A39-40&version=ESV">calm the storm at sea</a>. Faith <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?search=faith+has+made+you+well&version=ESV&searchtype=all&bookset=4">receives healing</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11&version=ESV">welcomes the promise of God, and moves the faithful to act</a>. Nothing is impossible for one who has faith! F</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">ear clamps chains upon the unbelieving, whereas faith frees the soul to lay hold of God with a grip that holds even through the passage of death.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana";">The truth is that if we have laid hold of God through faith, we have nothing to fear at all, not even fear itself.</span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-2556423569553409722018-06-01T17:42:00.000-04:002018-06-28T11:59:38.186-04:00Death Be Not Proud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Death is said to be natural. It isn't. I know everything dies--bugs, trees, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ocelot.jpg"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">ocelots</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, and us--it's part of life as we know it. The struggle to avoid death, and the ultimate succumbing to it, are foundational to the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection">naturalistic explanation</a> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">of how life develops and species emerge. Yet, deep inside my heart, I hate death and chafe against its imposition.<br />
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And it is an imposition. God, the Creator, by revelation and definition doesn't <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%209:6-7;&version=49;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">die</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2059:1;&version=46;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">weaken</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, decay, </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20121:4;&version=49;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">rest</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, rust, or turn to dust. All c</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">reation </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201:19-20;&version=47;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">is an expression</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> of who and what he is, so d</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">eath doesn't fit! How can it be baked in the cake? The fact is that it's not: it's imposed supernaturally, as </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203:16-19;&version=49;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">a curse from God</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The natural, created state of human beings was everlasting life. </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%205:17;&version=47;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Sin is what brought death</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> and all of us alike suffer from it. I think that despite </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%207:14-20;&version=31;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">the marring of God's image</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> within humankind due to the curse on sin, deep inside, most of us feel that same chafing at death's imposition that I do. It doesn't feel right that it all should end with a breath. No matter how long we've lived in its shadow, it still catches up to us too soon.<br />
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I wish there was some way to fight <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+30%3A15-16&version=NIV">that which is never satisfied</a>; to yell, "That's enough!" and have it cease. If translated into some strange, spiritual dimension into a spectator's seat observing the battle between the living and the Grim Reaper, I would hiss at his every advance. I would boo at all of his progress. On particularly tragic days</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">, like a crazed soccer fan, I'd rush the field hoping to beat him with my own big stick.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">But wait a minute... </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">I do have a big stick and in the here and now! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"> <span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana";">God came from heaven, took on human form, hung on that stick, died on it, and then rose from the grave victorious over it. Then he handed the power of that stick to us. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015:55-57;&version=47;">Jesus defanged the hated beast and unstung the bee</a>, and handed the victory to you and me. For all who trust in Jesus and what he did on that stick, what was natural is natural again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-happens-after-we-die-annihilation.html">Existence never ends</a>, even if life does. For those trusting in Christ neither existence nor life end. Still, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+9%3A27&version=ESV">we </a></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+9%3A27&version=ESV">must all cross over</a></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+9%3A27&version=ESV"> that dark threshold</a> and chafe at the loss we feel as we and those we love die. Yet, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+4%3A13&version=ESV">our grief is not like the world's</a>, for in the midst we find an overwhelming, inexpressible joy knowing that the Lion has risen and </span><a href="http://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/this-is-day.html"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">death works backwards</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana";">So, my friend, restore the natural order that was intended by God through embracing interjected supernatural means--put all your hope in Christ and live forever!</span></span></span></div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-49070741533153472172018-05-25T15:51:00.001-04:002018-05-25T16:12:27.423-04:00The Olivet Discourse: Be Prepared<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The paradox of certainty v. uncertainty in regard to Christ's Return has some practical implications for the serious believer. We know with certainty it’s coming, but don’t (and can't) know when, so how should we then live? We're not left without instructions on the subject from Christ <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A43-51%3B+Mark+13%3A34-36%3B+Luke+21%3A34-36&version=ESV">in the Olivet Discourse</a>, which, as it happened, served to bring that discourse to an end. So what was the final word on the word about the final? Simply, "be prepared."<br />
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In Matthew's account, Christ advises that uncertainty is the fuel of preparation. Because the Son of Man will be coming at a time it doesn't seem like he will, being prepared for his return <i>at any time</i> is the only wise, practical response--a point graphically reiterated in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A1-13&version=ESV">The Parable of the Ten Virgins</a>. Christ spoke of a parabolic homeowner who, if he would have known in what part of the night the thief was coming, would have made sure he was awake to prevent it. Since we cannot know when Christ will return, we should be <i>at least</i> as conscientious as that homeowner (who had a better forecast in regard to the thief than is possible for us in regard to Christ) and be watching rather than sleeping.<br />
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Luke presents the most general application of all three accounts: pay attention (Koine: prosexete) reflexively to how you are living. We are not to live weighed down by <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A25-34%3B+Luke+12%3A22-32&version=ESV">the worries of ordinary life</a>, especially, I would say, if drunkenness (or even just "buzziness") is the means of doing so. It is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+1%3A21&version=ESV">not a burden to live in Christ</a>, but it is a burden to live for this world, and it lulls us to sleep in regards to spiritual truth. The only way to gain the upper hand, and not be trapped suddenly in the tribulation ("these things") to come, is to stay awake and pray that we can gain that upper hand.<br />
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Matthew and Mark, although different as to specifics, both use a similar parabolic example (cf. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+12%3A35-46&version=ESV">Luke 12:35-46</a>) to get this message of practical import across. The thought is that we should take Christ seriously as Master over us and be doing what he told us to be doing when he gets back. Since we do not know when that may be, reason dictates that we <i>always</i> be doing what he asked. It appears the best preparation for the end of the age is to be obeying Christ as a lifestyle.<br />
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So what are you doing?</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-41405368330939796872018-05-11T13:57:00.000-04:002018-05-25T16:20:51.255-04:00The Olivet Discourse: No One Knows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
All three accounts of Olivet Discourse issue <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A36-42%3B+Mark+13%3A32-33%3B+Luke+21%3A34-36&version=ESV">warnings to be watchful</a><span id="goog_337036806"></span><span id="goog_337036807"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a> in light of what Jesus prophesied concerning his return. I think this has led some to the faulty conclusion that the events foreseen would have been expected very soon by his original audience. I've already stated in other posts on this discourse that the signs mentioned were impossible to cram into a short time frame, so I won't repeat my reasoning here about that. Suffice it to say that Jesus' warning was not meant to convey urgency so much as it was meant to convey uncertainty.<br />
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No one knows when, exactly, Christ's return will occur. The phrase "day and hour" is specific enough to mean that the particular moment the event occurs is in view rather than a period of time within which it occurs; however, considerations about the suddenness of the event discussed below mean that the ultimate end cannot be what's in view either. We are told that angels do not know at which moment it will occur (I suppose that means the Devil doesn't either) and even the Son doesn't know. If only the Father knows, and the Son does not, that means there is no way for <i>anyone</i> to know--there is no way to figure it out and no revelation could be expected which would specify it.<br />
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<b>No one knows, no one can know!</b></div>
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Yet, the crowd which has tried to figure it out or reveal it outright continues to grow (including Wm. Miller of the 7th Day Adventists, Chas. Taze Russell of JW’s, Herbert W. Armstrong of the Worldwide Church of God, Edgar Whisenant, author of <i>88 Reasons</i>, and Harold Camping of Family Radio, among others). Really, I don't know how much clearer Christ could have been on the subject. Those that pursue such a course have, minimally, fallen into error, and possibly, purposely, taken on the mantle of false prophet. May such folly cease to gain traction among the faithful!<br />
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Matthew (cf. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+17%3A22-37&version=ESV">Luke 17:22-37</a>) tells us the time immediately prior to the return of Christ will be like the days of Noah before The Flood. Then, normal life (eating, drinking, marrying, farming, milling) proceeded right up to the moment sudden destruction came upon the world unaware. Despite <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+2%3A5&version=ESV">Noah's preaching of righteousness</a> and witnessing the construction of the ark, life prior to the flood was similar enough to what it had always been to lull his listeners into inattention. That, I believe, is the key point Christ was making--there was nothing about life as experienced by the masses prior to global judgment that signified that wrath was about to be poured out.<br />
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However, that point comes on the heels of Jesus elucidating very clear, noticeable, presaging signs that signified the end was near. How can these two points be compatible? They cannot be, if what Christ was referring to in this sudden ark-like deliverance from judgment at the end was to occur <i>after</i> the Abomination of Desolation (and all that goes with it). The only way the suddenness in the midst of regularity indicated by the description makes sense is if Jesus was not talking about the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A31%3B+Mark+13%3A27&version=ESV">the ultimate end</a>, but was referring to a period of judgment that started with that deliverance and finished with the ultimate end. This would be akin to the flood starting with Noah's family embarking on the ark, proceeding with a lengthy rain, and ending a year later with floodwaters receding and Noah's family disembarking.<br />
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In the example of Noah the judged were carried away by floodwaters, which was certainly passive for them, but was for God too, in the sense that it was indirect, through the agency of water. Noah, on the other hand, was personally, actively protected by <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+7%3A16&version=ESV">God, who shut him in</a>. There is a subtlety in the language of Matthew that could be seen to call upon the same dynamic. The word (paralambanetai) used to convey the action involved in taking the one in the field and at the mill has a range of meaning that allows it to be used for more personal, tender actions (like taking a bride) than either the word used of the floodwaters' action (eren) or for the ones left (aphietai) in the field or at the mill.<br />
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So, what is pictured is a cataclysm <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A21-22&version=ESV">much worse</a> than a mere 40 days of rain and a year of flood (i.e. 7 years of Great Tribulation) coming upon all on the earth at the end of the age. Some, like Noah in his day, will be actively removed from danger and taken by the hand of God (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+4%3A17&version=ESV">snatched or raptured</a>), which fits quite well with Luke's "escape" (Koine: ekphrygien, to flee out from) and is pictured by the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A1-13&version=ESV">Parable of the Ten Virgins</a>. Some will be left to their fate, carried off by the judgment overwhelming the whole earth as prophesied by Christ who will return at the end of it. The threshold the faithful need to cross is being ready for that Noachian escape popularly called The Rapture which comes suddenly, unknowably, but certainly in the course of everyday life.</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886567613905490071.post-42671089732865078002018-04-20T13:09:00.000-04:002018-06-12T07:56:14.438-04:00The Olivet Discourse: The Fig Tree Parable<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The synoptic gospels are virtually identical in their accounts of the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A32-35%3B+Mark+13%3A28-31%3B+Luke+21%3A28-33&version=ESV">Parable of the Fig Tree</a> within the Olivet Discourse. Whereas Luke specifically identifies the segment as a parable, the other accounts merely communicate its substance without a label. As in the case of many of the biblical parables, fanciful interpretations have arisen throughout history as to what are the "true" meaning of "symbols" within the parable. Therefore, it is vitally important to understand what parables are and are not in order to interpret this type of figure reasonably and to not veer off into the tall weeds.<br />
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Parables are merely analogies or comparisons--one thing, perhaps unknown or not fully understood, is likened, indirectly, to another that is readily known or understood. Parables are <b>NOT</b> allegories: each item in a parable is <b>NOT</b> meant to be symbolic of some other item in reality or to symbolically represent its action. Parables are really more akin to metaphors than to allegories in regard to their use of imagery. The conclusion or moral that can be drawn from the overall story of the parable, and thus teach a lesson, is the aim of using it.<br />
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As for the fig tree parable itself, two hermeneutic considerations need to be taken into account when interpreting it.<br />
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First, it is <b>not</b> really symbolic at all! It is a parable and is not reliant on meanings hidden in symbols. The audience knew figs, there were figs on the Mount of Olives where this discourse was being made (as well as olives), and so Jesus spoke about figs. When figs wake up from the winter and put out leaves, it is a sure sign that summer is around the corner. We could say the same thing using trees we know about in our neck of the woods and make the same point Jesus was trying to make, <i>and make it just as well.</i><br />
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Second, Israel has <i>never</i> been symbolized anywhere in scripture as a fig tree, and <i>it wasn't being symbolized as such in this parable</i>. Making a fig tree represent Israel is beyond a stretch anywhere it is attempted, and it is not remotely hinted at, let alone obviously intended, by the language of this parable. To do so is bad interpretation, plain and simple. The fig tree is merely the means to communicate the concept of predictability in sequence from a known event to another related event: if one step of the progression occurs, you know with certainty the next step is about to happen.<br />
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Jesus said that when <i>all</i> (Matthew; Koine: panta) <i>these things</i> (Matthew, Mark and Luke; Koine: tauta) were seen (i.e., experienced), then we would know we were at the very end. Those things were all the things, each and every one of them (the force of tauta), detailed in the prior verses. When that condition exists, then the Son of Man bursting through the skies is at the door. The intent is to keep folk from jumping the gun and anticipating the return of Christ before all of these things had come to pass--an especially helpful point <a href="https://thundersounds.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-olivet-discourse-when-is-answer.html">considering the length of time envisaged in giving the signs</a> in the first place.<br />
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The generation (Koine: genea, all those alive over a particular span) referenced has nothing to do with any symbolic meaning attached to the fig tree, <i>since there isn't any</i>. The point being made was that at least some of those who saw the Abomination of Desolation and its outcome ("<i>all these things"</i>) would see the end as well. Clearly, the use of "generation" was not referring to the initial hearers of the Discourse such a long time ago, for the implicit scope of elapsed time within the signs given throughout the Discourse would have made their lifetimes an unlikely frame for fulfillment. So the use of "generation" was a way to push the scale of fulfillment off to a period in the future when the Abomination actually occurred and to offer hope to those believers who would be living through it.<br />
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The heavens and earth may seem like bastions of enduring reliability, but Christ's words are so established as to be more certain than even the existence of the creation itself, and especially so in regard to the end of the age.</div>
SLWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04260137021205685080noreply@blogger.com4