Carnal Christians?

Some insist that there  is no such thing as a carnal Christian.

And one preacher insisting this quoted out of context the very passage which establishes with absolute clarity that such are real.

The irony of those who insist that there is no such thing as a carnal Christian are themselves the most carnal of all, religious terrorists and fanatics, extreme legalists who think that the claim of carnality is  a copout, but in their legalist zeal their own sin has been stirred up and made even worse than it ever was.

I do not use hyperbole when I call them terrorists. I am referring to the likes of Ray Comfort and Paul Washer. The first has repeatedly said, and in my own hearing, for we share a home town and I sat under his preaching for many years before he moved to the US, he said that it was his job to terrify people into becoming Christians.

And Paul Washer's stock in trade is the screaming rant whereby he thinks he is serving God by, for example,  telling young people that most of them will be in hell 100 years from now.

Both also deny carnality, but the weapons of their warfare are purely carnal as is their fruit.

Where is the biblical passage that speaks so clearly?

It can be found in I Corinthians 3:1 and onwards to verse 4


1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto you were not able to bear it,, neither yet now are ye able.  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
Paul Washer can be found on youtube quoting "Are you not carnal?" but does it to give a negative answer to the question. In other words Washer draws from this the implied answer "No, you are not carnal, if you are born again at all."  But in so doing he completely ignores the immediate context which in this instance includes the very sentence from whence this quote comes:  " you are still carnal for when there are  . . . strifes  . . . among you are you not carnal?" Paul said in verse 1 that they were carnal when he first preached to them and  still so even at the time of his writing of this letter, that they could not take and still could not take the meat of the gospel because "you are yet, or still, carnal. Moreover he gives examples of what constitutes carnality, namely envying, strifes and divisions.

This is the context of the question "Are you not carnal?" And the answer is clearly a resounding yes

 

Who was the letter addressed to?

1Co 1:1 Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called  saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:  Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the logic is clear: if there are no such people as  carnal Christians then Paul was not addressing his letter to the Church at Corinth, for he was writing to address a problem in the church, which problem simply wouldn't be there if they were spiritual.  This is so as these behaviours are the fruit of the flesh, and no good tree bears bad fruit. The problem was in fact carnality as manifested by envying, strifes and divisions, also by such enormities as getting drunk in commuinion meals and that gross immorality of a man, in invoking freedom in Christ, who was having sexual relations with his step mother.

 

Was he in fact writing to the non believing hangers-on in the Church? There is no hint of this in his opening, "to the church of God in Corinth . . sanctified, called as saints"

 

A simple reading of the whole passage without cherry picking  shows that carnal Christians do in fact exist. That the phrase "Carnal Christians" does not appear in the Bible is irrelevant, an example of nave literalism that knows no regard for logic,  context nor synonym. The term "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible either, nor is the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition actually called The Antichrist, but both are perfectly valid summaries of what the Bible actually says.

The question may be asked. what does it matter?

It matters a  good deal, for at the core of the matter is a doctrine as to what happens at conversion. If the change occurring then is over estimated then a person is forced into the pretence of acting according to this change that  is no change to the extent that it is over estimated. This is by definition hypocrisy and it also causes strain.

Although it is written that if any be in Christ he is a new creation how does the carnal Christian fit into this? For in acting like a mere man (which St Paul rebukes, therefore appealing to being merely or only human is  no excuse) how is such a person a new creation?

To me it is clear that we who are carnal are not. Does the scripture err then? Clearly not. But I think the distinction between manifest and imputed righteousness applies here. God views us as righteous not because we are but because he reckons us so (the meaning of the term imputation) as part of our changed standing before Him on the basis of our faith.

Either we become sinless at conversion that we may indeed be new creations through being in Christ, or we are imputed as new creations, which thus is a synonym for righteousness, which is itself imputed. The work of the Holy Spirit is to change us into being in reality what we are imputed as being, but this is an on going process.

The worst upshot of denying carnality is that those who think they are spiritual  because being Christians they  by definition be spiritual have become so blinded as to have no insight into their own natures. Of course seeking to live to a change that has not happened in them they are under law as they attempt to force the pretence their doctrine requires.  This of course stirs up their sin and makes them worse than they were as unbelievers.

Were they to admit their carnality  they could be led to repent of it at the Lord's behest. But this they refuse because their definitions preclude it.

The flip side of this view is the total despair of those who know their sin, are trapped in the experience of Romans chapter seven and, believing that there are no such things as carnal Christians, believe that they are not saved  and thus feel that they have no access to the throne of grace. Such a view drives people insane.

Finally, if there is no such thing as  carnal Christian then I do not know any Christians for in thirty six years I have never met any and I myself certainly am not a Christian.

Or the doctrine made by such is false and those doing do have put themselves under Law and forsaken Christ because in their heart of hears they refuse to acknowledge that they are sinners.

A doctrine that claims to be spiritual and in fact being so savagely cruel is what in essence a heresy is

 

Coming Soon: The Twin Poles of Error 2: Cessationist versus Charismaniac

These two named errors are both errors, as I shall demonstrate. And they feed off each other.

Cessationism is the easiest to deal with.

I Cor 13 speaks of when tongues and the like shall cease: they shall cease "when the perfect has come."

What is this perfect thing? Cessationists insist this is the scripture itself, but this I  will demonstrate to be  an out of context reading.

A good look at the passage in question is called for:

1Co 13:8  Love never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is love
 

The sentence they appeal to is here: "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."  But has it come yet? To answer this one must ask what will happen when it has come.  "For now we see through a glass, darkly."  This turn of phrase is so well known as to have entered the English language as an idiom, so, to continue  "but then face to face ."  But when? When is the "then" spoken of here? Clearly "when the perfect has come." In true Hebrew style Paul then repeats himself in a parallel passage immediately following : "now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

 

And now the clinching question must be raised? Are there any alive who  know God face to face (for it is clearly God Who is being spoken of in the passage), who see unmediated and not as if through a glass darkly and who know as they are known?

 

To know as one is known, that is to say to know as God knows, this is the result of what will be when the perfect has come. Until then it can be seen as a mightily tall order. So I ask again: is there any who know in this fashion (mad boastings of the  super spiritual notwithstanding)?  To any with even an ounce humility and realism the answer is clear. No there is not. We all see through a glass darkly and none has exhaustive knowledge of anything, let alone of God Himself

 

Therefore the perfect as not come, for though the scripture is perfect it is not the perfect that scripture spoke of.

 

Therefore miracles, prophecy, tongues and the like should not have ceased. If they did it is because of our unbelief and backsliding, and we  run the risk of having quenched the Spirit. What is claimed to be a virtue by the Cessationists is in fact a most grievous sin.

 

Whoever put the chapter headings and verse numbering in scripture back in the medieval period or so did this issue a great disservice.

 

Although it may be a grand rhetorical gesture to end the thirteenth chapter of this letter where it is ended  to do so disrupts the logical flow of the letter in its original form. For the very next verse after the passage quoted is

 

 

1Co 14:1 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

Not only is Paul completely unaware that his writings will help in bringing and end to prophecy, tongues and miracles, he is commanding his people to seek these things  when surely insofar as his own writings were scripture (and that indeed they are!)  the need for them should be that much diminished  by his letter.

 

Some can argue that miracles can only ceased when the canon is complete, but again that is refuted by  showing what will be the state of the Christian believer when  the perfect has come. One does not and indeed cannot in logic produce writings which are to end, or contribute to the ending of,  a phenomenon then command the readers  in the selfsame letter to seek the very thing that is to be ended.

 

Cessationism is refuted. They do despise prophecy and insofar as the Holy Spirit would speak to them on the matter they have quenched the Spirit, both of which are forbidden in I Thessalonians 5:19-20.  Of course to simply believe error in good faith is not to quench the Spirit, and this situation can be remedied.  If we are commanded to seek the gifts of the Spirit when the idea that they ceased with the Apostles is refuted then at least such are in disobedience. It does depend on the individual relationship with the Spirit, however, whether this leads to sins more dire. Error of itself does not imply being unteachable by the Holy Spirit.

For as always, and I am a living testimony to this, He is merciful, and I know this because of my own extreme legalism which  made me as great a fool as the Galatians

 

To be fair, however, there is indeed madness in the charismatic movements which has risen from time to time over the centuries and although it is not logically valid to react against them as  is all too often done it is understandable.

 

One of the first and indeed still the most infamous schism produced between a charismatic extreme and a panicked church reacting against it was the Montanist schism of the 2nd (3rd) century

 

(mention montanist schism, reaction of charismatics to madness then fdeal with charismania)

 



Coming Soon: True and False Security

:There is security in Christ, but Once Saved Always Saved is not this.

This I will demonstrate from scripture

Coming Soon Endtime Reflection 2

Endtime Reflections 2, the Last Generation?

I hope to demonstrate that a proper reading of the parable of the fig tree shows that there is nothing in scripture to prove this is or even can be the last generation

Coming Soon: The Hypocrites Charter

Faith, they say, is a fact, not a feeling.

Love, they say is an act, not a feeling.

I hope to demonstrate that this is the very essence of hypocrisy and that to believe such is to fall under the Law thus falling away from the Lord.

More to follow

Denying Self: a lyric meditation

 "He who would save his life will lose it"

 I am told that bottling up one's desires and forcing oneself to say NO is what the
verse "deny self"  means.

On the contrary. This behaviour matches the verse "he who would save his own life will lose it", it is also striving in the flesh, seeking to be perfected in the flesh, feigning obedience, refusing to enter his rest, insulting the spirit of grace.

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is how one comes to
walk in green meadows by still waters

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is how one is
equipped for spiritual warfare

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, (as i experience more and
more), this is dying to self

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is mortifying the flesh
when one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is buffetting the flesh
and keeping it under

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is running the race, or
a goodly part of it

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, pertaining to the sins of
thought, this is being transformed by the renewing of your mind

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is carrying his yoke
which is easy and a burden that is light

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this comes a little further
into entering his rest

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is being crucified with
Christ

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is putting on christ or
putting on the new man

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is making a living
sacrifice of yourself

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is the beginning of the
ressurection life

When one repents in gentleness and peace as lead by the Spirit, this is the beginning of the
glorious liberty of the sons of god


See how St Paul says the same thing at least a dozen different ways

Which do you seek? Repentance lead by the holy spirit in a personal relationship with
some who loves you and treats you with gentleness and kindness once he has your
attention or even as a means of getting it?

Or an agonizing life of self repression, driven by pressurised ranting either from oneself or
somebody in a pulpitm as practised by those who think holiness depends on their willpower with a little supernatural aid invoked but somehow never forthcoming if you look at the fruit of such effort.

They repress because they refuse to repent but fear to simply indulge their sin, so they
have to struggle against it forgetting they are only hiding or trying to hide it from
themselves and God.

Do you want the abundant life of a humble child, a little child of God or do you want the
heroic struggle of a Great Man too proud to enter the kingdom or go on with the Father as
said litle child?

 

Meikle on Apologetics

Apologetics is busy looking for the magic bullet, the argument that is the best answer which will be irrefutable and have them on their faces repenting, so to speak

But it is stereotypical thinking to assume that the best answer to atheists is a form of words and reasoned arguments that apples to all.

This atheist, ie myself, was converted by no less than the Holy Spirit one dark night in 1978, and His best answer, the one that actually worked , was two words, YOU FRAUD.

What works is what suits each individual when the Spirit speaks to them, not some line of verbal logic from an apologist taken to apply to all.

The fact is if the bible is true then God's existence does not need to be established for it is already known (Romans 1:19-20)

Apologetics, then, which I now reject, bases its operations on an assumption that is contrary to the very scriptures it seeks to defend. It is arm of the flesh and reliance on clever words, not preaching Christ and him crucified.

And without this all they are doing is defending an ideology with Christ's name attached

I am not denying that the faith is logical and patent of rational explication. But I do know that men do not live in the realm of ideas, not even we intellectuals who were stuffed full of them. So our arguments are not persuasive  and this is not because they are invalid but precisely because they are valid. For we  humans, ruled by lusts and prejudice, will not listen to sound arguments. and this fact of human nature is just as the Bible says, rendering our arguments useless

So why do apologists waste their time?

The Doctor

THE DOCTOR

Once upon a time there was a Doctor. His method of treatment was always the same.
Let me tell you about it.

Whenever a person came to him saying "Doctor, Doctor, I don't feel well" he would
briefly examine his patient and say, "Do you want the truth or do you want to feel better?"

Most of those who sought him would say "I want to feel better", so he would say "You
see that it is almost nothing, you are certainly as ill as you are aware of but you are
only aware of a minor stomach upset. Go in peace and feel better".

And they would believe him and go away. Believing him made them feel better for a
time. But of course the Doctor was only telling them what they wanted to hear. He
was not lying of course, but he knew when the truth was not wanted.

Of course before long they would start to feel ill again, and so came back to Him.
He would ask the same question "Do you want the truth or do you want to feel
better?"

The performance would continue. If they only wanted to feel well but not hear the
truth he would send them away, the pain would return after a brief period, but each
time they returned the pain was greater.

But some were wiser. When he asked "do you want the truth or do you want to feel
better?

"The truth" they would say "I want the truth".

So the doctor rejoiced in their insight and would say "you are gravely ill. A tumour is
eating your heart and will kill you before long"

At this some got angry, accused him of quackery and stormed out. They died, needless
to say. But the rest said "Oh, Doctor, Doctor, what shall I do about it?

And the doctor would ask his first question again "Do you want the truth or do you
want to feel better?"

If they answered the second of the two, which was by far the most common answer he would say "Very well, you know you are sick but are wise in the ways of cures. So go then, and seek out a healthy person, then imitate his way of living. See what it is to be healthy and then work hard at it, but beware it will be hard work, a struggle even"

This was of course the answer they expected to hear and indeed wanted to hear, for in
their eyes it made them model patients. But of course they were sick. No one is cured of illness by mimicking  health, to these people I shall return.

But some of them who asked the question "what shall I do about my illness?", were clever, at least in their own eyes. They said "Clearly you are a wise man, for the truth is what matters, not feelings, so clearly you do not want us to feel better, neither is it relevant. Give me the truth,  then,  but know that I accept that feeling better is irrelevant"

Now the Doctor was indeed  a wise man, but this kind of wisdom insulted his intelligence and his character. He sighed inwardly.

"Very well, you heard what I said to those who merely wanted to feel better. Go see a healthy man and imitate his condition. Be aware that it is hard work, a
struggle."
"But doctor, they said "this is the advice you gave to those who did not want the
truth!"
To which the doctor simply said "who is the doctor here? I tell you what you yourself
believe is true, so go and do it."
They agreed and left.
So both of these types of people went out and mimicked health, failed
miserably and returned, doubled up in agony. They were worse than ever.
"Doctor, Doctor", they cried, in pain, what shall I do?"
"Do you want the truth or do you want to feel better"
Some said "I need truth, you know this."
"Very well, the Doctor said, "continue your therapy. If you think about it you will
realize that you are not consistent in your efforts. But know that if your illness gets
worse you must make haste to return to me, for if it does worsen it will become
manifestly terminal and quickly"
Struck with sorrow, but agreeing with him, they left. They thought they might still
recover, which error they would not acknowledge, and which error he therefore could
not correct.
So they left until the next time, if they were still alive even attempt to return to him,
for they were starting to die off now that their illness reached this stage.
But some were inclined, at last,  to heed their pain.
"Have mercy on me, Doctor, I am in agony here. I NEED BOTH," they cried in
answer to his now familiar question.
The Doctor smiled.
"GOOD" he said.
My next question is this "Is the question remaining 'what should the patient do about
the illness?' or is it 'what the Doctor should do?'?"
To those who answered "the patient" His answer was to send them out
to yet another round of therapy which had already failed, unless in agony they
sincerely changed their mind on the spot. The doctor was wise enough to see who
were sincere in their change of mind however, and would not be fooled by those who
pretended to think that the cure depended on the doctor when they did not think so.
To those who said and knew that the cure depended on the doctor he said, "Come into
my surgery, lay down, be as comfortable as you can without striving to be so, and I
will remove some of the tumour today. You are to come back to me on a daily basis
for more surgery, but you are not to aggravate your condition by seeking to imitate the
healthy."
Most were so tormented that they obeyed him, they now had no other viable choice.
But wisest of all His patiences were those few who immedately gave the right answers
to every one of his questions the
first time he had asked. Do you recall the questions? First they said they wanted the
truth. Then they said that they realized that they needed both the truth and to feel
better as the pain was symptomatic, to ignore it was folly, and then they said correctly
that the correct question was what the doctor should do about the condition, and not
what the patient himself should do.
These wisest ones were healed quickest of all and did not waste years, sometimes,
mimicking health in increasing agony.
But all the patients of the doctor were healed over a period of time.
Except for some few that decided that they were healed completely after a first
treatment, or the first week, and so walked out, to once more mimic health and ignore
their symptoms. If they lived and had learned enough from their continuing folly to
return to the Doctor they were received by Him without recrimination
I was one of his patients, my treatment continues, my pain diminishes
daily.
One day I asked the doctor, "Why were you so harsh in sending away people who did
not answer question properly."
He sighed "I hated to do so, but their tumours of heart also effected
their, or should I say your, brains. As long as you thought as you did you could not
receive any healing from me, this was the nature of the illness itself. I had no other
choice but to send them and you away until their suffering got too much for you to
bear".

He smiled "You remember how obstinate you were, how many times you demanded
truth not peace, or peace not truth, and how many times you cut off treatment
prematurely"
Indeed I did. I who thought I was a model patient was by this conceit proven a very bad
one.
And still he received me without recrimination when I crawled back to his rooms,
even though I came extremely close to agonising death.
I had another question.
"Why did you not remove the tumour all at once?"
"It was so far metastatized that it was everywhere in your system, indeed you all who
suffer this condition were born this way. There was no way to remove it all at once
without killing you. That was" he smiled again, "clearly not my intent."

I realized the wisdom in these answers, but one more question was bothering me.
"Doctor, my dear friend, why did you offer the alternative of truth OR feeling better"
His answer surprised me then and it does still.
"Ahh, you still missed the point. I did not make a false alternative like this. They did,
it was one of the symptoms of the tumour itself. They who wanted comfort alone did
not care as to truth, those who thought they wanted truth were too proud to
acknowldge their symptoms. Indeed my very asking of the question was part of my
making a diagnosis. Come into my surgery and lie down, I must operate again today.
Your question shows you are not yet cured."
This I did gladly, for it was painless.
And free.

 

Grace, real and false

This  is in response to the video by Bishop N T Wright,

 

 

 

 

 

 

where he argues that with God's help we must strive to develop good habits. I refute this notion entirely.

 

 

Christian character does indeed matter, for without it we will be lost, because  once saved always saved is heresy as is easy believism, which reduces faith to mere intellectual assent.

But the means used to pursue Christian character are crucially important.

To strive is futile, given the inner nature of sin. When one has sinned the moment the impulse has crossed your mind (for out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts) it is indeed too late. That urge is not temptation to be avoided, it is sin, and striving against it is not to overcome sin but to seek to hide it. Not only that but as it says in Romans 7 the effort will stir up the sin and make it worse

Willpower against sin is the way that seems right to man but which leads to death, for the very dynamic of this kind of striving is to set the person against himself, as it is written. "a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand"

Grace is not some kind of abstract magical power that aids our efforts, for our efforts are hypocrisy given the very  nature of them, being  brute force against what we really think and want.  For when God sees the heart what he looks at is what we strive against, not the fact that we are striving

The evil impulse is not overcome by burying it, and God will never aid the attempt. If He actually did so then there would not be multitudes of Christians living in defeat and despair or others in smug self righteousness in thinking their efforts actually work

Instead God will do something quite different

In one on one counsel (he is "wonderful counsellor")  he will persuade us in personal relationship, as a loving father might persuade a recalcitrant child to cone out with the family on the planned outing. This happened to me when I was a child, not from God but from my own father. It is the most perfect metaphor of grace I have ever seen

But such requires a real and intimate personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Without this there is nothing but Law which only produces death.  See Romans and Galatians

I am no easy believist. I am still a legalist, recovering from it but recognizing it here

I learned this the hard way, through applying what Ii was taught and failing  in agony, for my insight into the  inner nature of sin was deeper than most but my response to sin was typical

To make grace what Wright does, so following the standard church consensus, is to deny grace.

If he is not in despair he never knew the inner nature of sin

It all flows from that, from conviction of sin which itself also requires relationship with the Spirit of Christ.

And this legalists of all stripes have forsaken, or never knew

Ideas and me

A few days ago when I was walking and talking with the Lord the Spirit, as I do, I found my self repenting of making ideas more important than people. That this is s a sin I am convinced. It also chimes in with the growing conviction of mine that ideas are not the driving force of history, something which, as an intellectual, I fell for.

My point in speaking thus is this: losing interest in ideas for their own sake I find myself  less motivated to be a teacher of the nations.

I have no idea how this will affect my posting here.

It may be a necessary adjustment as part of my perceived calling to be a teacher  or it may be proof that the sense of calling was presumption, which latter would suit me fine.

So I may continue posting, or cease entirely, or perhaps do even more after a period.

We shall see

Comments again

Having been informed that one friend of mine tried posting a comment which did not even get to my inbox whereby I never even knew that one had been made I have removed all moderation of comments and posted a comment of my own.

So I must appeal to you all to try posting  a comment if indeed any of you think my work worthy of it

Some Observations about Worship

This is a post of mine on a website where the endless quarrel about old hymns versus contemporary choruses has recently been aired .

AS follows:

Genuine worship depends on one's own relationship with Christ. Making laws about certain styles of music will not address the issue for this is one of the heart.

We cannot conjure up "authenticity" by act of will precisely because this is a matter of the heart

Idolatry is a passion for anything at all that comes before our love of God, and if we do not love our neighbour and brethren, as shown in our spontaneous reactions ( forced works do not count as they are hypocrisy) then we do not love God (see I John) so any passion we have will by default be idolatrous .

If this is the true biblical context for the nature of idolatry ( and improper worship is idolatry) then all our efforts are yet again superficial and skirt the issue.

If we won't seek the Lord the Spirit that we be convicted of our sin and so saved from it through the cleansing that follows honest confession (again see I John) then we may as well continue as we are, give up concern for the issue, and simply give motivational seminars and concerts, which is what church is without the Holy Spirit, and be done with it l

"Hell, No!"

I am come to the conclusion that every issue in Christianity is bound by paradox. Indeed I see that paradox is God's calling card.

Some are irreconcilable to us in our present state of being: chiefly these are  the Trinity, and  the dual nature of the God Man Jesus Christ. We take these on faith for there is no alternative.

Some refuse this, and seek to reconcile the paradox, and this by denying it. Thus we get the Arians who deny the Trinity outright, or the Oneness Pentecostals, also anti trinitarians,  who make the Son everything and deny that the Father is a somehow a separate Being to whom He prayed, or  we get tritheists, though these are usually anti christians who claim tritheism as a reason for rejecting the faith altogether. Or, as regards the nature of the Son we get Nestorians versus Monophysites or the Docetists versus those who, in a crude form of  Arianism made the Son only a human hero. In every case the resolution of the paradox, in denying it, is heresy. It is better not to consider the issue than to go to heresy, but this modern man often refuses to do

The paradoxes of law and grace, those that affect christian living directly I take to be resolvable by understanding the inward nature of sin; in this and in the one other case I am considering this day in this piece of work the resolution is plainly spelled out in Scripture but it is so offensive to self righteous modern human nature that it is denied outright.

I mean the paradox of a loving God who sends sinners to eternal suffering in hell.

It is not my intention here  to justify this idea beyond the plain biblical statement of resolution herein, namely the cross of Christ. I do intend to demonstrate that it is in fact what Scripture says, and that those who twist scrpture to justify their own contention that this is not so are indulging in dishonest scholarship. Therefore I am not so much resolving the paradox  as I am seeking to establish that it is real and must be faced.

I am aware of two strands of thought, two arguments  used to deny the reality of eternal conscious torment in hell that are more substantial than the purely emotive cry that such is so monstrous that a loving God would not do such a thing. This last crie de coeur I will address  at the end of this piece.

Insofar as I have followed the writings of those who preach thus, I see them in the work of Rob Bell's "Love Wins"  and in the pdf download "Hell Know" by Dirk Waren

One strand claims that the torment is not forever and ever. and justified appeal to the Greek term αιώνας   των  αιωνων. I would demonstrate by simple exposition of other uses of this Greek phrase translated "
forever and ever"  that time of endless duration is indeed what it means. This is as far as I can see Rob Bell's line

The other claims that "death" and "destruction" mean what we as moderns take them to mean, not what the Biblical context reveals them to be and then the author proceeds to interpret  every relevant passage in scripture, and he is nothing if not dogged for Mr Waren does indeed list them all, in the light of this misconception. Therefore I would demonstrate that  the misconception of wrenching words out of their biblical context, interpreting them in a modern sense, then applying the twisted rendering to the passages from which the words were taken  is indeed the only warranted explanation for what he has done.

To work, then.

Both authors concede that there is a punishment of sinners in hell. One attacks the biblical truth as to the duration of said punishment  and the other deals to the nature  of it.

These two points I take to be salient, the veritable core of the issue, and therefore I do not see the need to refute  in detail everything they have written. Brevity is the soul of wit and it is something I am learning only of late.

Rob Bell denies he is a universalist. Yet to him the ultimate destination of humans is heaven. I am hard pressed to see how this differs from Univeralism in ultimate intent, but as he knows full well that the very term is inflammatory to orthodox  Christians he will studiously avoid it.

So to him hell is a punishment of limited duration and after men have done their time they will get out and he welcomed to heaven.

The core of his argument here is the meaning of the Greek term  αιώνας   των  αιωνων

That they should be tormented day and night forever and ever, (revelation 22:10)  and here the phrase transliterated as aionas ton aionon is used, is anathema to Bell.

He maintains that the word aionas means age, not an eternity, and in this, strictly speaking, he is quite right. But he has disregarded even the immediate context of the word. Sometimes the meaning is held not in the word but the phrase. Naive literalists with no regard for context and the idiomatic structure of language will usually miss this out , but this is the case in every language.

For instance in the New Zealand idiom "to spit the dummy"   the meaning of the verb to spit is plain, but a dummy is anything from that which sits on a ventriloquist's knee to  the pacifer a baby used to suck on, and it is this which is referred to in this colourful colloquialism, for the phrase means to lose one's temper in the sense of an angry baby spitting out the dummy in infantile fury.  The meaning can not be found in the individual words Indeed the meaning can only be found in the phrase as a whole and even then in the social context from whence the idiom arose

Likewise to walk the plank is one thing but to walk the dog is quite another: the meaning is in the entire phrase.

This can be confirmed by looking at the others usages of the term forever and ever, and more specifically the Greek phrase aionas ton aionon -   αιωνας των  αιωνων .

This is where electronic concordances show themselves  immensely useful. Indeed they remove any excuse for poor scholarship being so readily available


(tbc)

God Hates Persons?

We are informed that God hates sinners.

This can be seen on any number of you tube posts.

What troubles me is the self righteousness of the assertion that if God does not hate those who claim this  then they are not sinners. This is as if the Apostle John never spoke when he said "He who claims to have no sin is a liar and the truth is not in him."

We are all sinners. If God hates sinners then God hates every one of us and we are all damned. For surely he who hates wishes the destruction or suffering of those he hates. Calvinists may assert this of God , but it is written  that God is not willing that any should perish.

But even if this is not so, and I am hard pressed to think how it could not be so, but for the sake of argument let us grant that God is willing that some perish, are we to believe that when the Holy Spirit reaches out to sinners to save any sinner that this is an act of hatred, for it must be if God hates sinners?

God hated sinners so much that He reached out to the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road that dark night, and to me also in my own smaller Damascus Road conversion  just over 36 years ago?.

Hatred?

Really?

And what of when scripture says the opposite? For it says "God  commends His love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

While we were sinners He did the ultimate act of love and died for us.  He would not die for a good man, as Paul said, but for a sinner. Yet He hates sinners, these fanatical preachers would have us believe.

God hates sin, but the classic distinction between a God who hates sin and loves sinners has been lost by naive literalists who hunt through Scripture for verses to confirm their prejudices and then wrench these passage out of context.  For context it is that often determines meaning: sometime immediate context, sometime however the context is broad.

Where did this teaching come from then if it is so false?

Among other verses pressed into service for this error is "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated"

Clearly, then, God hates persons.

And if God hates persons then surely we who are born again are to imitate God and hate persons also. This is the most chilling implication of such an idea: that religious fanatics will run riot  in hatred and call it loving God. It is as if Jesus never said of those who were murdering Him on the cross, "forgive them for they know not what they are doing."

But if we are all protestants here then we know that some bible verses are not to be taken literally. After all we all flatly deny that "this is my body" means that we are eating Christ in the communion service. The passage is a metaphor for intimate relational communion, and to take it in such a naively  literalistic fashion is to miss the point of it completely. Indeed the forlorn queues of Church members lining up like cars as a gas station to take their weekly shot of bread and wine demonstrate that all intimacy and relationship is shown to be lost by this doctrine.

Are there any passages where context shows that  hate is used metaphorically, or as hyperbole?

Yes indeed there is  "unless any man hate his father, mother even his own life he cannot be my disciple," Jesus said. But are we therefore to break the 5th commandment on principle and literally hate our parents? Of course not. The meaning here is that our love for Him should be so deep that our love for any other, which is indeed commanded of us, is to be almost as hate by comparison. This is what hyperbole is, a literary exaggeration to make a point.

And Hebrew is full of such devices.

Failing to notice these is a species of word twisting which likely, to try and put the best construction on  their motivation for such things,  emerged from  a pious but misguided determination to avoid word twisting by ignoring such things as the style and mechanical workings, so to speak, of a language.

So what in fact does "Jacob I loved" actually mean? Does a non literal interpretation do violence to the meaning of the thing?

I take it that "Esau I hated is a hyperbole for "Esau I strongly disapproved of."

There is no violence to meaning here, though naive literalists may demur, as the change is subtle but of immensely significant import, because if God does hate persons then the Scripture "he is no respecter of persons" is false. This would mean that God plays favourites, is not impartial and so is no just Judge.

So does God only love those who He knows will respond to Him? Well, firstly no Calvinist can take this line for they hold that Grace is irresistible- if God speaks to anyone then they will respond. End of story. Incidentally I mention Calvinism as to my knowledge the notion that God hates persons is a Calvinist doctrine, but I will take correction on this if proffered.

So God loves those who respond to Him?  Then he clearly only sent His son for the elect, flatly and blasphemously denying the meaning of the most famous verse in Scripture John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believe should not perish but have eternal life."

Some may cite John 14:21 -23 which implies when lifted out of context that God only loves those who obey Him and love Him first. But this cannot be the case, for elsewhere it says "we love as He first loved us."  Indeed, if we are carnal, have minds set on the flesh and so cannot submit, it can be no other way. We will love because He first loved us and only because He first loved us, or we remain dead in sin and carnality. But  then as we love him as a result of this He will manifest his love even further, a kind of virtuous cycle moving us from glory to glory as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds through one on one tutelage in personal relationship with the Holy Spirit as his disciples.

So, as God is love, He must necessarily love all without favouritism. or His love is only human and so is not agape.

Therefore God does not hate persons, for all the Hebraic metaphor which states when misread that He does.

And what is the significance of this?

If they preach a God who hates person they themselves are of little faith. They may likely never have  tasted the goodness of the Lord for themselves so are in no position to preach when they do not believe.

Moreover if some people decide that such as God as they preach is a monster, as indeed He would be if this doctrine were true, and so reject Him, who will God work his  vengeance on but the preacher who encouraged this rejection  of the gospel?  This is why it is written "let not many become teachers lest we incur as stricter judgement."

That God is love is scriptural. It is indeed the primary core of Who and What God the Almighty, the Holy and Terrible, is. That this term must be explained in order to expose the abuse which is easy believism and other such indulgent presumptions  and to place it properly with His wrath  where the carnal mind will choose one or  the other to their destruction, this is of course, is axiomatic.

But such abuses are not countered by embracing the opposite error, namely that God hates persons.

Let the Paul Washers and the David  Platts of the church repent of preaching this that they cease encouraging the rejection of the faith by others, and that they also may rediscover the goodness of the Lord  for themselves. For they  have forsaken this if they ever knew it in the first place, and in their denial, based on their own hatred and rage they  preach a God much like themselves, namely of God who hates persons

Talent and Torment

Alas we see with the death of Robin Williams, whose most impressive work to me was "Dead Poets Society" and "Hook"; we see  that torment and talent go together, as if torment were the motivating factor. If this is true I would rather he was a happy man still alive who we had never heard of as he never had the motivation to go into the arts; and if my move to true happiness means that I never compose a note or write a creative word again then i will gladly embrace that.

I have been accused of selfishness for giving up the music profession in which I played  double bass over some thirty years.

My response is unprintable here, suffice to say I can only feel sorry for those whose lives are so empty that they need entertainment and so react when one like me decided it was not worth the effort, and who also suspects that such efforts may indeed be incompatible with real joy.

And by joy i do not mean the manic high that produced Beethoven's 9th, but something devoid of emotional violence, like my own delight as birdsong (so different from the ecstasies of music) and in the sunrise.
Keep your passion. I chose peace and real delight. And in Christ this is becoming a reality that is increasingly imminent.

What? No comments?

Has anyone tried to comment but still been unable to? Or has no one thought my stuff worthy of comment?

If the former then clearly something is wrong. That being so message me through  google plus or youtube where I am known as strefanasha  to inform me of this and I will at least know why I am being  greeted with a deafening silence.

But not being a tech head I cannot promise to fix it

Meditation on a Famous Name

This is an appetizer as to why I hold that  C S Lewis, well beloved by christians the world over, is in fact in disastrous error when it came to christian living.


More may follow, God permitting



MEDITATION ON A FAMOUS NAME

CS  [Clive Staples] is well named


He would call CLEAVE-ing to christ
That CLEAVE -ing of will from feeling
He did in fear of his own heart

Thus was he STAPLE-d to Law
With twin spikes
Of fear - which is unbelief
And self righteousness
Driven through his own soul

This leaven of pharisees,
Might be a STAPLE of many
But is no
Heavenly Food

For the GREAT - est DIVORCE
Was not that he wrote about
Rather it was that he practised,
And has enjoined upon us,

As This PILGRIM, though reborn
Has REGRESS - ed to the
Errors of his youth
Claptrap in
Puritania

His Hoof might not
Be CLOVEN
But his doctrine served
Him whose was,
For which Father of Lies
Was it who first said
In Heavenly clime
Let's Pretend?

For Tho he would be
King of his flesh
in domination
Of repression,
He was in
Such dishonesty
No CLOVIS (whence the name LEWIS)
The frank

O Jack!
Why sought you not Jesus
earlier instead
of later

Only one Joy
might you have lost
not both,
And a GRIEF might have
Been OBSERVED
Rather than a
Despair publicized.

O what a pity
You sought
Christ-i-an -it-y,
Instead of the Christ
YES,
HIM!

The Lepers

Once upon a time there was a leper's dungeon, but the doors were never locked and
the inmates could come and go as they pleased, though as no one outside the dungeon
was willing to have them in their company most stayed in the dungeon, but not all, as
sometimes some left it for brief periods.

Some of these who left came back and started telling the others how they had been
healed of their leprosy. But their skin was still white and cankered, full of running
sores and their hands had missing fingers and the like; not to mention the stench which spoke
more powerfully than their appearance, so that even in the dark no one could be
fooled by vain talk.. Eventually the lepers simply learned to look at the man rather
than his words, and so ignored this kind of talk, for it was endless talk, as if these
preaching lepers were trying to convince themselves of something that was simply not
true anyway. . .

But then one fine day one of the older members of the group, who was well known to
them all, returned to the dungeon after one of his periodic ventures out into the world.

His skin was a pure as a newborn child's and he did not need to say a word.

A cry of amazement arose from the lepers, and soon they asked him how he was
healed.

So he spoke briefly and effectively, and those who accepted his word (some obstinate
few insisted he never was a leper at all, but these were known to be deluded fools by
all the others) followed him out of the dungeon and were themselves cured . . . . .

The man who was really cured had something more substantial to say than the others
who merely claimed to be healed, but it was briefer and to the point and his life
matched his words. His own condition was the best defense of his utterance.

As it is written, about a Man wiser than all of us: you know them by their fruits

The Joy of Freedom, a parody poem

This is a poem which is a parody in the original sense of the word, namely a work based on another work . The other work is a poem by militant atheist Robert Ingersoll; and to make clear the sense of what I am replying to, given that this poet is not greatly known nowadays, I present his work beneath my own.

That is to say I go first. Had I done it otherwise some might think I was advocating his thought, and as you will see from my poetic response this is far from the case

THE JOY OF FREEDOM

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are
myths

There entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the
feeling, the terror of

Slavery

The walls of my prison rose higher and thicker

Such light as lit my dungeon extinguished, and the bolts bars and manacles became steel
    where erstwhile iron  had sufficed

I was no longer a person, a child or a son

There was for me no purpose in all the wide world - not even in infinite space. I was
    bound

Devoid of meaning, my  expression and thought worthless

Devoid of ideal, mine or others’

Devoid of life, and love thereby rendered vacuous

Devoid of purpose, my faculties twisting in the wind

Devoid of fuel for imagination, save nightmares of emptiness

Devoid of reason, no purpose to guess, dream or hope

Devoid of a standard for determination  that stood as valid

Devoid of a reason to reject any ignorance and evil, a gull

for all the “rational” books murderers have produced

and all the barbarous legends of the present.

A dupe of politicians and journalists   

A dupe of the “humanist” and the “activist”

A dupe for crimes denied and unholy lies of secular men

Enslaved to fear of worldly pain without respite save death

Enslaved to the winged monsters of propaganda

Enslaved to theories, causes and movements

For the first time I truly knew my imprisonment.

There was no space in all my realms of thought,

no realms even - no heaven, no earth neither under the earth

wherein  dead  fancy could spread her tattered wings. 

No purpose for my limbs - therefore self made chains.

No rest for my back

No warmth for heart nor body

No companions, only frown and threat

No road nor footsteps, nor means to chose them

No inner  liberty from tyrants’ demand that  I bow, cringe, crawl and flatter

I was enslaved. I cringed in terror, in despair rejecting the only world I would conceive of

And my heart was filled with bitterness, with resentment, and

went out in condemnation to all the fools and fighters

who threw away an empty life for an empty liberty

of futile hand and spinning brain   

for  restless work and groundless thought

to those who lived as wild  dogs, fighting like them   
   
dying like them

being murdered by them

or tortured by them   

vain martyrs

to  all the naive, who rejected every knowledge that they were evil like the rest of us

denying any true freedom by their logic if not intent, who lived and died for nothing,
    enslaving us to emptiness

I threw down the torch they had, brand of darkness,
    it was but their burning flesh, a tyranny they would  impose in face of that they
opposed

for a light that had never existed was no enemy to all powerful darkness

    Stephen Meikle (1958 - )

THE JOY OF FREEDOM

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are
myths

There entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the
feeling, the joy of

Freedom.

The walls of my prison crumbled and fell.

The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, bars and the manacles became dust.

I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave.

There was for me no master in all the wide world -- not even in infinite space. I was Free.

Free to think, to express my thoughts

Free to live to my own ideal

Free to live for myself, and those I loved

Free to use my faculties, all my senses

Free to spread imaginations wings

Free to investigate, to guess and dream, and hope

Free to judge and determine for myself

Free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired"

books that savages have produced, and all

the barbarous legends of the past.

Free from popes and priests

Free from all the "called" and the "set apart"

Free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies

Free from the fear of eternal pain

Free from the winged monsters of the night

Free from devils, ghosts and gods

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all

the realms of my thought -- no air,

no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings.

No chains for my limbs

No lashes for my back

No fires for my flesh

No masters frown or threat

No following another's steps

No need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.

I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and

went out in love to all the heroes,

and the thinkers who gave their lives for the Liberty of hand

and brain,

For the freedom of labor and thought

To those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in

dungeons with chains

To those who proudly mounted scaffolds stairs

To those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn

To those by fire consumed

To all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and

deeds have given freedom to the sons (and daughters ) of men (and women ).

And I vowed to grasp the torch that they held, and hold it high,

that light might conquer darkness still."

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833 --1899)

Opera and History

As a musician I played in  the pit orchestra for numerous operas, hence the material for my view on history.

It may be likened to Italian Opera:

A meaningless progression (after all  it was Doctor Johnson who said opera was an irrational entertainment)

Some fine moments, namely great solos with virtuosity that brings the house down

Some massive ensembles and spectacle

And a Tragic End.

Now I am not saying I hate Opera, but it really depends on my mood. Sometimes the intrinsic absurdity of a dying diva singing a coloratura aria in the process of her own demise  can be fun . .

As for the analogy itself, some would say that this contradicts the Biblical view of history as God's plan outworking in time.

I would answer that  my view is what men have made of history, for a godless world is subjected to futility and nihilism is the only real  rational view of a purely secular world. Additional to this I might invoke the  work of the Holy Spirit as being layered over the futility  and evil according to His grace, but to those who deny such there is only the meaningless progression, the other things I mentioned,

And the Tragic End

Western Democracies

Let me suggest, after having been subject to the heavy handed TV ad urging us all to get out and vote in the upcoming NZ General Election, that a vote is worth the integrity of the candidate for which it is cast. This would explain why democracies are dying in the West- because apathy is killing them. People know that the promises of politicians are empty rhetoric (aka lies) to be broken as soon as victory proves "A mandate" whereby the elected party can and does do as it pleases, promises and voters be damned.

And this happened in my own country quite recently. The government enacted a wildly unpopular measure, namely the selling off of State Assets.  In response to talk of a Citizens Initiated Referendum on the matter  The Prime Minister arrogantly said that the only referendum that counted was the General Election whereby he was elected, and that that did indeed provide a mandate. Therefore, in open defiance of the wishes of the public, hence the deep unpopularity, he and his government could do as they like  and so they did.

Democracy requires vigilance and effort on the part of the constituency. This the general population simply cannot be bothered to do, whether because they know it is wasted effort or out of simple laziness I cannot say, but the last election was won on the basis of the candidate appearing to be  "a good bloke" of the sort one would go for a beer with, the very man who then moved to sell off state owned assets to mass disapproval.

 Rather than spend money on campaigns to get people out to vote let the politicians act and believe with integrity and so earn people's respect. But that is rather too much to ask, for power corrupts. This does not necessarily mean  criminality and the taking of bribes, but it can and does mean a conceit  and arrogance as the power goes to their heads.

They think that they are serving the country, but that is part of the self deceit coming from the power that corrupts.

So they will continue to discredit democracy, which really is, as Churchill said, the best of a bad lot (I paraphrase from memory) as regards political systems, until it crumbles.

And  they will still have the effrontery to blame the apathetic voter who was rendered apathetic  by the knowledge that a promise denied   is a voter, or worse, voter bloc disenfranchised.

And so the farce which is human history continues

A word about Grace as I hold it

A word about my position.

If I continue posting here you will see me preaching grace. But this was not arrived at easily. I neither believe in nor have any respect for the so called hyper grace preachers. To invoke grace falsely is  still to deny it.

Thus I reject outright the  likes of  Joseph Prince  in the church; and the whole band of easy believists  who think that  grace means living as they please. It does not, but the only carnal alternative is legalism

For I am still an extreme legalist, a postition that is slowly killing me. I will add in all seriousness that if this continues it will  literally kill me as the stress, at my age, after continuing for more than thirty years, will eventually  lead to some kind of systemic collapse if by the personal intervention of God the Spirit, it is not brought to end and soon.

So I am not playing when it comes to this issue. I will either  come to live by grace or I will die.

Legalism is the very sin it fights., for Law is the power of  sin, stirring it up to make it worse. There is no salvation there, nor even repentance. it is also the very warp and woof of how man views righteousness. But
legalism is  the way that seems right unto men but which leads to death.

As regards the love of God, though the Spirit showed me this at my conversion nearly exactly 36 years ago, I now know that I ignored it. In my pride and fear  I preferred the Law. So, I preach no Linus blanket of love as it has been debased by too many preachers, by those holding the  opposite error to that the bullying done by hell fire fanatics who think that people need to be condemned for their own good, and who will only reap condemnation for themselves.

For God is Holy. This I have seen, Somehow

 I am no catholic, but the only christian thinker I know of who ever spoke of God the HOLY AND TERRIBLE is Ignatius Loyola.

And revelation of this, which somehow, by the Grace of God I saw - but don't ask me how-  back in 1983, is the informing core of my thought. But that I am stiull admittedly   a legalist  shows that it still has not penetrated, even after so many years.

Believe me, if I could repent myself into perfection I would, but my very longing for perfection is itself sin and as part of my righteousness must be repented of but only at the Lord's leading, which I must grudgingly wait for

So. I firmly believe in the Law, but for the wrong reasons, and I view God Almighty as HOLY AND TERRIBLE.

Thus is the vantage point from which I will write of grace.

For grace, when it finally sinks in to my proud and fearful heart, will have been learned the hard way.

This is my basis  for what follows: a struggle even longer, I regret to say,  than that of Paul the Apostle.

God have mercy on me and continue to as He has for so many years

Word of Faith Text Twisting 1: Little Gods

" Why do people have such a fit about God calling his creation, His men, little gods? What is He going to call them but the God kind? If you as a human being have a baby you all it a human kind, if cattle (sic) has another cattle they call it cattle kind. What is God supposed to call us? Doesn't the Bible say we are created in His image?"


Joyce Meyer, from the youtube video linked  below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y4eVu2oxP8



It is a deeply disturbing, even terrifying, commentary on the state of the modern church  that such preachers are even granted a hearing let alone a following who hang off every word they utter.

The teaching here is of course dire blasphemy.

Separate and distinct from the motivation for such a thing, about which we can only speculate, there is the matter of twisted texts, and they are indeed twisted, which can and must be dealt with as a simple matter of scholarship

Firstly a word about "kinds."  Her argument is based on this biblical category and is incomprehensible without it. In the creation account of Genesis animals are not divided into species as we do so but in a broader category of kind

(add more)

No one would dispute that if a human has a baby the product is of the human kind, nor that if a cattle breeds the results is of the cattle kind.

But did God "have us"  such that we are of the God kind?

It maybe safely assumed that instead of the word have as in have a baby, the old KJV beget  and its tenses, of course, may be substituted, thus Abraham begat Isaac, who begat Jacob etc

How many children did God beget?

It should come as no surprise that  the answer, given that scripture interprets itself as a logical system, is itself spelled out in scripture, in no less than the most famous bible verse of all, the one the reference of which we all memorized in Sunday school as children: John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave it ONLY begotten son"

How many begotten sons?

That is right. There was only one.

Jesus Christ may be described, with extremely careful qualification, as of the God kind but he was the Only one who ever was begotten as being of the God kind

As for the rest of us if we are in his family, what are we?

The Bible speaks of the spirit of adoption. Romans 8:15, a verse the believers in little godhood have either ignored or missed, is most explicit.: "You have not received the spirit of bondage back to fear. You have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba (ie Daddy)."  We are adopted children of God, not begotten, thus we are not of the god kind for there is only one God, big or little, and that is not  us. Moreover being a child of God does not require being begotten such that we would be of the God kind. Adoption is all that suffices for us, the fallen sons of Adam

Meyer's case falls apart for its fails to distinguish between being on one hand  a begotten son of God, of which there was only ever One, and  on the other hand being an  adopted child of God, which is what all christian believers are. Thus her talk of God having children of the God kind is ignorant and dangerous nonsense, based in part on a cavalier disregard for context that we come to expect from preachers of this kind 

But we are made in His image are we not? Indeed we are, but this does not imply that we are of the God kind. I can draw a stick man and say that it is made by me in my image, and that because I made it and I said it was in my image. But what could it do that I can do? Well, very little. It has shape and existence, and that is all. So it is with us in the image of God. Indeed how much more is it with the image of God compared to God Himself, for though I can do somewhat more than any stick image drawn in my likeness, compared to the infinity of the Almighty that margin of difference is not much at all. We cannot do all that God does and neither is this a requirement for us to be in His image.  In time past Calvinist theologians distinguished between those attributes of God that are communicable, that is to say which we share though being in his image, such as personality, mind, will; and those which are God's alone, namely all the attributes which have been prefixed "omni" - omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience.

The doctrine that we are gods seeks to fudge this distinction then tries to hide its deceit by adding a word that in fact never appears in scripture as related to god, namely "little".

No denial, and even a watering down thereof is a denial, no denial  of the fact that He an He alone is infinite and transcendent can be justified by our saying as Meyer tries to say, that we are only "little" gods. We are no gods at all.

where did the doctrine come from then? What scriptures  said something that the ignorant and unstable would be likely to misconstrue and twist  into arrogating godhood to themselves, as indeed thy have?
Psalm 82:6 : "You are gods and all of you are children of the most high"

Notes to self follow. To be completed . . .

Isaiah 41:23

John 10:34



the verb to be as ontic identity

as protestants we do hold that some uses of the verb to be in the bible are metaphoric, do we not? This is my body after all does not justifiy the repugnant practice of cannibalism


little gods, jesus; quote and the original OT  source

The Twin Poles of Error

Everywhere I go as regards church debate, which I still follow online from time to time,  I see many fingers pointing, much accusation. It is always only ever the other fellow who is wrong.

But the fact is that error has two poles. It is the case that the one denouncing error usually espouses the opposite error, but is so wrapped up in his own self righteous fury that he cannot see his own.

Thus while one man's description of  some other's error is reasonable enough the prescription, namely the recommended cure or course of action, so to speak, is wrong and often even more deadly

A case in point is in the ongoing furore over the Word of Faith doctrines that have taken hold of  at least the Protestant arm of the Western church and are even spreading to Russia, as I saw once on a youtube video.

Now make no mistake, I firmly hold that Word of Faith doctrine is pure heresy.

They claim that words are containers of supernatural power, that Christians are little gods, that Christ's death on the cross was not enough as he had to suffer in Hell then become born again, that faith is a substance, that worldly riches is the godly prosperity that all in Christ should have and some go as far to deny the divinity of Christ himself

I hope to demonstrate in another piece how these doctrines are twistings of scripture done either by the wickedly presumptuous  seeking to usurp the divinity of the Most High, or by the naive with no knowledge of other languages whereby naive literalism can and does lead to utterly disastrous results.

It is not my intention in this post here to refute the Word of Faith heresies. Ample work has already been done on that though I may add my voice to this in another post

But what do we have in the response to this?

Angry men. Angry men like John MacArthur, Paul Washer, Dave Wilkerson.

Is their anger righteous?  How do we  define the term?

Scripture says that the anger of men does not work the righteousness of God.

The anger of men, it can be seen, is vengeful and cruel. Anger is not  proven be righteous by the evil of the object of the anger lest the Soviet armies' raping (literally!) rampage across Europe in 1944-5 be seen to be righteous anger. It was not.

Righteous anger is commensurate with the Love of God. Of course hypocrites will claim that their anger is in love. But  I Corinthians 13 s clear as to the nature of love. If one's anger is not commensurate with this then it is sinful, indeed it is murder as the Sermon on the Mount points out. An anger that is as much FOR those it is angry at as well as AGAINST them - this  is the only kind that can ever be commensurate with the love of Christ, anger that would be quick to forgive.

This is clearly not seen in the manner or content of those who would terrorize and bully with the awful reality of hell, or fulminate, in defiance of Jude verse 9, against the heresies of the Word of Faith movement where simple expository preaching is sufficient.

They do not have the fruit of the Spirit, as is clearly seen. Of course neither do the Word of Faith'ers  who are so far out of field as to even be beyond the possibility of it except some major conviction of sin be done in their lives, buth when the likes of Joyce Meyer claims she no longer sins and is not a sinner then  that is ruled out almost entiurel;y

In response to such invocations of the Holy Spirit we have those who say that the scrupture is sufficient for the christian life.

Really? It is sufficient for the benchmark of determining doctrinal truth of experiences purporting to be of God but doctrinal truth of itself is only dead letter. True letter, mark you, but still dead.

As I said elsewhere the Book testifies to the Spirit. To ignore the Spirit is to defy the book as is to twist of ignore the Book to seek a counterfeit spirit, usually the imaginations of the carnal mind

When like John MacArthur they move from normal speech to rant in less than two minutes I know them by their fruit.

And that is my point.

 A carnal christian has nothing to offer by way of alterative to even the grossest heresies, for a carnal believer lacks the one thing that makes the difference: the personal realtionship with the Holy Spirit of Christ . Without  this telling anyone, even oneself , what one ought to believe does not make it so

Such a person has merely a code, a cause and a cosmology.  This is the opposite error to those who claim falsley that God is in intimate relationship with them and speaks to them daily

That he does not is shown by what they produce as testimony for such experiences and  it certainly imapcts on the doctrine  they espouse.

After all, if one claims that he is a little God did he get this from the Holy Spirit of Christ?

In all this the reality of real relationship with the Holy Spirit is what is trampled in the mud, and as these issues polarize, one side is taken as opposed to the other, but I hope to have demonstrated that both sides are in error here.

Hence the twin poles of error.

Of course I only chose one example for this, the Word of Faith controversy.

But it is, it seem to me, the standard response to any debate as is seen throughout history, with the appearance of soundness held by a legalistic adherence to creeds which I contend do not guarantee truth but conceal unbelief behind the hypocrisy  which is all legalism is capable of

By way of other examples: The Tri theists were opposed by professors of  various kinds of  Oneness  theory, from Arianism to the modern pentecostal irruptions of same

The monophysites were opposed by the Nestorians who maintained that Jesus was two people.

Legalism is opposed by licentiousness.

And it goes on

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Meikle the Musician: My Advice to Young Musicians

I did say this was a Miscellany, and not merely a sounding board for  matters theological.

I speak only of classical music, classical in the broadest popular sense  for the technical meaning of the term is the music of Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries.

I have neither knowledge nor interest in the various brands of popular music  current these days  so would not dream of offering any advice to musicians of that type, having no basis in experience or knowledge to do so.

For many years I played Double Bass in my professional orchestra, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. It was not the best orchestra even in my country, but my lack of commitment was such that I could not bring myself to pursue a career where the talent that  I grew to find burdensome would have led

They said I was good, very good, brilliant even. So they were offended or perplexed when I left them

But the fact is I drifted in to Bass playing and merely drifted along, having no idea what else to do. Inertia got me in, back in 1972, and kept me in for forty years.

My point is this, my advice to young musicians.

If you do not love the craft with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, as I did not, I strongly urge you to get out now while you are young enough to find something else that may fulfill.

Music is a good enough servant. One comes home, puts the stereo on and has a pleasant dinner. But music is a harsh mistress demanding only  the very highest  price before giving of her delights.

For the music professions demands total commitment, something between the discipline of the athlete and the monk, because learning an instrument is not like riding a bike, and singing, from what I have heard, is even less so. The skill must be maintained  by daily effort. But this I found drudgery, even if my talent was such that I may have needed less practice than most.  Yet even  such work as my talent required was more than I was willing  to give and all my native ability  did was delay by decades the inevitable, namely disgust and eventual resignation  Only love for music and for the business of making music can suffice to make it worth the effort.

And if you do not love the music trade but are a musician, and I saw some over the years, and became one of them myself, it will eat you alive.

For I burnt out, grew to hate the double bass and the profession and bitterly resented the sense of obligation those who trained me inculcated me with.

So, to summarize. Love it. Love it with all you have. Or leave it. And do so as soon as you can, otherwise you may be loaded with regret, as I have been. Without love even that which gives the greatest ecstasies, and I do assure I know the joys of an inspired performance, as fleeting as they are, such will turn to ashes

Reflections on End Times 1: Date Setting

I am not an expert on this issue because, having considered it at some depth, I do not think it has the all consuming importance that some give it.

I am inspired to write this because of the story of the Sudanese woman Miriam Ibrahim sentenced to death for  apostasy from Islam, that is for becoming a christian. There was an international outcry  and the sentence was abrogated.

My point in making the observation is that Jesus said we, His people, would be hated by all nations. If this were the very last generation with the Great Tribulation just around the corner then instead of an outcry demanding that Sudan observe international conventions of religious freedom, there would have been a cry for Ms Ibrahim's blood as one of the hated Christians, and that  with no dissenting voices.

This did not happen.  Not only that but her death sentence was uncommon enough to be newsworthy. If we were hated by all such would be commonplace, and will be in due course.

That is to say we are not at this point in time  hated by all nations as is predicted for the time of the Great Tribulation, therefore we are not the last generation.

I regard it as a total failure of imagination to think that things could not get worse than they are. They will get much, much worse. I invite the reader to think about this.

I think a voice of sanity is needed on the issue of end times, and I hope to be somewhat instrumental in providing one.

Jesus said in Acts 1:6-8 "It is not for you to know the times the Father has set by his authority". He said this when His disciples asked if He was about to restore the Kingdom of Israel.

He also said in Matthew 24:36 that  " the day and hour [of his coming] no one knows,  not the angels in heaven,   nor the Son, but only the Father."

One would think that this were sufficient, but attempts to wiggle out of the plain truth of these passages have been ongoing and ingenious, particularly when Luke 12:39 tells us why we cannot ever know the time of the Coming of the Son of God before the event.

For Luke 12:39 does indeed tell us why we can never know. It says "And know this: If the master of the house knew at what hour the thief would come he would he would have watched and not permitted his house to be broken in to."  Jesus here is the thief in the night. The master of the house is Satan (for KJV readers: there is no sense of "goodman" in the Greek. This was an Elizabethan idiom only.)

If we know when the thief is coming so can Satan who need only monitor church communications.

Therefore we can never know before time and moreover have no need to. But even this has been defied by one who presumed to set the name of the antichrist,  namely president Erdogan of Turkey, to rise in 2015 in conjunction with some blood moons, that is to say blood red lunar eclipses to occur with an unusual frequency in the next year or so. My source told me that as he was not talking about  the Second Coming and rapture per se then it was a fair call to set dates.

Only the desperate would try it. The definitive sign is the antichrist's declaring his own divinity in the yet to be rebuilt Jerusalem Temple.  Historically speaking  predicting the peripherals has failed as much as predicting the Main Event itself. Until  the Man of Sin arises, to be seen not by numbers in his name but by what he does, then we are playing foolish games as if "pin the name tag on the antichrist" were a party game for children.  As to the rise of the Anti Christ I may write on this in a further essay

Some assert that the Acts 1 passage was addressed to the Jews and not the Church, therefore does not apply to us . This cannot be the case for it was not a public address to the nation of Israel, such as Jesus had made on other occasions. It was a private talk to his disciples, the last he gave before his Ascension. Even though the disciples were Jews to a man they were the core of the Church. Thus this was addressed to the church and therefore to us. It is not for us to know the times the Father has set by his authority.

But, some may respond, what about Paul's statement "But of the time and seasons there is no need that I write you, for you know very well . . . . . " I Thessalonians 5:1

Does this contradict Jesus or does it apply to a different set of people or situation?

It cannot contradict the words of the Lord, for then scripture would be errant and collapse. But he was addressing the  church, as was Jesus Christ , and because the situation of Luke 12:39 can never change before the Second Coming there is no possible way in which it can be got round

How to resolve?

I distinguish between a relative chronology and an absolute one . We cannot know the times before hand so as to set dates, but as were are told to watch and pray we can recognize events as they happen, but not before, and will take encouragement from this  that the Lord is near. We can know the order of things to come, the relation of events, hence my term relative chronology, but not the dates, not, as I term it, an absolute chronology. For instance: the man of Sin will not appear until there has been a great apostasy. He will declare himself God in the Jerusalem Temple, yet to be rebuilt, and stop the sacrifice. But  When? When these things happen? It is not for us to set dates.

To summarize we are to know the relative order of events and watch for them.  This is  the meaning of the injunction "watch and pray" which in fact would be vitiated if we could set dates.

Others have said that Matthew 24 passage has been mistranslated. It  should read "no one yet knows the day and hour." and presumably the time limitation here has passed and we not only can but must know

But this fails on both linguistic and logical grounds

Oudeis, the word for no one is declared without warrant to be two words OUD and EIS. This is excused on the grounds that ancient Greek was written in all capital letters with no letter spacing. But this never gives license for people to make word breaks arbitrarily in order to get around the plain meaning of a passage.

Oudeis appears 98 times, as an electronic concordance tells me. And each time the meaning is plain . It is not only a clear meaning but a decidedly emphatic meaning. There is contextually no basis whatsoever to adduce another meaning here in Matt. 24:36.

However opponents are nothing if not resourceful for  it gets worse than that. One source for this idea is the      Concordant Version of the Sacred Scriptures. They claim that the OUD is a corruption of OUPO  which does indeed mean "not yet."  But this is a species of desperate gymnastics. First a word break is invoked without any reason then to back it up special pleading is employed  to make a plain syllable a corruption of a word. When I asked my source, a creationist scientist, to justify these things as being necessarily so  I got no reply.

Eis, or more properly Heis (the rough breathing, or letter h, has to be guessed by context, but, I ask why should it?) means "one" as in the master who gave  five talents to one servant and three to another

This split word  interpretation  of "no one yet  knows" also fails on logical grounds. One cannot get around it by saying that this passage does not speak of the Second Coming, or that dates can be set if we appeal to this verse on things other than the Second Coming Matthew 24:36 in its plain context is about the Second Coming exclusively.

Therefore to vitiate the plain meaning of the passage is to set up a contradiction with Luke 12:39

 There is. an old dictum of Bible study I heard years ago. "If plain sense makes common sense seek no other sense". There is no reason to go beyond the consensus of NT Greek scholars on this one and all arguments of those keen to do so have failed

The meaning stands. No one knows the time of His Coming, nor, I might add, of the future at all, for the passage speaks in the plural, "no one can know the times"

To summarize: Matthew 24:36 applies to us and still applies  to us if there were any doubt about that, and must do or else Luke 12:39 is violated.

Acts 1:6-8 is addressed to us  the  Church, is not modified or contradicted by I Thessalonians 5:1 and also stands necessarily so because of Luke 12:39.

On this bedrock of scripture I unreservedly stand and say that date setting of any kind concerning future events in the End Times is blasphemous futility.

If we had any regard for the reputation of the gospel as to when these predictions fail, and fail every one of them has, we would refrain and seek to repent of our presumption in making them. I acknowledge the role of the prophet. They can predict the future subject to the limitations that they would never contradict scripture. But those who predict any future  down to dates on the basis of real or imagined scholarship are on shaky, even perilous, ground indeed

To conclude I ask why is this matter important?

For centuries people have set dates, and been egregiously spectacular in their failures. William Miller of 1844 springs to mind, but at least he repented  and retired into deserving obscurity. Most lately the late Harold Camping came up with an elaborate scheme, absurdly so in my opinion, to prove that the Rapture was on the 21 May 2011

Each failure promoted jeering among those who regard themselves as enemies of the Gospel . But too many making such presumptions  have no regard for the fact that the Name of God is blasphemed among the nations because of us.

For such folly in open defiance of scripture brings the Gospel into disrepute, and that we need to know beforehand what the Lord has told  us to recognize as it happens is simply a sign of bad faith and disobedience on the part of His people.

Let us cease and desist lest we bring His wrath down upon us.