The Disclosure of God: The Bible

It is my proposition that humankind can never know anything with certainty about God apart from his self-disclosure. I am not speaking about forensics here: what is implied by evidence, what can be inferred from the same or deduced logically. I am talking about God speaking for himself. We may think forensics offers objectivity, but it doesn't because it is always the prisoner of man's perception, particularly when it comes to the subject of God.

If God doesn't speak for himself about himself, we'll never figure out who he is, what he's like, what's he up to, what he can do, or where this is all going. We wouldn't even know whether we are he and he is us or whether everything is him together. Minimally, I think it is safe to say that he has to be much brighter than us and would have to be able to communicate at least as well. Other than that, our faulty perception plays a greater and greater role as we try to plumb the depths.

What is needed is a voice from heaven, laying it out straight, unmistakably clear. Of course, with all the people constantly popping into being, that would get a little noisy--better to say it once and record it for posterity. Or even better yet, because of the value of empathy in communication, do a ventriloquism act with a few select individuals and have that recorded for posterity. And even then, there may be some good reasons in the mind of God to not be all that clear!

I believe the Bible is God's recorded self-disclosure and commentary on creation to all mankind. I believe it sets forth all that God thought essential that we know about him and what he's up to, and that it is the only source for truly objective knowledge about him. I believe that he watches over that word, to make sure it accomplishes all for which it is sent, and I therefore believe that it is reliable and error free. If you ask me why I believe such things, I will in straight-faced seriousness tell you, "because God told me so!"

And yet for all that communicative power, it is still not enough.

Can Human Beings Actually Perceive God?

Do we actually, can we actually, mere humans, truly know anything about God?

Although it is usually helpful to define terms at the start of a discussion about knowing a thing, when it comes to the subject of God, I believe even starting with defining terms is fraught with difficulty. Hopefully, the reason will be apparent in the next few paragraphs. Since I would, nonetheless, like to start exploring the subject, a tentative definition for "God" is in order. And so, let me fly this one: God is the ultimate.

Ultimate what? The ultimate source for all that is, the ultimate power that energizes and sustains all that is, the ultimate intellect that designed and directs all that is. That being so, I would think it would be impossible for all that is to not betray some intelligence concerning the nature of what is ultimately behind it. That is the sentiment behind the Apostle's words to the church at Rome. Creation has fingerprints all over it which betray the hidden perpetrator who created it. Paul said, in fact, that the evidence is so clear that ignorance or unawareness of God is inexcusable.

That should portend an excellent potential for a worldwide, common understanding of God amongst mankind, but alas, that is not what we find. The downfall of that potential is that such knowledge is still dependent upon the eyes of the beholder. People see what they want to, what they're willing to. Different assumptions will be brought to the task, different presumptions premised from the evidence. If one doesn't like the conclusion being led to, adjustments can be made.

The evidence may be plain enough in hindsight, it certainly is in divine sight, but the perception of the viewer makes all the difference between "message sent=message received" or error. Human perception does not exist in a vacuum detached from influences from other human faculties of mind and heart. How then is it even possible for a mere mortal to know anything reliable about a God who's not speaking to everyone for himself-- even with perfect circumstantial evidence? 

What more can we say about mankind, the imperfect perceiver of the God behind it all? A bit more, at least. Humans are error prone in virtually every way. We are limited in virtually every way. We are blind in so many ways, for how often do we experience eureka moments upon looking at the same thing we've seen obliviously a thousand time before. What is the likelihood that such a creature could accurately plumb the greater depths beneath the surface of things? 

People themselves are merely the surface in a matter a speaking. Though we are part of the creation itself, we don't even understand ourselves. Getting to the truth behind ourselves would entail a dizzying loop, like staring down the endless hall of images in mirrors facing one another. Infinite regress sure doesn't stop us from trying. We might be better off trying to bottle the wind or tilting at windmills.

It seems to me, what we need is an active witness from the One behind it all-- a personal commentary on the evidence he left behind. That would be more like watching the director's cut with explanatory notes straight from the horse's mouth. We'd have a definitive statement on the subject that dispelled all the flowery tripe of the artsy-fartsy pundits, or the confounding switchbacks in our own thinking. What we need is a confession from God, a self-disclosure that laid out on the table what we could never get to ourselves. We need a word.

We stand no chance whatsoever of knowing anything about God with any certainty apart from that. And even with that, it won't be enough.

Chronology of Apocalypse: Eternity

After Jesus crushes the rebellion at the end of the Millennium, the final disposition of all things (judgment) will be made. First, the Devil is thrown into the Lake of Fire without further delay (and I would conclude all the demons with him). The Lake of Fire is a condition of torment prepared for rebellious spiritual beings, but is capable of receiving physical subjects as well. There is no escape from, nor cessation of its condition--it is an eternal, perfect state.

Hades is emptied as the dead remaining there are raised to life (body and soul reunited) to face judgment. The sea is mentioned as holding the dead separately from Hades, which is more significant of the bodies which are being restored than it is to the souls of the drowned. Sheol/Hades was never a place of ultimate punishment, but more akin to a storage area for disembodied souls. The natural (created) condition of human beings is physical and spiritual, and all the dead will be returned to that condition before judgment takes place. So, at this time everyone who ever lived will be in their natural condition, ready to face final disposition.

Judgment will by two kinds of books. One is the Book of Life, the others are the Books of Record (my name, not the scriptural name). If one's name is not found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of judgment against that individual (i.e. how hot will be their eddy in the Lake of Fire). If one is found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of rewards that one will experience in God's presence (i.e. our normal conception of heaven). Either way, it is true faith in Christ which is the marked difference between one class and the other.

Anyone raptured prior to the Millennium (the Church, the 144,000, the martyred mark resisters) has nothing to fear at all from this judgment, for they all are already in their eternal condition, which is alive with Christ. The dead raised in order to face this judgment are in a heap of trouble, by and large, I'm not certain any of them will escape judgment. Their works will not excuse any of them, and only those who died during the Millennium, unmarked, could possibly have true, saving faith in Christ (otherwise they'd have been raptured). Those found in the Book of Life enter eternity with Christ, those not are thrown in the Lake of Fire to burn eternally.

Everything that had to do with this current, temporal, existence is then done away with: Death and Hades and the damned are thrown into the Lake of Fire, and in a flash, the heavens and earth are made new (no death, no entropy).  God's habitation, the heavenly Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem, descends upon the new Earth, and eternity as it should be takes flight. No Devil, no demons, no death, no disease, and no damned will be there anywhere but bound in the roiling fires of the Lake. The righteous in Christ live on forever, free to move about the cabin, and enjoy the adventure with our heavenly pilot.

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Millennium

After dealing with the Devil, the Antichrist, the Pope and the troops they had gathered at Armageddon, Christ resurrects those who were killed for refusing to take the mark and worship the Antichrist. They, along with all those raised earlier (the Church, the 144,000, and Enoch and Elijah), enter into the Millennial Reign of Christ as his lieutenants, serving as priests to God.

These resurrected saints will be in their eternal state in incorruptible bodies, like unto the resurrected Christ, and will not die nor marry or be given in marriage, not only in this period, but throughout all eternity. The population of Earth not part of Armageddon will continue to reproduce and live in natural, corruptible bodies throughout their lifetimes during the Millennium. The effects of the Fall will be greatly ameliorated during this time: lifespans will dramatically increase, carnivorism will cease, war will be no more.

Christ will rule the world with an iron rod from Jerusalem, the resurrected will be his agents throughout the earth, without any opposition from the forces of spiritual darkness. Though there is no hope for those who took the mark, their ancestors will have known no ruler but Christ, and no kingdom but his. Nevertheless, at the end of the Millennium, the Devil is loosed from his chains and the Abyss and manages to deceive great numbers of them. They gather against Christ and his saints at Jerusalem, but fire falls from heaven and consumes them, ending their rebellion and the Millennium.

Yet to Come... Eternity

Strange but Compelling

The following story brings a new relevance to Matthew 19:12. Not in a way I can condone, and I absolutely hate to admit it, but something inside me instinctively gave a fist pump to this story. Any thoughtful insights out there?

"For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."   Matthew 19:12

Man castrates teenage daughter's 57-year-old boyfriend

An enraged father who disapproved of his daughter's older boyfriend went to his home and castrated him with a bread knife.

By Allan Hall, Berlin 10:11PM GMT 12 Dec 2010

Helmut Seifert, 47, an ethnic German originally from Russia, was enraged when he heard his 17-year-old daughter was having a relationship with Phillip Genscher, 57.

He went to police in the town of Bielefeld where he lives but officers said they were powerless to intervene.

"The man then recruited two work colleagues at his factory and then went to the house of the victim," said police.

"The man was forced to remove his trousers and, fully conscious, he was castrated. The severed testicles were taken away by the perpetrator."

The man was close to bleeding to death but managed to call police. His life was saved but he remains a eunuch for life.

Seifert pleaded guilty and will be on trial for attempted murder next year. But he has remained silent on who his accomplices were.

He told police: "I received a phone call anonymously that my daughter was involved with a guy 40 years older than her. You said you couldn't stop him – so I did.

"I saw it as my duty as a father."

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Second Half of Tribulation

The Antichrist will elevate the Pope at that time to serve as his viceroy and the vicar of a new religion which worships the Antichrist as god. In conjunction with that worship, a new economic system, which requires everyone to be marked with the name of the Antichrist or the number of his name (666), will be imposed globally. All those who take that mark (and that will be everyone except the Jews) are lost forever. Those that refuse will be arrested and killed. The seventh trumpet has sounded.

All those who took the mark will be stricken with a plague-like disease producing festering sores. I can see it being passed off as an unfortunate circumstance of the technique used to make the mark. The first bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The entire sea will be stricken with a reddish pollution that will kill everything still left in it after the earlier judgments. This may be something akin to red tide run amok. The second bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The pollution spreads to fresh water. The third bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The sun will suddenly become much more active, perhaps a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection, and scorch the inhabitants of earth with intense heat and sunburns. Their reaction will be to curse God. Evidently, their worship of the Antichrist will not preclude them from having at least some reckoning of the true God. The fourth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

Likely the effects of a solar flare from the increased activity of the sun, something will strike Bergama, Turkey and throw the Antichrist's kingdom into darkness. Computer systems will crash, power will go offline, communications will cease, and his kingdom (the three broken off horns) will literally and figuratively be in the dark. This is a local, specific event rather than a global incident. His people's reaction: blasphemy. The fifth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The Euphrates River, which had been ground zero for volcanism of sixth trumpet, finally dries up all together. It provides troops amassing in the east unhindered traverse to Israel. I believe the troops were originally moving to confront and perhaps unseat the Antichrist, but he, the Pope, and the Devil deftly spin a tale which unites those troops under his banner and against the invasion he is expecting (from outer space, I think). He directs them, along with others from other places, to the Jezreel Valley, near Megiddo. The sixth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

A global earthquake, the largest such event that will ever occur, will shake every city throughout the world. As a result, Jerusalem will be divided into three and Rome turned to ashes. Islands will be inundated and mountains crumble in landslides. Although the related signs of volcanic or asteroidal activity are not mentioned, a rain of large hail falls upon the earth, which makes me wonder if this is yet another aspect of the earlier strikes (i.e. a comet breaking up and hitting earth piecemeal). The seventh bowl of wrath has been poured out.

At that time, Jesus will burst through the skies, with all the saints raptured before in tow behind him. He captures the Antichrist and the Pope and tosses them into the Lake of Fire, which will have been formed at that time. All the amassed troops are killed, their bodies left to the birds. The Devil is bound and locked in the Abyss (and I would conclude all the demons with him).

Jesus has returned to earth, the saints with him, and he will rule with a rod of iron and the saints will reign with him.

Yet to come... the Millennium and Beyond

Chronology of Apocalypse: The First Half of Tribulation

The further we proceed into the prophetic future, the more speculative are my interpretations. Generally, after doing some double checking, I go with whatever strikes "my gut" after reading the descriptions in the text. I am satisfied that I am at least in the ballpark concerning what these things mean. They weren't meant to be all that mysterious after all.

Either just before or just after the Rapture, the Antichrist, as leader of the 10 nations, will seal a treaty between his alliance and Israel. Although the details of the pact are not known at this time, it will have a treaty period of seven years, and it can be inferred that it will allow Israel to rebuild the Temple and attempt to reinstate the OT sacrificial system. This will signal the advent of Daniel's 70th week and the concluding of God's promises to him concerning the people of Israel and Jerusalem. The seventh seal has been broken.

At that time, Enoch and Elijah will begin prophesying in Jerusalem, speaking a message that must be antagonistic toward the world, toward unbelief in Israel, and toward the Antichrist. Though no one in the world appreciates their message, no one can do anything to stop them. While they are prophesying, 144,000 sealed and protected Messianic Jews are present (probably in Israel) having whatever redemptive affect they may have on the Jewish people.

Shortly thereafter, fiery hail will fall upon the earth (probably the aftereffect of the volcanic cataclysm which was the sixth seal) and a third of earth's vegetation will be lost. The first trumpet has sounded.

Then, an asteroid will strike one of earth's oceans, polluting a third of the seas, killing a third of the life therein, and sinking a third of the ships sailing the seas (perhaps as a result of tsunamis). The second trumpet has sounded.

On the heels of that asteroid strike, another will fall, maybe in a lake (like the Great Lakes) or upon land, but definitely not in the ocean, and its aftereffect will be the pollution of a third of the fresh water on Earth. Note: I do not see the megastar presented as the proximate cause of this catastrophe as necessarily an angel, even though specified stars in the Apocalypse generally are. The third trumpet has sounded.

Probably as a result of the ejecta of these asteroid strikes, a third of the light of the sun, moon and stars will be darkened. The fourth trumpet has sounded.

Then a tremendously annoying but not deadly disease will spread throughout the earth. Its tortuous symptoms will last five months. I doubt the inhabitants of the earth will suspect the demonic origin of the epidemic, anymore than they suspect that kind of thing in disease now. The fifth trumpet has sounded and the demons have been loosed upon earth.

Not long afterward (nothing could be since we're only dealing with a total of 3 1/2 years in this entire section), a third of the human race alive at that time will be overcome by what appears to be pyroclastic flows or the volcanic aftereffects of the cataclysm of seal six and/or the asteroids of trumpets two and three. Ground Zero for this event will be the Euphrates River, but the spread of the effect is not detailed (although I speculate it would be easterly toward the populations of India and China). As with trumpet five, I doubt the inhabitants of the earth will suspect the demonic origin of the catastrophe. The sixth trumpet has sounded.

For whatever reason (having undergone what is described above may be reason enough), Egypt will rebel against the Antichrist and his alliance. The Antichrist will lead a response of such cold-blooded, lethal and overwhelming force that the heart of any other potential rebel will find itself without resolve. Whether through biological, chemical, or nuclear means, the wound of Egypt's (one of the seven heads) rebellion is staunched, the Antichrist is strengthened, and the world amazed and awe-struck. Egypt will suffer the aftereffects for a generation into the reign of Christ.

As the Antichrist turns back toward his base in Turkey, he will pass through Israel and stop at Jerusalem. There he kills Enoch and Elijah and leaves their bodies dead in the street, though God raises them back to life and then to heaven. The 144,000 appear to go to heaven with them. A strong earthquake will rock the city, but won't stop the Antichrist from confiscating the Temple, putting an end to Israeli plans to reinstate the OT sacrificial system.

Nothing is left for the inhabitants of earth at that time but the duress of God's wrath.

Yet to Come... the second half of the Tibulation

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Rapture

At some point in the near future a series of events will unfold which will wind up the current age. Some of the sequence and detail is uncertain in my mind, and very debatable, most is reasonably clear. With that disclaimer in view, let's give this a shot...

At some time in the near future, a politician will arise, likely in Turkey, and begin to gain prominence. He will find a way to take control of where he arises and form a ten nation alliance including Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Macedonia, and Albania. In the process, he will extend his personal rule over Syria and Iraq (or vice versa if he arises in Iraq or Syria instead of Turkey), reviving the long dead Seleucid Empire (the King of the North).

At some time in the near future, a tremendous cataclysm will come upon the earth. I think it will be volcanic, perhaps several large eruptions occurring concurrently, even if they don't all start off in unison. Perhaps it could be a supervolcanic eruption; e.g., Yellowstone, Long Valley, or Toba. Regardless, it will be the sixth seal breaking and will herald the coming of God's wrath, signal that the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and indicate that God's redemptive efforts are being turned from Gentile to Jew.

As that cataclysm occurs, or just before it, some big personnel changes will occur:

• 144,000 Messianic Jews will be marked by God for protection and left on earth;
• Some substantial multiple of 200,000,000 believers, dead and alive, will be raised in eternal bodies to be with the Lord there ever after;
• The restrainer will be taken out of the way, allowing the Antichrist to pursue his course successfully, and the delusion concerning him to proceed unabated among the Gentiles.
• Enoch and Elijah will return to earth to Jerusalem to minister and ultimately die.

Yet to Come... the Tribulation

Isn't That A Prostitute?

What an awesome quote...

'I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: "Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise." Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old--barely out of diapers--and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, “An enterprise. That’s a business.” After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha’s raised hand, “Yes, Martha.” She asked such a simple question, “A business? But isn’t it supposed to be a body?” I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, “Yes.” She continued, “But when a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?”'

HT: Onesimus; thanks to David Ryser