2021
The lie: The first lie told on earth and it’s silent follow-up. Think well. The great difference between the truth and a falsehood, on any level, resides in its long-term outcome. Earth’s first open lie was a direct contradiction of the Creator God’s warning of death if one partook of the deceptive fruit in Genesis 2:17, subsequently termed “the law of sin and death,” Ro 8:2. The contradiction/lie/attempted character assassination was foisted by the angel Lucifer turned Satan meaning (adversary) with, “ You shall not surely die” Ge 3:4. Death has reigned on this earth since. A place which Isa 38:11 terms “the place of cessation” (margin NIV). That lie’s silent followup negates again the veracity of The Anointed One’s ( Greek “Christ,” Hebrew “Messiah”) word at the very end of His earthly successful attempt to blaze a return path to truth, trust and selfless love, thus life for humans. This time by a silent ongoing lie, again accusing Christ, the active agent of the Godhood (Elohim) in Creation (John 1:1), of lying! This time on the cross, yes, without words: through a punctuation mark! Note Luke 23:43: “I say to you today,” “today” referring to when the saying was given—here at the apparent nadir of His incarnational effort — no friends, no followers, none who understood—an apparent failure, thus revealing a pinnacle of His faith. As opposed to, “I say to you, today you shall be with Me…,” “today” referring here to when an event would take place. This later punctuation, placed and maintained there by later translators, makes Christ into a liar when three days later He states plainly in John 20:17, “I am not yet to ascended to My Father”! Thus repeating and perpetuating the adversary’s direct implication that God is a liar! If the latter common comma placement is true, there is no gospel (Mk 1:1) — Greek euaggelion, eu=good, aggelion=messenger/message — since “good” then would not describe Him — and we Christians should be ashamed Rom 1:16! Christ while on earth, did not call the adversary the “father of lies” (John 8:14) without reason and the warning is given that he (the adversary) would deceive even the very elect if possible (Mark 13:22). What comes from your church’s pulpit?
DEATH: The scriptural weight of evidence with no single outlier or out of context data spin. The compassionate justice of God’s logical and supremely kind and organized plan of dealing with human’s free choice to turn away from the only source of life is literally stunning. We’ll here look at one aspect, bringing clarity through demonically muddied waters. Mankind was created each to be a unified being – body, mind and spirit – with life given through the Creator’s breath so each would become a living being. The full temporal and eternal results of Eve’s choice of distrust and Adams turning away were divinely restrained, put on hold, while they and each of their progeny were given a second chance to choose life, a continuing life that exists only in the milieu of trusting selfless other-centered loving service. Since that original fall from trusting our Creator each were/are born rebellious via the epigenetic code (software of the cell) and have each made rebellious, self-centered choices and repeated rejections of God’s forgiveness and invitations of power to do better. We suffer the temporal results of our bad choices which are often divinely softened and/or delayed even if we so choose eternal death. The first or temporal death being, according to the weight of scriptural evidence, likened unto a sleep. In God’s supremely kind plan, no children in heaven would be watching a bereaved mother. No mother in heaven watching her child suffering the sorrow of separation or from future unwise choices, no spouse in heaven suffering while watching of the grief of their spouse left behind — no torturing after death in any form — just peaceful sleep. No pre-judgement heaven, purgatory or “hell” with domiciles possibly switched at the judgement. Yes, the scriptures make plain there is a judgement. The judgement is split — a pre-advent judgement determining who have sincerely asked forgiveness and chosen the selfless life of love through the freely given power of Christ, thus ready to be taken (raptured if you will) to heaven at His Second Coming (1 Thes 4:16.17; 5:10). The second judgement will be at the end of a 1000 year peaceful sleep of the chosen rebellious — no living, no torturing. Then all who have, in their second chance, been offered forgiveness and power to become other-centered lovers but refused, are resurrected and individually judged with a clarity that causes each individual to declare that God has been more than fair in His loving kindness and respect. God, and now they, knowing they would not live happily in His other-centered heaven motivated by selfless love, with a divine heart heavy of sorrow (Ez 33:11;18:31; Hosea 11:8; 2Sam 18:33; 19:4; Jn 3:16; Ps 28:20; Gen 2:17; 1Cor 15:26), allows the fullness of the wages they have chosen and they transiently suffer the change to eternal non-existence as selfishness, greed and all it’s earthly and universal demonic existence and results are removed by the eternal results of a destroying non-extinguishable fire that consumes to ashes Mt 3:12; Lk3:17; Jude 7; Mal 4:3; 2 Pe 2:6. To be as if they/it had never been except for the scars in our Redeemer’s hands, feet and side. God in respect, allowing the full wages of eternal separation, which had for millenniums been, in love, divinely restrained. Separation from the source of life which they had, in freedom chosen to be, and remain separated from. The biblical weight of evidence is solid, negating the necessity of an abundant love/hate attitude non-Christians and Christians alike have toward their loving Creator/Redeemer/Savior. A deep ambivalence promulgated in falsehoods by the enemy of all good. Study God’s word well for yourself, avoiding the emotionalisms of narrow and confused misinterpretations to more and more fully appreciate HIS LOVING KINDNESS TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN.
Texts considered: Genesis chapters 2,3; Ec 9:5,10; Isa 38:17-19; 40:9,10; Num 6:6; Ez 18:20; Mt 10:28; Ge 18:28; 2Pet 3:9; Dan 7:22; 1Tim 6:15,16; Rev 22:12; Amos 5:6; Mal 4:1; 1Sam 15:23,26; 16:1; 28:6; Jn 11:12-14 (temporal death is compared to sleep in scriptures >64 times in 15 Biblical books by 12 authors and being spoken as such by Jesus Himself). The common attempt to use the parable of Lk 16:19-31, (whether one want to admit it or not) as a basis for a character assassination of God that makes Him into an ogre, is outrageous. Read the scriptures for yourself. You can see also: http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com – A Biblical Defense of Conditional Immortality, and The Consensus of Current Scholarship.
Like loving dedicated parents, God’s purposeful desires for His children’s best good doesn’t ever change.1 Like them, His methods of communication, urgency, and actions might vary in attempts to break through the child’s/person’s/nation’s ignorance, intra and interpersonal barriers, narrow self-focus or rebelliousness, so as to curb, known or unknown to them, destructive thoughts or actions, or better, due to their affirmative response to the communication. And yes, there are some who, like a child (nothing is new under the sun Eccl.1:9) try to re-spin reality in attempts to make themselves look innocent and parents/others/God appear capricious or vindictive, yet in the end it’s to their confusion of face and detriment. Read the gracious beauty of Genesis chapters 1&2, John 3:16,17, and Revelation 22:20,21 as foundational understandings and hold the known dedicated selfless love for the whole of your scriptural reading.
- “For I am the Lord, I change not…” Malachi 3:6, “in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” James 1:17
The law of sin and death is as natural, un-artificial and veritable as the laws of gravity, polarity and centrifugal force are inherent in and to reality. Sin, by reality, is anything that contributes to the process of degeneration thus death. This is the sole reason God, out of love for us, directs us away from it. Directs us away while grace defers, holds off, postpones sins inevitable result of eternal non-existence. Deferred so as to give each individual, through winsome invitations, a second chance for a heart change.
Sin (all that destroys life that comes from God – Gen.1:30; Jn. 10:10) and all who have chosen to cling irreversibly to their sins, will be destroyed by the full unveiling, the brilliance (outshining glory) of God’s character of loving kindness at His second coming 2 Thes 2:8. The final coup de gra^ce (the finishing stroke) for sin and thus death 1 Co 15:26,54-56. The divine respectful granting of the guilty one’s chosen path that pays the wages. Wages that come not from God (He offers eternal life Ro 6:23) but earned by their sin, the fullness of the wages that had been held off by His divine grace. An event that is the fire of eternal results. Jude 7; Ps 21:9; Mt 3:12; Lk 3:17, 2 Thess 1:8-10; 2 Pe 2:6; Rev 20:9,14; 21:4. Divine wrath, spoken of in scripture, is the condensation into the English language of 19 Hebrew and Greek words. Their meanings are best described as “a strong feeling of displeasure aroused by injustice,” resulting in granting the guilty their chosen wage of eternal extinction. An event described variously and over 15 times as “gave up,” “gave over,” “turned over,” or a divine turning away with a heart of sorrow.
OF HORSES AND THEIR RIDERS: Observations on Revelation 6. Prophetic predictions of post calvary predicted Christian history includes Jesus the Christ predicting the appearance of many false prophets Mt 7:15; 24:11 along with false Christs 24:24; Mk 13:13,28-30. Peter predicted the appearance of false teachers and prophets 2Pe 2. Paul noted in Gal. 2:4 that false brothers had infiltrated their ranks, and the apostle John recorded that false prophets had gone out 1Jn 4:1. The book of Revelation contains several detailed post-calvary snapshot predictions of “what will soon (Gk “spacially immediately”) take place” Rev. 1:1, in the environment, via military, via secular nations, and false religion as they intersect with those humans who remain true. John wrote in Revelation 6 of horses and their riders as one of those snap-shots revealing Christianity’s post-calvary downward slide. First, the Biblical back story of horses and their riders. It begins with Jacob’s prediction Ge 49:1 for the descendants of his son Dan, predicting them to bring judgement upon His people, which they did by introducing idols to the Hebrew people (Judges 1:8), causing, “horses to stumble and their riders to fall backwards” Gen. 49:17. This behavior eliminated the tribe of Dan from Rev. 7’s list of tribes. The history of horses and riders surfaced again in Ex. 15:1,21 with Egyptian horses and their riders, who, pursuing God’s people, were hurdled into the sea. Their history continued with God reminding Job that the “ostrich laughs at the horse and rider” Job 39:18. Jeremiah noted in his book 51:21 that, “With thee I (the Lord of Hosts vs 19) will smite every horse with astonishment and its rider with madness”. Again Haggai 2:22 recorded that, “I (the Lord) will overthrow horses and their riders will fall.” In Rev. 9:14,17-21 John describes a loosening of God’s protection of previously restrained horsemen who were then allowed to destroy 1/3 of earth’s inhabitants in an attempted redemptive discipline of His earthly disobedient non-Israelite children noted by “yet they repented not.” It is against this background of less than noble horsemen put to shame that Rev. 6 opens with a thunderous “Come” to the writer John. There was a white horse, the church Christ had begun. It’s rider, with no mention of a name or a covering, held a bow (not a net found with fishers of men) for warfare, (unlike Christ, who will speak and it happens Rev 19:15). The rider was “given” (Gk. “endothe” meaning “allowed”), “a crown” symbolizing authority, power, dignity. Just what Lucifer desired in Isa.14:1-17 and Ez.28:1-19 (see Job 1:12; 2:6). A horse stolen and being ridden “out as a conqueror bent on conquest” vs. 2. Rev. 12:12, 13 “the devil has gone down to you and is filled with fury” and he “pursued the (pure) woman… for a time, times and a half of time” (a period variously mentioned in scriptures as “42 months”, or “1260 days” seven times). Then came the second, a fiery red horse vs. 4 intimating the destruction of the pure truths about God which Christ had revealed. This horse again with a different, unidentified, nondescript rider who once more was “given” (Gk “endothe” meaning “allowed”) “power,” something only Christ was worthy of as noted in the preceding chapter 5 of Revelation. Different riders implying different religious leaders, on His deteriorating church, “distorting the truth” Acts 20:29,30. This correlates with Luke 18:8 where Christ mused that when He comes “ will He find faith on the earth?”. In vs 5 comes a black horse. Black indicating an absence of light (truth, love). “It’s rider…holding a pair of scales”. Scales here are symbolic of non-divine (ie human) judgements by a deteriorating church since God does not judge by balances but by the heart. Next a quart of wheat and three quarts of barley in vs 6, representing less than a third of a normal days wages, predicts a near absence of the Bread of Life. A time in history during which the Holy Scriptures were removed from the public and literally chained to monastery desks. Verse 6 goes on, “do not damage the oil and the wine,” indicating the Holy Spirit would still convict and infill, lifting the blood of Christ for the salvation of the honest in heart even to those with minimal access to spiritual knowledge. In vs 7 is the fourth, a pale horse, the color of death and the rider is death. The opposite of Christ who came “to give life and life more abundantly” Jn 10:10. Again the rider on the horse (the church) “given” (endothe = allowed), not something intrinsic to, or being stated worthy of, “power over 1/4 of the earth to kill”. This foretold the destruction of between 50 – 100 million persons who had the courage to follow truths found in any snippet of scriptures they were privileged to find or hear. Verses 9-11 speaks of those slain by the riders on the horses and because they had Christ dwelling in them via the maintained Holy Spirit, they were symbolically part of the sacrificial blood splattered at the base of the altar of burnt offering. A reality repeated seven times in Exodus and Leviticus. That blood, symbolic here of those of His forgiven children, crying out “how long”— as did Daniel after hearing these astonishing future happenings – Daniel 12:6. They were given God’s quiet assurance of “rest a little while longer.” This marks the end of scripture’s shady riders on their horses of power, and the 1260 day/year time alluded to above. The next horse comes in Revelation 19. Another white horse, this one coming from heaven, and the One sitting on it is named, yes named, “Faithful and True.” Then the description goes on using two and a half verses to describe the rider with a robe of pure righteousness (right doing from right being) dipped in blood – His blood vs. 10b,11,12. He is not “allowed” a weapon, the sharp sword of His natural word is His weapon. He speaks and it is Ps 33:9. That’s natural power. He has a crown not given or allowed, He is worthy! He is the owner by divine parentage at Creation and only One worthy via repurchase of the soon to be retrieved stolen goods. Then as Ez. 39:17-20 predicted, there is a call to every feathered fowl and beast to come and feed…. on the horses and mighty men of Rev 6 and 9 and all (Rev.19:17,18) as foretold by Haggai 2:22 in “I the Lord will overthrow the horses and their riders which will fall.” Fall this time from the “sharp sword out of His mouth” Rev.19:15. Biblical pictures/observations/predictions of false Christs, false prophets, false teachers and violent/shameful/deceitful false riders messing with His post sacrifice ambassadors (church), and their demise by The One worthy Rider on His pure white horse. A horse that remains pure!
Why do we, like Eve, not believe God when God said, “when you eat of it you will surely die” in Ge 2:17, but trusted another when he said, “you will not surely die” 3: 6 – not believe/trust God when He says ‘The soul that sins, it shall die’ Ez 18:20, but again add one word to say “the soul that sins, it shall not die”. Life is life, whether it is in pain or happiness. Death is sans pain or joy. Death is the cessation of thoughts and praise, knowledge, remembrance, communication Ps 146:3,4; 115:17, Eccl 9:5,6,10, Job 14:12,14, 21, Jn 11:11-14. Christ invites us to “choose life” Dt 30:19. But if there is no death there is then no choice to make, thus no need of a Savior, and Jesus did not need to come if we already have life Jn 1:4;10:10, nor do we need the Bread of Life Jn 6:35. Neither do we need the tree of life in Rev 22:14, nor the water of life Rev 22:17. When will we trust Him and not another Rev 22:18? The only one/spirit immortal is God 1 Timothy 6:16!
Debt…Debtor…Death and Eternity In Mt 6:16, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” Jesus is instructing us to request our Father in heaven to forgive our guilt – one of the Greek meanings of the words “debt/debtor” as illustrated again in His Mt 18:23-35 parable. Death is a reality of sin, not what is owed. It is the intrinsic wages of sin, set in motion by the sin. That’s why it is called sin. When one sins, guilt is the obligation we are bound by, the state of one (guilty) who has committed an offense i.e. the debt. Death is not an obligation owed but the reality initiated by the sin. Said another way, debt is guilt and the payment is death i.e. we will only pay the debt of guilt with the reality of death. It’s like the going over the lip of a 3000 foot waterfall, or as I watched two winter alpine climbers I had just conversed with, slip and drop off a 5000 foot mountain face. Death is not an obligation but a reality that will occur. A debtor is guilty and death, outside of an external saving event, is the inevitable result. In that external saving event Christ took the guilt of the entire human race, suffered the inevitable result of eternal death yet the eternal element had no hold on Him since He, through a life of trusting dependence on God, had lived a pure, faithful, productive life of selfless other centered love, thus guiltless. Then by gifting humans internally – if we individually accept that victorious selfless love, literally Christ in us Jn 14:17; 1Jn 1:2; 3:15; 5:11,20; Col 1:27; Gal 5:22, He guarantees, if we allow Him to “remain” (bespeaking of continual freedom) in us, Jn 15:1-17 – life eternal.
Some Christians get hung up on the “shall” of Ex 35:2, “Whoever does any work on it, the Sabbath, shall ( or “shall surely” as Gk “mut” is translated 56 times in the KJV) be put to death” ESV. God given information, the when of “shall,” was at the time properly understood as per Merriam Webster’s definition in the 9th Collegiate Dictionary “to express what is inevitable to happen in the future” –here eternal future. This immediate understanding by all parties is affirmed as revealed in Numbers 15:34. At that time a question arose in the whole congregation as to what to do with a man found out gathering wood on the Sabbath day. They didn’t know, nor did Moses, so they approached God. God then condescended to allow the man’s future reality, knowing as God did, not only His current action but more importantly his heart, to become a current community lesson. Again Lev 10:1-3 records that the deaths of the disrespectful priests Nadab and Abihu at the onset of the temple services at which all Israel was present, was because “in the sight of all the people I will be honored.” This immediate Sabbath dishonoring punishment was not recorded as being done or desired to be temporally done again, implying again their proper interpretation of Exodus 35:2 as a future eternal verdict. (and inappropriate ministers/priests have likewise not been temporally disposed of). See also Christ’s parable in Luke 14:16-24 of the Great Supper of which the Sabbath is a foretaste and promise of. In Scripture the Sabbath supersedes in importance, as first in place, above the tabernacle or sanctuary as noted by Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; 35:1-3. And as the “LORD’S Sabbath” it is for Him to care for. The desecration of “My Sabbath” prompted loss of the man’s temporal time. God instructively allowed/countenanced destruction of the desecrating life. This relationship of the Sabbath and the Sanctuary is well noted in Jewish thought as recorded in Judaism 101; Shabbat: What is Shabbat? Encyclopedia Judaica 2008 The Gale Group.
LIFE EXCOGITATIONS 