In the previous chapters we have looked at the corporeal change of those, who have first been morally renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that had created them from “sinful flesh” into spirit, which is an absolute necessity, before they can inherit the Kingdom of God. After people get to know God’s Word and come to understand Who created the earth and Who had sent His son for the good of man they shall have to come to see that even when we still have to face death in this system of things we may live by the hope of something better to come.
Though we have the sleep in death and shall perhaps have to face very difficult times, even facing persecution we should be convinced not to sorrow as the others. We should not react like the unbelievers, who may react heavily because they do not have such a hope the followers of Jeshua have.
For if we have given ourselves to become disciples of the sent one from God believe that this son of God, Jesus, died and rose again, we do have our hope in him because knowing that God can not die, but the son of man Jesus really died, we have hope in this example God has given the world. This man of flesh and blood is really take out of the dead and taken up in the skies to sit next to God, not on God’s throne, but at His right hand.
These who take Jesus to be their god and think no man is capable to be sinless and doing God’s Will, make from God a cruel God Who created beings who were not capable to follow His commandments. They deny the resurrection of the dead and are refuting God’s Power to have man following His commandments. Those gainsayers are as such believing that man can only do his own will and not believing that man is capable to transform and to become changed into spirit, or immortalized, by the Son of Man, doing God’s Will.
It will be seen from this, that survivors of the dead were not consoled in the first age of Christianity for the loss of their friends as they are now by those who “improve the death” of the influential among them. In “funeral sermons”, the “immortal souls” of the deceased are transported “on angels’ wings to heaven”, and the living are consoled with the assurance that they are singing the praises of God around the throne; feasting with Abraham, and the prophets, with the saints and martyrs, and with Jesus and hisapostles in the Kingdom of God; and they are themselves persuaded, that the souls of their relations, now become angels, are watching over them, and praying for them; and that when they die their own souls will be re-united with them in the realms of bliss.
Need I say to the man enlightened in the word, that there is no such comfort, or consolation, as this in the law and the testimonyof God?
A Goblin or legendary evil or mischievous grotesque dwarf-like daemon or monster that appeared in European stories and accounts during the Middle Ages. – Goblin from Warhammer
Such traditions are purely mythological; and come of the Nicolaitan dogma of saved “ghosts, and goblins damn’d” which has cancerously extirpated “the truth as it is in Jesus”.
No, the apostles did not point men to the day of their death, and its immediate consequents, for comfort; nor did they administer the consolations of the gospel to any who had not obeyed it. They offered comfort only to the disciples; for they only are the heirs with Jesus of the Kingdom of God. They taught these to look to the coming of Christ, and to the resurrection, as the time of a re-union with their brethren in the faith. At death, they should
“rest from their labours, and their works should follow them”;
and
“to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation”. {a Heb. 9:28.}
Such were the practical and intelligible “words” with which the apostles comforted their brethren; but words which have become sealed and cabalistic, both to the unlearned and “the wise”.
The Unisphere, attributed to “uribe”/Uri Baruchin
In conclusion, then, as far as power is concerned, God could have created all things upon a spiritual or incorruptible basis at once. The globe could have been filled with men and women, equal to the angels in nature, power, and intellect, on the sixth day; but the world would have been without a history, and its population characterless. This, however, would not have been according to the plan. The animal must precede the spiritual as the acorn goes before the oak. This will explain many difficulties which are created by systems; and which will for ever remain inexplicable upon the hypotheses they invent. The Bible has to do with things, not imaginations; with bodies, not phantasmata; with “living souls” of every species; with corporeal beings of other worlds; and with incorruptible and undying men; but it is as mute as death, and silent as the grave, having nothing at all to say about such “souls” as men pretend to “cure”; except to repudiate them as a part of that “philosophy and vain deceit”, {b. Col. 2:8} “which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” {c 1 Tim. 6:21}
– Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 45–46). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.
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Notes & quotes
a Hebrews 9:28 (ESV): 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
b Colossians 2:8 (ESV): 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
c 1 Timothy 6:21 (ESV): 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.
Grace be with you.
When we die we are buried, or “sown”, like so many seeds in the earth. We are sown, says the apostle, “in corruption”, “in dishonour”, “in weakness”, and with an animal nature; but, when we are raised to inherit the kingdom, we become incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and possessed of a spiritual nature, such as Jesus and the Elohim rejoice in. Now, a spiritual body is as material, or substantial and tangible, a body as that which we now possess. It is a body purified from “the law of sin and death”. Hence it is termed “holy” and “spiritual”, because it is born of the spirit from the dust, is incorruptible, and sustained by the ruach, or spirit, independently of the neshemeh, or atmospheric air.
“That which is born of the flesh”,
in the ordinary way, “is flesh”, or an animal body: and
“that which is born of the spirit”,
by a resurrection to life, “is spirit”, or a spiritual body. {a John 3:6} Hence, in speaking of Jesus, Paul says,
“born of David’s seed according to the flesh; and constituted the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, through the resurrection from the dead”. {b Rom. 1:3, 4.}
Thus, he was born of the spirit, and therefore became “a spirit”; and, bemuse highly exalted, and possessing a name which is above every name, {c Phil 2:9–11} he is styled “the Lord the Spirit”.
Space Shuttle Endeavour orbiting in the thermosphere. Because of the angle of the photo, it appears to straddle the stratosphere and mesosphere that actually lie more than 250 km below. The orange layer is the troposphere, which gives way to the whitish stratosphere and then the blue mesosphere.
That the spiritual body is independent of atmospheric air for its support, is clear from the ascension of the Lord Jesus. An animal body can only exist in water, or in atmospheric air, and at a comparatively low altitude above the surface of the earth. Now, the air does not extend beyond forty-five miles; consequently beyond that limit, if they could even attain to it, creatures supported by breath in the nostrils, could no more live than fish in the air Beyond our atmosphere is the ether; through which they only can pass, who, like the Lord Jesus and the angels, possess a nature adapted to it. This is the case with the spiritual nature. Jesus was changed εἰς πνευ̂μα, into a spirit, and was therefore enabled to pass through it to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. Enoch, Elijah, and Moses, are also cases to the point.
The spiritual body is constituted of flesh and bones vitalized by the spirit. This appears from the testimony concerning Jesus. On a certain occasion, he unexpectedly stood in the midst of his disciples, at which they were exceedingly alarmed, supposing they beheld a spirit, or phantasm, as at a former time. But, that they might be assured that it was really he himself, he invited them to handle him, and examine his hands and feet:
“For”,
said he,
“a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have”.
Frans Floris – The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Gathering and Protecting Mankind – WGA7949 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Incredulous for joy, he gave them further proof by eating a piece of broiled fish and of a honeycomb. {d. Luke 24:36–43.} Thomas thrust his hand into his side, and was convinced that he was the same who had been crucified. {e. John 20:27.} What stronger proof can we need of the substantial and tangible nature of the spiritual body? It is the animal body purified, not evaporated into gas, or vapour. It is a bloodless body; for in the case of Jesus he had poured out his blood on the cross. The life of the animal body is in the blood; but not so that of the spiritual body: the life of this resides in that mighty power which suspends “the earth upon nothing”, and is diffused through the immensity of space.
– Thomas, D. J.; Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 42–43). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.
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Notes and quotes:
a: John 3:6 (ESV): 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
b: Romans 1:3–4 (ESV): 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
c: Philippians 2:9–11 (ESV): 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
d: Luke 24:36–43 (ESV): Jesus Appears to His Disciples: 36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.
d 2.: this clearly indicates also that Jesus can not be God Who is a Spirit. First of all God cannot die and would have no reason to stay three days in hell as Christ did and secondly God is an eternal Spirit Who cannot be seen by man without that person falling death and Jesus was seen by many people who did not die straight away, but even got some coming out of the dead.
e: John 20:27 (ESV): 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
e 2: today we still have a lot of unbelieving Thomasses in Christendom. They still do not want to accept that Jesus was a man of flesh and blood who really died after he had only done the Will of God and not his own own will. In case he is God Jesus would always have done his own will and would have faked his death.
In the previous chapter we started to look at the general account of the work of the six days, contained in the first chapter of Genesis. We also looked at the idea many people have, that there would have been more people at the time of creation and that there would have been heavenly creatures of which certain angels became rebellious angels. In that antediluvian world those rebellious angels are called “fallen angel” a term which does not appear in the Bible but has has become popular in fictional literature.
In the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament, some sects of Judaism identified the “sons of God” (בני האלהים) of Genesis 6:1–4 with fallen angels and some groups also said those fallen angels had sexual intercourse with women. Until the mid-2nd century AD, Jewish writing (such as midrashim) can be taken to identify the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:1 and 4 as angels.
But what is to become of the Evil Angels in everlasting chains of darkness, and who shall be their judge? Jude says, they were committed “for the judgment of The Great Day”. He alludes to this great day in his quotation of the prophecy of Enoch, saying:
“Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Holy Ones (angels of his might—2 Thess. 1:7) to execute judgment upon all”,
etc. This coming of the Lord to judgment is termed by Paul, “the Day of Christ”—“A Day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ” — during which, the saints, with angels ministering to them, having lived again, will reign with Christ a thousand years on the earth. This is the Great Day of Judgment, a period of one thousand years, in which Christ and his saints will govern the nations righteously; judge the raised dead in his kingdom according to their works; and award to the rebel angels the recompense awaiting their transgression.
“Know ye not”,
saith Paul,
“that we (the saints) shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”
Oil on Canvas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From these data, then, we conclude that these angels will be judged in the Day of Christ by Jesus and the saints.
In the period between the wreck of the globe as the habitation of the rebel angels and the epoch of the first day, the earth was as described in Genesis 1:2,
“without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep”
— a globe of mineral structure, submerged in water, and mantled in impenetrable night. Out of these crude materials, a new habitation was constructed, and adapted to the abode of new races of living creatures.
On the first day, light was caused to shine through the darkness, and disclose the face of the waters; on the second, the atmosphere called Heaven was formed, by which the fog was enabled to float in masses above the deep; on the third, the waters were gathered together into seas, and the dry land, called the Earth, appeared. It was then clothed with verdure, and with fruit and forest trees, preparatory to the introduction of herbivorous creatures to inhabit it. On the fourth day, the expanded atmosphere became transparent, and the shining orbs of the universe could be seen from the surface of the earth. Our globe was then placed in such astronomical relation to them as to be subjected by their influences to the vicissitudes of day and night, summer and winter; and that they might serve for signs, and for years. Thus, the sun, moon, and stars which God had made, by giving the earth’s axis a certain inclination to the plane of the ecliptic, became diffusive of the most genial influences over the land and sea. It was now a fit and beautiful abode for animals of every kind. The dwelling-place was perfected, well aired, and gloriously illuminated by the lights of heaven; food was abundantly provided; and the mansional estate waited only a joyous tenantry to be complete. This was the work of the fifth and sixth days. On the fifth, fish and water-fowl were produced from the teeming waters; and on the sixth, cattle, reptiles, land-fowl, and the beasts of the earth, came out of “the dust of the ground”, male and female, after their several kinds.
But among all these there was not one fit to exercise dominion over the animal world, or to reflect the divine attributes. Therefore the Elohim said,
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the living creatures”.
So Elohim created man in His image; male and female created He them. Further details concerning the formation of the human pair are given in the second chapter of Genesis, verses 7, 18, 21–25. These passages belong to the work of the sixth day; while that from verse 8 to 14 pertains to the record of the third; and from 15 to 17 is parallel with chapter 1:28–31, which completes the history of the sixth.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them”; and the Jehovah Elohim, on reviewing the stupendous and glorious creation elaborated by the Spirit; pronounced it “Very Good”. Then the Elohim or “Morning Stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”.
– Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 12–13). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.
The earth before the creation of Adam the habitation of the angels who kept not their first estate — A geological error corrected — The Sabbath day and the Lord’s day— The formation of man and woman — The “great mystery” of her formation out of man explained — Eden — The Garden of Eden — The original and future paradises considered — Man’s primitive dominion confined to the inferior creatures and his own immediate family — Of the two trees of the garden — And man in his original estate.
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The general account of the work of the six days is contained in the first chapter of Genesis; while in the second is presented among other things, a more particular narrative of the work of the sixth day in the formation of the first human pair.
Let the reader peruse the history of the creation as a revelation to himself as an inhabitant of the earth. It informs him of the order in which the things narrated would have developed themselves to his view, had he been placed on some projecting rock, the spectator of the events detailed. He must remember this. The Mosaic account is not a revelation to the inhabitants of other orbs remote from the earth of the formation of the boundless universe; but to man, as a constituent of the terrestrial system. This will explain why light is said to have been created four days before the sun, moon, and stars. To an observer on the earth this was the order of their appearance; and in relation to him a primary creation, though absolutely pre-existent for millions of ages before the Adamic era.
The duration of the earth’s revolutions round the sun previous to the work of the first day is not revealed: but the evidences produced by the strata of our globe show that the period was long continued. There are indeed hints, casually dropped in the scriptures, which would seem to indicate that our planet was inhabited by a race of beings anterior to the formation of man.
The Creation, beginning of the antediluvian (i.e., pre-Flood) world. (Artist’s rendition by James Tissot)Lot and his daughters flee from Sodom, his wife turned to salt behind them, and the burning cities, Albrecht Dürer
The apostle Peter, speaking of the “false teachers” that would arise among Christians “by reason of whom the way of truth would be evil spoken of” illustrates the certainty of their “damnation” by citing three cases in point; namely, that of certain angels; that of the antediluvian world; and that of SodomandGomorrah. Now the earth, we know, was the place of judgment to the contemporaries of Noah and Lot, and seeing that these three are warnings to inhabitants of earth, it is probable that they are all related to things pertaining to our globe in the order of their enumeration — first, judgment upon its pre-Adamic inhabitants; secondly, upon the antediluvian world, which succeeded them; and thirdly, upon Sodom after the flood.
Peter says that “the Angels”, or pre-Adamic inhabitants of the Earth, “sinned”; and Jude, in speaking of the same subject, reveals to us the nature of their transgression. He says, verse 6,
“the angels maintained not their original state, but forsook their own habitation”.
From which it would appear that they had the ability to leave their dwelling if they pleased; secondly, that they were sometimes employed as messengers to other parts of the universe; this their name (ἄγγελος, angelos, one sent) implies; thirdly, that they were forbidden to leave their habitation without special command to do so; and fourthly, that they violated this injunction and left it. Having transgressed the divine law, God would not forgive them; “but casting them down”, or driving them back, “he committed them to everlasting chains of intense darkness to be reserved for judgment”. Hence, it is clear, when they were driven back to their habitation, some further catastrophe befell them by which their committal to darkness was effected. This probably consisted in the total wreck of their abode, and their entire submergence, with all the mammoths of their estate, under the waters of an overwhelming flood. Reduced to this extremity, the earth became “without form and empty; and darkness overspread the deep waters”. Its mountains, hills, valleys, plains, seas, rivers, and fountains of waters, which gave diversity of “form” to the surface of our globe, all disappeared; and it became “void”, or empty, no living creatures, angels, quadrupeds, birds, or fishes, being found any more upon it.
Fragments, however, of the wreck of this pre-Adamic world have been brought to light by geological research, to the records of which we refer the reader, for a detailed account of its discoveries, with this remark, that its organic remains, coal fields, and strata, belong to the ages before the formation of man, rather than to the era of the creation, or the Noachic flood. This view of the matter will remove a host of difficulties, which have hitherto disturbed the harmony between the conclusions of geologists and the Mosaic account of the physical constitution of our globe.
Geologists have endeavoured to extend the six days into six thousand years. But this, with the scriptural data we have adduced, is quite unnecessary. Instead of six thousand, they can avail themselves of sixty thousand; for the scriptures reveal no length of time during which the terrene angels dwelt upon our globe. The six days of Genesis were unquestionably six diurnal revolutions of the earth upon its axis. This is clear from the tenor of the sabbath law.
“Six days shalt thou labour (O Israel) and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Would it be any fit reason that, because the Lord worked six periods of a thousand or more years each, and had ceased about two thousand until the giving of the law, therefore the Israelites were to work six periods of twelve hours, and do no work on a seventh period or day of like duration? Would any Israelite or Gentile, unspoiled by vain philosophy, come to the conclusion of the geologists by reading the sabbath law? We believe not. Six days of ordinary length were ample time for Omnipotence, with all the power of the universe at command, to re-form the earth, and to place the few animals upon it necessary for the beginning of a new order of things upon the globe.
– Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 10–12). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.
In the previous articles discussing the “Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden” articles series by Alexander Rivera on his blog The Aeon Eye we looked at the seed having come to the earth.
From the seed can come a shrub or a tree and fruit. In Part 3 of his interesting series Alexander Rivera goes deeper into the exploration of the archetypal symbols of the Tree and Fruit.
He writes:
Genesis 3 relays how the Serpent offers knowledge in the form of a fruit grown from the Tree of Knowledge (the “Good ” and “Evil” part may have have been added later as a gloss.) Like the Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge is sometimes considered to be a phallic symbol. This Fruit along with the Tree also were used to signify the result or effect of some cause, having both a positive and a negative effect and origin.
And later on continues:
Eve gives the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of which she had eat to her Husband (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Tree of Knowledge and digesting the forbidden fruit in Genesis according to Jewish tradition represented the primeval mixture or intermingling of good and evil, light and darkness in an almost Manichean fashion. Eating the fruit forbidden set off a chain reaction where humanity developed a “yeitzer hara” or “evil inclination.” Unlike the earlier Hebrews, who blamed themselves for their woes, the Jewish Rabbis believed God had implanted in the ‘heart’, the Hebrew place of the unconscious of each individual, at his birth or conception. The yezer was not hereditary. It was intrinsically good and the source of creative energy, but had a strong potential for evil through appetite or greed. Only strict observance of the Law could keep the strong, irrational passions it engendered under control. To the commentators in the five centuries before Christ, Adam’s death was due to his own “sinful actions”, and not to the Augustine-authored “original sin nature” or “ancestral sin” inherent in the DNA in the race of man because of the disobedience of the primal parents. The Zohar claims that Adam and Eve lost their immortality by ingesting the fruit which is ironically enough compared to the occult: {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)
At first the creation was like God wanted it. We can hear that in his Voice, him every time when he had created something, saying it was good.
Gen 1:4 MKJV And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided between the light and the darkness.
Gen 1:12 MKJV And the earth brought forth tender sprouts, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree producing fruit after its kind, whose seed was in itself. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:18 MKJV and to rule over the day and over the night; and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:21 MKJV And God created great sea-animals, and every living soul that creeps with which the waters swarmed after their kind; and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:25 MKJV And God made the beasts of the earth after its kind, and cattle after their kind, and all creepers upon the earth after their kind. And God saw that it was good.
So, what happened with the following phase in the creation?
Gen 1:26-31 MKJV And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. (27) And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth. (29) And God said, Behold! I have given you every herb seeding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree seeding seed; to you it shall be for food. (30) And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeper on the earth which has in it a living soul every green plant is for food; and it was so. (31) And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Once more we hear God saying:
Gen 1:31 NET God saw all that he had made — and it was very good!63 There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
Would it be said in the Scriptures that God Elohim saw every thing all that he had made worked , and, behold, it was very mighty good if it was not ‘picco bello’? Also in the way the phase is closed or coming to an end we may find the satisfaction of the Most High facing once again an evening and the morning were became the sixth day.
As such we find that to every beast live being of the earth, and to every fowl flyer of the air heavens, and to every thing that creepeth creeper upon the earth, wherein there is life a living soul, we notice that the soul is the being alive itself, not something extra in the living being, but the living element itself having life in it others it would not be a living creature.
We are told that it was that Elohim, the Most HighMaker who has given every green herb for meat food and it was so thus it became. Though one certain fruit was not to be eaten. By it man brought death over himself.
Hear what saith scripture when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree by which death entered into their souls or lower nature, ‘And when they heard the voice of the Lord of the Alhim walking in the garden’ (Gen. iii-8), or, as it ought to be rendered, had walked (mithhalech). Note further that whilst Adam had not fallen, he was a recipient of divine wisdom (hochma) and heavenly light and derived his continuous existence from the Tree of Life to which he had free access, but as soon as he allowed himself to be seduced and deluded with the desire of occult knowledge, he lost everything, heavenly light and life through the disjunction of his higher and lower self, and, the loss of that harmony that should always exist between them, in short, he then first knew what evil was and what it entailed, and, therefore, it is written, ‘Thou art not a God that approveth wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee’ (Is. v-5); or, in other words, he who implicitly and blindly follows the dictates of his lower nature or self shall not come near the Tree of Life.
The imagery of the tree is also included in Simon Magus’s cosmology, as reported by Hippolytus of Rome, is a powerful model that describing some rare concepts that Simononians in the early third century work described in the Philosophumena, asthe “Great Declaration” or “Great Announcement”. Simon very much describes a tree of fire that consumes itself. This is a third century Simonian document, positing that the root of all existence is infinite, and abides in man, who serves as its dwelling-house. The Logos or the Word is projected down by the luciferian Lightening Flash through the Aeons and into the manifest world and man. From the original root, the hidden principle, spring three pairs of manifestations of: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Reflection. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 3)
When the seed falls in the earth, starts to grow it can become a bush or grow out to a tree, being a wooden stake presenting fruits with new seeds. In the classical Greek Scriptures we also find the word stau·ros′ which meant merely an upright stake, or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation, a single piece of wood. In the New Testament we do find that Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is nailed at such a stake, a pale, without a crossbeam of any kind at any angle. By the apostles Peter and Paul we also find th word xy′lon to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed, and this shows that it was an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy′lon in this special sense means. (Acts of the apostles 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1Peter 2:24)
Act 5:30 MKJV The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed and hanged on a tree.
Act 10:39 MKJV And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed Him and hanged Him on a tree;
Act 13:29 MKJV And when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, taking Him down from the tree, they laid Him in a tomb.
Normally every one that was hanged on a tree was considered to be a cursed one. In several cultures living beings where also like fruit was hanging on the wood, made to hang on the wood and burned as an offering. In this way Christ came also to redeem us – Εξηγορασεν· buying us us with a price made by his body loosing life in his flesh and blood. He became an atonement for our sins buying us free, like in the many cultures people thought to ‘bribe’ their gods getting some favours by offering a lamb or food or innocent children. Here an innocent lamb or innocent ‘child’ was offered by giving the God an innocent man. For whatever was offered as an atonement for sin was considered as bearing the punishment due to sin, and the person who suffered for transgression was considered as bearing the curse in his body; therefore, in the same day in which a criminal was executed it was ordered that his body should be buried, that the land might not be polluted, because he that was hanged, which was the case with every heinous culprit, was considered accursed of God, (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23).
This man from Nazareth coming under the curse of the Law — more or less artificially, and in the manner of his death only — whilst living a perfectly righteous life. This way Jeshua removed that curse and made it meaningless. He took away the chains of that curse and as such became a liberator, a Kristos or Christ, a Messiah. He died innocent and gave his body as a ransom for all souls (all living beings) but they will have to recognise him as their liberator, their saviour who would then become “in Christ” also liberated from the curse of death.
Jesus has become that seed on a tree which justifies.
Gal 3:13 MKJV Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone having been hanged on a tree”);
Though “Trust, Faith”shall be necessary to have a knowledge which shall bring comfort and should make a fundamental condition through which a man becomes well-pleasing to God, and partaker of the gracious gift of life, presenting also works according to that faith. In his letter to Galatians the apostle Paul states that one is declared righteous or well-pleasing to God, in consequence of faith whereby truth is included.
Wanting to have the seed bearing fruit it has to find good soil. In barren land it shall not be able to shoot. Only there where people are really willing to obey God rather than men shall be found such fertile ground which shall bring forth the fruits from the seed which the God of our ancestors raised Jesus, whom was put to death by hanging him on a wooden stake. It is this Jesus whom God has exalted to his right hand, to be a Guide, Ruler and a Saviour, to give Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.
Act 5:29-31 MKJV And Peter and the apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. (30) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed and hanged on a tree. (31) This One God has exalted to be a Ruler and Savior to His right hand in order to give repentance and remission of sins to Israel.
In the many creation myths we can find gods who are favoured by one or the other but in the Judaic Scriptures the Divine Maker only favours the human beings in allowing them to give names to plants and animals and to use them as food. But in between the human beings the Elohim does not places one before the other. That God of the Universe does not show partiality, but it is true He wants recognition for Himself as the sole Creator and for being the Only One God. He is the One Who gives life and he is the one who cursed the 1° Adam and his seed but also provided a new pure seed which could grow fluently and be rich in giving good seeds, even providing a very pure seed which could become a new tree of life by being hang on the tree of death. We also have to notice that God has sent His Message to the Israelites and told them, through Jesus Christ, the Good News of peace — and that Jesus is Lord of all! Today there are many who know the story which spread through all Judea, how good news,which sprang from Galilee, after the baptism preached by John brought the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and how God consecrated him His Christ by enduing him with the Holy Spirit and with power; and how he went about doing good and curing all who were under the power of the adversaryof God, because God was with him. The apostles were witnesses to all that he did in Judea and in Jerusalem and how he was put to death by hanging him on a tree, a piece of wood that could not give any fruit any more, but by God now was made higher to become a symbol of life giving fruit which all who would take it would give eternal life by receiving remission of sins.
Act 10:34-43 MKJV Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Truly I see that God is no respecter of persons; (35) but in every nation he who fears Him and works righteousness is accepted with Him. (36) You know the Word which God sent to the sons of Israel, preaching the gospel of peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all!); (37) that word which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed; (38) how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good, and healing all those who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him. (39) And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed Him and hanged Him on a tree; (40) but God raised Him up the third day and showed Him openly, (41) not to all the people, but to witnesses hand-picked before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. (42) And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. (43) All the Prophets give witness to Him, that through His name whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins.
Hanged on a stake as a criminal but also as the King of the Jews
In the writings of Livy, a Roman historian of the first century B.C.E., crux means a mere stake. “Cross” is only a later meaning of crux. A single stake for impalement of a criminal was called in Latin cruxsim′plex. One such instrument of torture is illustrated by Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) in his book Decrucelibritres, Antwerp, 1629, p. 19.
The instrument on which Jeshua died was in the original writings called “σταυρός [stau·ros′] which means every upright standing pale or tree trunk. At Jesus’ time of the Romans beside scourging, according to the gospel accounts, only the simplest form of Roman crucifixion comes into consideration for the infliction of punishment upon Jesus, the hanging of the unclad body on a stake, which, by the way, Jesus had to carry or drag to the execution place to intensify the disgraceful punishment.
. . . Anything other than a simple hanging is ruled out by the wholesale manner in which this execution was often carried out: 2000 at once by Varus (Jos. Ant. XVII 10. 10), by Quadratus (Jewish Wars II 12. 6), by the Procurator Felix (Jewish Wars II 15. 2), by Titus (Jewish Wars VII. 1).” {Paul Wilhelm Schmidt, DieGeschichteJesu (The History of Jesus), Vol. 2, Tübingen and Leipzig, 1904, pp. 386-394}
Just as the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to rocks people found it right to have cursed ones being tied up on a rock by the sea or on a tree on land. The Greek word that the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this word stauros, simply means to tie or to fasten, the Greek author Lucian (Prometheus, I) used a·na·stau·ro′o as a synonym for that word. In the Christian Greek Scriptures a·na·stau·ro′o occurs but once, in Hebrews 6:6. The root verb stau·ro′o occurs more than 40 times, that is also a reason why we render it often as “impale,” or ‘fasten on a stake (pole) and you shall find us saying “Jesus was impaled” instead of the wrongly understood “Jesus was crucified”, making people think of the pagan cross-concept, the sign of Tammuz, the god of evil and personification of death.
Alexander Rivera writes:
The Stauros (Cross), which means to “stand” or “straighten up” (e.g. the “Standing One” per Simon Magus?) in its true self is a living idea, a reality or root-principle of separation and limit, dividing entity from non-entity, being from non-being, perfection from imperfection, fullness and emptiness, Light from Darkness. The Stauros or Horos was also seen as synonymous with the Logos and was also seen as the sign of victory as per the doctrine of Christus Victor atonement i.e, that Christ defeated the powers by duping them into crucifying him. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 4)}
The apostle John in the opening of his gospel-book refers to the Genesis story where God every time spoke and had His Word (Logos) bringing something into being. The Logos or Word is that what is said, not exactly a person like many Christians want to see it. Out from the darkness and chaos light was created and out of the darkness of the sordid world came again the Word of God bringing light with bringing that what the Elohim had promised in the Garden of Eden (long before Abraham was born) into flesh, giving the world His onlybegotten son, Jeshua, Jesus Christ.
From eternity there was the Elohim God. Him being there from eternity had His Thinking or His Pneuma, His Mind or Spirit with Him in Him. But with Him was also the coming forth form the Thinking which gave sound or a beginning of ordered vowels presenting sound and giving Words. As such The Word was in the beginning, and that very Word was with God. That speaking coming from God belonged to God and as such also could be considered being God, because God is spirit and not a person like we see ourselves as human beings.
That Word, The speaking of God, the Promises he made, were in the beginning with God and they are still with God. It was in the beginning of times God had already to make a promise about the seed. As everything came into being by The God of gods, there were seeds in the Garden of Eden, but having now Adam and Eve out of the Garden there had to come a new seed and a new tree of life. By that tree or stauros life had to enter again in the world of man. By the Hand of God the 1° Adam was made but also the world could find the 2° Adam being made. By God’s Word spoken to the young girl Miriam (Mary/Maria) God’s Word brought His Word onto earth. The Elohim took care speaker for Him was to be presented under man. This voice in the world would be high placed, being a god between people. Like everything came to be by God His Hand; and without Him not even one thing came to be of what was created, so also this seed of the 1° Adam was going to multiply with seeds full of life. Like the life was in the Elohim God Most High, Jehovah provided a solution for the fall in the Garden of Eden, and gave the world a new tree of life in which the world found again the light of man.
Joh 1:1-4 MKJV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
In many man-made stories we can find lights of man, emancipators, bringers of strength, bringers of fortune, guides and leaders.
Guarding this Horos was the Limit-Setter, the Across-Taker, the Emancipator, the Guide or Leader that guides the initiated soul from its astral journey from the underworld, to the zodiacal cosmos, to the eighth heaven or “ogdoad” where Sophia is said to dwell, near the gates and finally to the Heavenly Cross, functioning like a portal or gateway into the realm of the Father or the Pleroma. The Logos himself is designated as a “door” or a “gate” into eternal life symbolized as pasture, for the saved sheep (or souls) (John 10:9).
This region was also called the “suburbs”, a frontier or the barrier, demarcating the boundary between the worlds. The term “suburbs” is also used in a Peratic text that the Church Father Hippolytus quotes at length called The Suburbs up to the Aither in the Philosophumena or the Refutation of All Heresies, which I will briefly touch on later on. In Plato’s Timaeus, he refers to the soul-stuff of the universe in terms of two circular strips joined together like the Greek letter chi (X). Similarly, tau, the last letter of the Phoenician and Old Hebrew alphabets, is shaped like a cross, and was popularly held to be a protective emblem of supernatural power. Crosses were also said to be used by Roman General Marcius Turbo’s forces in the first century to carry their food and clothing. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 4)}
Hanged on the sign of the god Tammuz as persons of evil. – Kreuzigung Christi: 1509, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)
The sign of the god of evil, Tammuz, being two beams crossing each other was used in many cultures and was also taken over later in Christendom by those who wanted to have a sign for their god as well to bow down for. Though those Christians should have know that the Elohim Creator does not want His people to bow down in front of graven images.
Exo 20:1-7 MKJV And God spoke all these words, saying, (2) I am Jehovah your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (3) You shall have no other gods before Me. (4) You shall not make to yourselves any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (5) You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me, (6) and showing mercy to thousands of those that love Me and keep My commandments. (7) You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain. For Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.
The most commonly known format of the Rosary, flanked by the Bible and a free-standing Crucifix.Islamic prayer beads for dhikr (remembrance of God)
Today we still can find lots of Christians making themselves an idol, like sculptures of a Jesus hanging on a cross, a Christ with a red open gleaming heart, a virgin Mary, all sorts of saints, all statues where they pray for. They seem to forget The God asked His people not to bow for in worship for a picture of Himself nor for the likeness of any thing, which is in the heaven above, or in the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. Though by the warp and weft, it is for many the order of the day to burn candles or to pray in front of pictures or statues. By many Trinitarian Christians this seems to be the run-of-the-mill to them and they often do not feel happy when they could not do such an action or are afraid that something could happen to them.
Also by several Muslims we do find such a fear and like we can find Christopher or rosebuds or rosary (paternoster) in cars hanging on the front mirror or on the dashboard we find prayer beads hanging on the front mirror by Muslims as well. When they would not have such symbols in their car or in the house, like ‘sacred or blessed palm’, they think the seed of evil might come over them.
Mural “God’s Mather” in Belyova church
Real Christians should take God Words at heart and remember:
Deu 5:8 MKJV You shall not make a graven image for you, any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters beneath the earth.
Deu 27:15 MKJV Cursed is the man that makes any graven or molten image, an abomination to Jehovah, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and puts it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
Psa 97:1-12 MKJV Jehovah reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of islands be glad. (2) Clouds and darkness are all around Him; righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne. (3) A fire goes before Him and burns up His enemies round about. (4) His lightnings lit up the world; the earth saw and trembled. (5) The hills melted like wax at the presence of Jehovah, at the presence of Jehovah of the whole earth. (6) The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. (7) All those who serve graven images are ashamed, those who boast themselves in idols; all gods bow down before Him. (8) Zion heard and was glad; and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of Your judgments, O Jehovah. (9) For You, Jehovah, are high above all the earth; You are lifted on high far above all gods. (10) You who love Jehovah, hate evil; He keeps the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. (11) Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. (12) Rejoice in Jehovah, righteous ones; and give thanks at the memory of His holiness.
Isa 40:18-20 MKJV To whom then will you compare God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? (19) The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. (20) He too poor for that offering chooses a tree that will not rot; he looks for a skillful workman to prepare a graven image that will not totter.
In having a figure of a man on a piece of wood or a sculpture of a god-man people find themselves presented as God and have their god from mankind in their own world. As such they created themselves a go son, a god father and a god mother and twist the Words of Scriptures to suit their man madedogma of a Trinity or triune god, a three headed god, like such a god can be found in lots of ancient pagan religions.
“The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of ‘person’ and ‘nature’ which are G[ree]k philosophical terms; actually the terms do not appear in the Bible. The trinitarian definitions arose as the result of long controversies in which these terms and others such as ‘essence’ and ‘substance’ were erroneously applied to God by some theologians.” {Dictionary of the Bible, John L. McKenzie, S.J., p. 899}
Seed was the essence of life and out of seed came more than one element or fruit and more than one god. The evangelist John referring to the seed promised in the Garden of Eden, speaking about the first-born of all creation should have people to open their eyes and to question them why, if the Trinity doctrine is true, the Father and the Holy Spirit, god’s Pneuma, not also said to be the firstborn of all creation? When we look closely at what is written in the Holy Scriptures we can see that the Bible applies this expression only to the son.
In the Old Testament we can find more than once the seed of Adam being blessed and bringing forth children of God. We also get to see that there is the firstborn of Abram (Abraham) being requested as an offering but that what came out of the seed, the bush, getting into fire, giving light and promising Abraham much more seed and letting the world to be known that out of his seed would come more light and salvation. Many years after Abraham a child is born which is spoken of as the “firstborn,” who is also presented as the newborn of the new world, the 2° Adam. It indicates that Jesus is the eldest in Jehovah’s family of sons. With this new seed, promised in the Garden of Eden and having come into blossoming a two thousand years ago
“by means of him allotherthings were created “
we get a figure that can create again some would say, but it indicates that God uses Jesus Christ to continue His creation and as such
. . . Allotherthings have been created through him and for him.”
Thus he is shown to be a created being, part of the creation produced by God who has delivered us from the power of darkness? It was the Father of this son Who is the Deliverer or Saviour, because he accepted the offering of His son who is the saviour for mankind. That seed of King David is the one who was promised and who brought us the way to the kingdom of God. It is by that seed on the tree by whom we have obtained salvation and forgiveness of sins. He is not only a first-born but also the pure image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every creature. In case that seed would not have grown and have been purified we would not have had any chance. Without him our names would not been written in the Book of life, which is in heaven. Whether imperial thrones, or lordships, or angelic orders, or dominions, all things were in his hand and as such could be considered as having been created by him, because when God would not have provided that seed in the Garden of Eden and would have destroyed Adam and Eve at once, no human being would have lived on this earth. Therefore Jeshua, the promised seed, is before all things, and by him all things are sustained. Though many people do not want to respect what he really has done, dying for the sins of many (remember that God cannot die), Jesus who was first lower than angels (remember that God was, is and always shall be the Most High) Jesus became the seed of the woman that could become the head of the body, the church, for he is the beginning, the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead. It is like seed has to fall on the ground after it had dried up or died from the plant, this seed of a man also died and became the shoot of Jesse that in all things he might be the first; for it pleased God to complete all things in him; and by his hand to reconcile everything to himself; and through his blood shed on the stake made peace both for those who dwell on earth and for those who dwell in heaven.
Col 1:13-20 MKJV For He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; (14) in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins. (15) who is the image of the invisible God, the First-born of all creation. (16) For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. (17) And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. (18) And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that He may be pre-eminent in all things. (19) For it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell. (20) And through Him having made peace through the blood of His cross, it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to Himself through Him, whether the things on earth or the things in Heaven.
The seed from the dead wood was a single man, not one who existed out of three seeds or three gods. God Himself has revealed that seed as His only begotten belovedson.
Mat 3:16-17 MKJV And Jesus, when He had been baptized, went up immediately out of the water. And lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him. (17) And lo, a voice from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The “You are My Son, the Beloved” gives an indication that this son of man is also son of god and not like some interpret it to be ‘god the son’. His “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” is about that seed spoken off in the Garden of Eden. It is noteworthy that, instead of saying “days of eternity,” RS renders the Hebrew as “ancient days”; JB, “days of old”; NW, “days of time indefinite.” That seed was not eternal it had the beginning in those older days way back at the beginning.
Mic 5:2-5 MKJV And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity. (3) Therefore He will give them over until the time the one giving birth has given birth; then the rest of His brothers shall return to the sons of Israel. (4) And He shall stand and feed in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God. And they shall sit, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth. (5) And this One shall be peace. When Assyria shall come into our land; and when he shall walk in our palaces, then we shall raise against him seven shepherds and eight anointed ones from men.
The seed like a mustard seed has grown and from the smallest seed shall have to come forth a great tree of seeds of the Father, the Most High Creator, all children of God.
If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were coequal, comprising one Godhead then we would find a God who at several occasions did not tell the truth, because God is an all-knowing God, but Jesus on several occasions says he does not know a certain thing; He even does not know when he would come back. God also says He is an eternal Spirit which would make Jesus faking his death and telling lies when he says that a spirit has no flesh and bones and when he shows his wounds to his disciples to proof he is no spirit.
Luk 24:34-40 MKJV And they said, the Lord has indeed risen, and has appeared to Simon. (35) And in the way they related the things happening, and how He had been known by them in breaking of the loaf. (36) And as they spoke this, Jesus Himself stood in their midst, and said to them, Peace to you! (37) But they were terrified and filled with fear, for they thought they saw a spirit. (38) And He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? (39) Behold My hands and My feet, that I am He! Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have. (40) And when He had spoken this, He showed them His hands and feet.
In case Jesus is God then Jesus being in God like we should be in Jesus and in God would make us God as well, when you take it that being in some one is being that one and that the unity of Christ means that Jesus is god than the unity of us with Christ means that we are Christ and as such are also God.
Jesus asks to believe in him and to know that the works which he does, his Father in heaven shall do even greater works than these which Jesus could not do without his Father. And Jesus was on earth but told the others, not he was doing al this but the One to Whom he was going to. He was going to the place of his Father, Who he was going to join. He also told his followers that he was going to his Father who may be glorified through him, Jehovah God His Son. It is this son of God who will ask of his Father; and it is Him Who was to give the apostles another Comforter, to be with them for ever.
Jesus tells his apostles that he will be gone and that the world shall not able to see him any more. On the day the comforter or the Force of God would come over them their eyes would go open and they would come to understanding of all those things they saw happening. At the time they happened they did not understand but after the Pneuma, God’s Power came over them they came to understand everything and came to know that Jesus is with his Father. But at the same time Jesus would be there for them with them and they would be with him. Everybody should get the faith in Jesus, the son of God and love him so that he also will be loved by Jesus his Father.
Joh 14:12-21 MKJV Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me, the works that I do he shall do also, and greater works than these he shall do, because I go to My Father. (13) And whatever you may ask in My name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (14) If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (15) If you love Me, keep My commandments. (16) And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, so that He may be with you forever, (17) the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him nor know Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and shall be in you. (18) I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. (19) Yet a little while and the world does not see Me any more. But you see Me. Because I live, you shall live also. (20) At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (21) He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.
Jesus never claimed to be God and addresses the Father as “the only true God”; so, Jesus as “a god” in the first chapter of John merely reflects his Father’s divine qualities and looks at Jesus as a high or important person person, like Apollo, Zeus, Pharaoh, Moses, angels and others are called ‘god’ in the Bible, but where never is intended them to be The God.
In several stories written before the New Testament several gods are presented to bring new light and to bring change in life because crossing axes would bring in new breath (life). But to get the life the occult signs, the making of a cross repeatedly had to be done regularly, because otherwise the gods of evil would get more force and conquer again over light and bring darkness again.
Little Known Facts About the Christmas Tree (articles.we-wood.us)
For thousands of years, people have brought live greens into their homes during the dark weeks surrounding the winter solstice. Ancient Egyptians picked palm fronds to honor the sun god Ra, while Romans decorated with holly for the solstice celebration of Saturnalia.The pagan tradition of decorating with branches and trees was adapted by early Christians in Germany, where Germans decorated trees with apples to remember Adam and Eve. In the 1600s, Protestant reformer Martin Luther was walking home through a fir forest one night while composing a sermon and was inspired by the stars shining on the snow to add candles to his family’s Christmas tree.
Retreat Notes on Authority (supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com)
Eve’s sin was curiosity (which I wrote about here) and when the snake began to talk, as animals did not talk (Eden is Not Narnia) she should have left the scene immediately and asked Adam for discernment and help.
Heave is for Real – The Most Believable Depictions (mybloglogb.typepad.com)
Some spiritual topics simply can’t be done seriously in movies very often. I wrote recently about how Adam and Eve have never been depicted very seriously in film (other than a couple of times), and it seems heaven is the same way. Like Adam and Eve, we can’t get our head around what the reality of these spiritual topics may be, and we’re probably not supposed to in the grand scheme of life. In the movies, translating the ineffable means bringing plenty of irony, and the depiction of heaven has had plenty.
Adam and Eve are Ancient “Archetypes” (jacksonwu.org)
the book demonstrates the importance biblical training with respect to interpretation method. I’m not simply referring to theological instruction. In fact, Walton’s argument suggests that theological presuppositions are precisely what keep us from understanding God’s authoritative meaning in Gen 1–3.
The Truth: Who Are You (a Must Read) (eyeopenerunity.wordpress.com)
So if good was already known and evil was presented as good than what does that tell us??
Glycon was considered to also be a snake god in satirical form as mentioned by the satirist Lucian, and was said to be the incarnation of Asklepios in the mysteries of Alexander of Abonutichus, a pagan philosopher of the 2nd century.
In Orphic mythology, the serpent was sometimes linked with the primordial egg from which all things emerged and is shown entwined around the egg. Epiphanius in The Panarion discusses the doctrines of the Epicureans who believed that the universe was formed by chance rather than providence:
Originally the entire universe was like an egg and the spirit was then coiled snakewise round the egg, and bound nature tightly like a wreath or girdle. (3) At one time it wanted to squeeze the entire matter, or nature, of all things more forcibly, and so divided all that existed into the two hemispheres and then, as the result of this, the atoms were separated. (4) For the light, finer parts of all nature—light, aether and the finest parts of the spirit—floated up on top. But the parts which were heaviest and like dregs have sunk downwards. This means earth—that is, anything dry—and the moist substance of the waters. (5) The whole moves of itself and by its own momentum with the revolution of the pole and stars, as though all things were still being driven by the snake like spirit. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
That the world goes in circles and time repeats itself is also brought forward by the circular symbol of the serpent eating its own tail, known as the Ouroboros, the primal being who said,
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Rev. 22:13).
Rivera reminds us that the serpent is also seen in the Syriac Hymn of the Pearl as it depicts the soul’s descent into the world, forgetting his mission but eventually roused by the call on high to remind him of his original nature and duty, his glorious rising again into the Kingdom of the Father.
It was that passion of egotism, the deep longing to have everything for oneself that made Eve testing her Creator. She had a craving to become as wise as He is. The yearning came also over the 1° Adam by listening to his wife. The female partner was much stronger than the male and could convince him that it would not heart. Their aching to possess as much wisdom and power as God made them to disobey their Maker.
In several man made stories we do find such evil thoughts of jealousy coming into the picture and destroying a relationship. Often such thoughts creep into our mind as a serpent and as such it is pictured.
Epiphanius of Salamis (church father, ca. 310–20 – 403), fresco at Gracanica monastery, near Lipljan in Kosovo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Typical to Jewish and Christian tradition, another negative portrayal of serpent imagery was used by the Church Father Epiphanius in his closing comments in the Panarion to high-light the “evil nature” of Simon Magus as being like a snake, asp and a viper. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
We also find acquisitiveness coming into life of many, bringing wrong actions and evil thoughts. The embodiment of greed brings also pictures of extra terrestial figures of angels (fallen angels) or devils. When we look at the Targum Psuedo-Jonathan we do find the Serpent with the fallen angel Samael, the “Blind One” who was a originally a great prince in heaven, descended to earth and rode upon the serpent to deceive Eve and seduce her. The fruit of his seduction, as the same text claims (like the Gospel of Philip) was Cain, being the son of the Devil.
And the woman saw Sammael, the angel of death, and she was afraid, and she knew that the tree was good for food.
Rivera tells about Rabbi Isaac who in The Treatise of the Left Emanation, also compared Samael and Lilith as husband and wife, much like Adam and Eve — an inverted, “Satanic” power, a concept which is featured later in the Zohar and Jewish myth concerning evil. Samael acts as an evil doppelganger of the first man that came into being with the first human transgression:
The first prince and accuser, the commander of Jealousy and Enmity…he is called ‘evil’ not because of his nature but because he desires to unite and intimately mingle with an emanation not of his nature… it is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one, similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one, reflecting what is above. This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces. The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael. Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
He continues:
As this passage suggests, Jewish mysticism contains a dialectic notion of “evil”; all things emanate from God, so Samael is one of God’s “severe agents,” yet he grows beyond the attenuated form God intended because he feeds upon the evils of the world. The Zohar builds upon the image of Samael found in Rabbi Isaac’s text as the demon king and consort of Lilith; together they are the evil counterparts of Adam and Eve. Samael is the tempting angel from who “copulates” with Lilith as the male and female principles of the “left side emanation”, united and achieve their full potential by spawning demons. Samael is in effect the evil left-side counterpart of Tiferet in the Sefirotic system of the Tree of Life. In the Apocryphon of John, Samael also happens to be one of the alternative names for Ialdabaoth, the Satanic creator god. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
Also the mind, the thinking or the being of a person got out of a seed but was also like a serpent.
The Ophites connected the eternal principle, Nous, “mind”, with Naas, the Greek word for serpent—stating that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was actually Nous in serpent form. Accordingly, the Demiurge tried to prevent Adam and Eve from acquiring knowledge, and it was the serpent who persuade them to disobey the Demiurge and taste of the fruit. This was the origin of gnosis. Because the serpent frustrated Jehovah’s designs, the serpent was cursed (Gen. 3:14). The Naasenes also agreed with the sentiments expressed in the Gospel of Philip, in that the separation of sexes marked the beginning of death and evil when they claimed that sex was “…man’s fatal effort to become one without recognizing that the only real unity was spiritual.” {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
In Church-history we find peculiar ideas about the relationship with the seed, the serpent, man and Jesus.
According to the Church Fathers, the Ophites had a peculiar ritual meal involving a snake. The Ophites made a distinction between Christ the Savior, and Jesus, the man. Christ equated the serpent with the Son of Man (John 3:14), whereas Jesus equated serpents with scorpions, and spoke of the serpent as the “enemy” (Luke 10:19). For this reason some Ophite sects vilified Jesus. Origen in Contra Celsum records that the Ophites cursed Jesus, and wanted converts to do the same. St. Paul’s reference to those who curse Jesus (1 Cor. 12:3) may point to these snake-worshipers. The Ophites also happened to believe that Adam and Eve were originally beings of light, according to Irenaeus in Against Heresies, I, 30.9:
Adam and Eve previously had light, and clear, and as it were spiritual bodies, such as they were at their creation; but when they came to this world, these changed into bodies more opaque, and gross, and sluggish. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
No surprise Rivera wants to make the link also to some titles which we can find in Christianity, like “Lord of Hosts” as a reference to יהוה YHWH Jehovah/Yehowah/Yahuwah/Yahweh. which can be found in some translations at 1Samuel 1:3,11; 4:4; 15:2; 17:45; 2 Samuel 6:2,18; 7:8,26-27 and James 5:4 for example.
2Sa 7:26-27 NET so you may gain lasting fame,43 as people say,44 ‘The LORD of hosts is God over Israel!’ The dynasty45 of your servant David will be established before you, (27) for you, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have told46 your servant, ‘I will build you a dynastic house.’47 That is why your servant has had the courage48 to pray this prayer to you.
2Sa 7:26-27 MKJV And let Your name be magnified forever, saying, The Jehovah of Hosts is the God over Israel. And let the house of Your servant David be established before You. (27) For You, O Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, have revealed to Your servant, saying, I will build you a house. Therefore Your servant has found in his heart to pray this prayer to You.
Several Christians do want to believe it than relies to Jesus but it is all about יהוה The ElohimHashemJehovah to Whom belongs the victory.
Clarke wants us even to believe:
“It having pleased God that, between the time of a Messiah being promised and the time of his coming, there should be delivered by the prophets a variety of marks by which the Messiah was to be known, and distinguished from every other man; it was impossible for any one to prove himself the Messiah, whose character did not answer to these marks; and of course it was necessary that all these criteria, thus Divinely foretold, should be fulfilled in the character of Jesus Christ.
But in those passages of the Lord of Hosts is not spoken about the Messiah but about the bringer of the messiah, Jehovah God.
Clarke agrees that God declares himself the Father of the Son.
God declares himself the Father of the Son here meant; (see also Heb_1:5); and promises that, even amidst the sufferings of this Son, (as they would be for the sins of others, not for his own), his mercy should still attend him: nor should his favor be ever removed from this king, as it had been from Saul. And thus (as it follows) thine house (O David) and thy kingdom shall, in Messiah, be established for ever before Me: (before God): thy throne shall be established for ever. Thus the angel, delivering his message to the virgin mother, Luk_1:32, Luk_1:33, speaks as if he was quoting from this very prophecy: The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob For Ever: and of his kingdom there shall be no end. In 2Sa_7:16, לפניך lephaneycha, is rendered as לפני lephanai, on the authority of three Hebrew MSS., with the Greek and Syriac versions; and, indeed, nothing could be established for ever in the presence of David, but in the presence of God only.
It shall be the Divine Creator Who makes everything and Who is the Father of everything and Host for all things and beings, who shall provide in His House the seed of peace and the seed for a new paradise, the Kingdom of God with the Garden of God once again here on earth. And for that Garden Jehovah God shall provide a gardener from the seed of Adam bringing the seed of Abraham, continuing the line with bringing seed to King David by which the offspring shall be the seed long awaited which shall bring the offering like the seed which formed the bush and got burning, the world shall have to see a burning light and bright morning star. to that seed Jehovah shall be a Host and He shall take him to sit at his right hand to become a mediatorbetween God and man.
Rev 7:9-12 MKJV After these things I looked, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palms in their hands. (10) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God sitting on the throne, and to the Lamb. (11) And all the angels stood around the throne, and the elders, and the four living creatures, and they fell before the throne on their faces and worshiped God, (12) saying, Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.
Act 7:55-56 MKJV But being full of the Holy Spirit, looking up intently into Heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. (56) And he said, Behold, I see Heaven opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.
Heb 10:12-17 MKJV But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right of God, (13) from then on expecting until His enemies are made His footstool. (14) For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. (15) The Holy Spirit also is a witness to us; for after He had said before, (16) “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” (17) also He adds, “their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.”
1Ti 2:5-6 MKJV For God is one, and there is one Mediator of God and of men, the Man Christ Jesus, (6) who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Rivera writes:
Interestingly, the Alexandrian Gnostic teacher, Basilides called the demiurge “the Seven” which could have been a reference to the seventh planet, Saturn, which rules the rest. The Hebrew name of the planet Saturn is Shabbathai, clearly transcribed in the form “Sabbataios” in Gnostic verbal play on the term “Lord of Hosts” as a reference to YHWH. Tacitus in Histories 5,4 associates the Jewish God with Saturn. Saturn is naturally also honored on the same day by the Pagans that the Jews did with Jehovah on Sabbath. Since the Jews worshiped on Saturday, the Graeco-Roman world in which Basilides lived in tended to identify Jehovah with Saturn. Saturn is the Graeco-Roman sky-god so consumed with fear of being overthrown that he devours all his children, missing only Jupiter (Zeus), who does later overthrow him. In Rome the overthrow of the old year by the new, the hunched-up old man by the babe, was celebrated in the Saturnalia. Similarly, for Gnostics, the Christ child replaced the tribal god Jehovah. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
Today we still find the majority of Christian believers not willing to accept Jesus to be a man of flesh and blood who had really enough reasons to be afraid of death. They still make Jesus into a god, because they think no human being would ever be able to keep to God His commandments. They forget that they make a very cruel Creator of this Most High God, having Him made immature imperfect beings to which He demands the impossible. For those Binarian and TrinitarianChristians the human beings where deficient from the beginning, not able to keep to God’s Wishes.
Michelangelo Bounarotti – The Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve – detail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We do not believe in such a cruel God, who than after the Fall would have waited so long before to intervene and Who keeps us still waiting so many years before He stops us to let us suffer. For us it is more acceptable that God created a perfect universe in which He gave the human beings a free will. They were perfect and could have stayed faultless.
To stay without fault people had to make the right choices. Eve got tempted by her own greed, her willing to be even more like God. She had the breath of God blown in her nostrils and as such got the ‘soul‘, the ‘being’ ‘life’ in her. Those refusing that life itself was the essence given by God Himself wanted as in the different creation myths see their other gods providing that life, and as such used the figure Jesus as that bringer of life and bringer of love and eros.
As Irenaeus relates in his Against Heresies, Ialdabaoth is the eldest of seven rulers born of Lower Wisdom (See the Secret Book of John for this story). Ialdabaoth is depicted as a grotesque mutant—a lion-headed serpent which fits with Plato’s distinction of the “rational soul” part from the lion and the many headed beast portions of the soul in the Republic along with the Orphic Phanes or Eros. {Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden (Part 2)
11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.
Gospel, 3rd Sunday in Lent, Year B (jessicahof.wordpress.com)
Origen comments that our souls are the Temples of Christ, and he has especial solicitude for them, and here is driving from us impure thoughts and things which drag us down. Augustine sees the same symbolism. The Church, the Temple of Christ, has within in those who buy and sell holy things, and they need to be driven out too.
All the Fathers see the reference to Jesus being the Temple and being raised on the third day. It is the Father who raised Him up after He was obedient, unto death, even death upon the Cross. Augustine and St Cyril both comment on his caution in entrusting himself fully to those not yet born again of the Spirit.
The Blame Game Again (supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com)
The societal sins are merely those made individually by unique persons choosing the wrong way over and over and over and over. The sins of a culture or civilization are not some types of sins which just happen, but sins done repeatedly by those persons in that culture or civilization.
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There would be no weak men without Adam, and the long line of couch potatoes, sports idolizing , game obsessed men who have given up all responsibility for their families and eschew commitment. Individuals sin and make movements.Just because the men are nameless, does not mean it is not yet another “movement” of weakness changing the culture one decision at a time.
To blame a “movement” is to push blame onto nothing….some amorphous event in history. Of course, men and women decide to choose good or evil, thus creating the course of their own lives, that of their families and even nations.
A Life Bearing Fruit (therealdaniel.com)
The greatest commandment that so many reject is to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, and the second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. When self becomes god as Satan is all too familiar with then a separation from the Creator of all things good is inevitable.
Cleo and her asp. (barrywax.wordpress.com)
According to Plutarch (quoted by Ussher), Cleopatra tested various deadly poisons on condemned persons and concluded that the bite of the asp (from aspis – Egyptian cobra, not European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought sleepiness and heaviness without spasms of pain. The asp is perhaps most famous for its alleged role in Cleopatra’s suicide
Amazingly when some Bible readers arrive at Genesis 1:26 and they read that God said “Let us make…”, they leap to the conclusion that God is more than one Person.
There is no logical reason for this. Scripture describes God as “I”, “He,” “Him,” “Me” thousands of times.
Suddenly lots of readers do seem to forget that the person speaking is the very highest person in the world. all important people when they speak to the general public or address their audience will use the pluralis majestatis or Royal We. As the Most High, God speaking to man or letting His words written down by His writers shall let it those Words been notated in the plural form.
Others like to think that when on a very rare occasion God says, “Let us…” it means that God, who is one person, involves others with Him. How is it that Bible readers imagine “Let us…” to mean “Let us Three…” The verse says nothing about three members of a Godhead. There are theologians you take it that there where other celestial beings like angels with God and that He spoke to them and about them. As such we do find a not in the NIV Study Bible (on Genensis 1:26) that points out that God involved His angels in some way with creation. Angels, when they appear, look like men (Genesis 18:2). Both man and angels bear a resemblance to God Himself. From the Word Bible Commentary (“From a team of international scholars, a showcase of the best in evangelical scholarship”):
“When angels appear in the OT they are frequently described as men (Gen. 18:2). And in fact the use of the singular verb in v. 27 does in fact suggest that God worked alone in the creation of mankind. ‘Let us create man’ should therefore be regarded as a divine announcement to the heavenly [angelic] court, drawing the angelic host’s attention to the master stroke of creation, man. As Job 38:4, 7 puts it: ‘When I laid the foundation of the earth all the Sons of God shouted for joy’ (cp. Luke 2:13-14).”
The idea that Genesis 1:26 even hints at the Trinity is false. The Word Bible Commentary states correctly,
“It is now universally admitted that the use of the plural in Gen. 1:26 did not mean to the author that [God was more than one Person.]”
Real truth-seekers will make an effort not to start their investigation with the assumption that the Trinity is a true biblical teaching. They will begin with an open mind and look for clear evidence. Is there such evidence in the Old Testament?
Many have abandoned Genesis 1:26 as any indication of plurality in God. The NIV study note, widely available, provides the public with the needed information pointing out with many commentaries that God was addressing His attendant council of angels. There is no shred of proof for the Trinity in Genesis 1:26.
Nor is there any evidence for the Trinity in the word “one” in the famous Jewish and Christian creed (Deuteronomy 6:4, cited by Jesus as a Christian in Mark 12:28ff.). That most basic creed says:
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.”
A very misleading and unfair argument has gained wide circulation to the effect that the word “one” really means a “compound one.” Of course, even if it did, that verse tells us nothing about God being three. But “one” means “one.” “One,” of course, can modify a collective noun, like “bunch” or “herd.” But it is the word “herd” or “bunch” which conveys the idea of plurality, not the word “one.” This compound-unity argument is not used by scholars of the Hebrew language. One has only to consult a lexicon of Hebrew to see that nothing compound is implied in “one.”
In a long book on the Trinity (The Trinity, Evidence and Issues), Robert Morey claims that the Hebrew word “one” (echad) really means “more than one”! He states without evidence from a lexicon that “one” means “compound oneness.” Morey includes a footnote to p. 25 of the standard Lexicon of Biblical Hebrew for support. But the page he appeals to contains not a word of support for his theory that “one” really means “compound unity.” The lexicons rightly define “one” as the cardinal number “one.” Echad is the word for “one” in counting. Imagine the chaos of communication if “one” really means more than one. Ecclesiastes 4:9 speaks of two being better than one (echad). The use of “one” in the sentence “The two shall become one flesh” does not mean that “one” is really plural. It means that two human beings in marriage become one (not two) things. The idea of plurality is not found in the word “one” at all. It is found in the context: male and female human persons.
The lexicons of Hebrew tell us correctly that “one” means “one single.” Echad is used about 770 times and there is never any doubt that it means “one,” not two or more.
In the central creed of Israel and of Jesus (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:28ff.) the LORD is described as “one Lord,” i.e. “one single Lord.” One single Lord means one Person, not three.
Isaac Newton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Opposition to the Trinity is not confined to so-called “cults.” That is a public myth. How many know what Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke and John Milton have in common? They are recognized as among the most intelligent Bible students of the seventeenth century. All objected strongly to the doctrine of the Trinity. These men cannot just be dismissed as ill-educated or prejudiced. They had very good reasons for what they believed and defended in writing. All three were vigorous anti-Trinitarians. So also was Thomas Jefferson, who examined the Trinitarian question carefully in the light of the Bible. How many know that Harvard University at one time expressed non-Trinitarian views? Many contemporary biblical scholars recognize that the Trinity is a post-biblical development.
Miguel Servet, (Villanueva de Sigena 1511- Genevra 1553) Spanish scientist and theologist of the Renaissance. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the cruelest episodes in church history occurred when the reformer Calvin used the strong arm of the Catholic Church to burn at the stake a brilliant linguist, physician, geographer and Bible expert, Michael Servetus. The burning of others over an issue of doctrine is absolutely forbidden by the Bible and may cause some wonder about the spirit which drives such persecuting zeal over the definition of who God is. (For a recent fine account of this horrible cruelty in support of the Trinitarian cause, see Marian Hillar, The Case of Michael Servetus: The Turning Point in the Struggle for Freedom of Conscience, Edwin Mellen Press, 1997).
For once, AmChurchSpeak makes an important point: Lent is a journey to Calvary… (denvercatholic.org)
For two weeks, the Letter to the Hebrews draws on images from the Old Testament to introduce us to that “great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God:” a mediator between God and humanity who “has been tempted as we are” and with whom we can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” [Heb 4: 14-16]. Here, the biblical author writes, we find that “great cloud of witnesses” in whose company we are enabled to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us” [Heb 12: 1] Here is “Mt. Zion … the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” to which we are brought through the mediation of Jesus, and where we join “innumerable angels in festive gathering” [Heb 12: 22].
Episode 63: Ezra and the Compilation of the Pentateuch (notevenpast.org)
The authorship of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament–known as the Torah or the Pentateuch–has been traditionally attributed to Moses. This raised some questions, however: would the most humble of men really describe himself as such?
A Stack of Bibles! (openlettersmonthly.com)
Sometimes, when it comes to propitiating the Deity, circumstances warrant going right to the top – and with poor wretched Boston staring wide-eyed at the latest ferocious oncoming “monster storm,” today seemed like one of those times. So with fear and trembling, I crept to my bookshelves and assembled the proverbial stack of Bibles on the altar … er, that is, the couch, in the silvery light of an afternoon rapidly being crumpled under the building weight of the “snow hurricane” bearing down from the upper Midwest. There in those pages I sought to know afresh the mind of a Deity who suddenly doesn’t like navigable sidewalks, pretty sunsets, or the MBTA.
A Local Flood Interpretation of Genesis 7 (aviewfromtheright.com)
First, regarding mankind, some who hold to (or at least entertain the idea of) a local Flood have theorized that the story deals only with a subset of the planet’s population at the time, who were essentially wiped out by a regional flood, but the rest of humanity was not directly affected. However, I agree with RTB’s position that the Genesis text gives clues indicating that humanity at the time was geographically limited, most likely to what we now call the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula. So, a “local flood” only needed to be sufficiently large to reach all of mankind in this region, as well as the land and animals most likely to have been affected by their sin. (This goes to the subject of God’s judgment and how He handles it in Scripture, which is outside the purview of this article.) In other words, the Flood was geographically limited but anthropologically universal.
In the previous chapter The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods, I pointed to a first big mistake many people make. Lots of people do think there were more people involved in the creation of the universe. Lots of people make the wrong assumption by taking nouns for names and making objects in persons, as such making words being people, like they also make wisdom a person. For titles they also use them as names and make for something what can used for any body, like the adversary or satan, one specific person with such a name, as Satan.
One Creator
The first chapter of B’reshit, or Genesis, written on an egg, in the Jerusalem museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Gen 1:1 בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית H7225 be·re·Shit In the beginning בָּרָ֣א H1254 ba·Ra created אֱלֹהִ֑ים H430 E·lo·Him; God אֵ֥ת
This Most HighElohim the Adonai, had a name and is the Only OneTrue God, Former or Maker of heavens and earth. In many bible translations, mainly published after 1960, the ‘a’ and ‘the’ and capitals left away or interchanged, plus omitting the Name of God and replacing Adonai or Elohim with lord instead of Lord made it very difficult for readers to see the difference between the different Biblical characters spoken of, the Lord God Most High, the Lord of Lord of lords, the lord Jesus or any lord. Because of this many could not any more see clear between The God of gods and a god.
Isa 45:18 כִּ֣י H3588 ki For כֹ֣ה H3541 choh thus אָֽמַר־ H559 ‘a·mar- For thus saith יְ֠הוָה H3068 Yah·weh the LORD
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1 ASV)
“For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not {1} a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else. {1) Or [in vain]}” (Isaiah 45:18 ASV)
“Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou {1} hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. {1) Heb [gavest birth to]}” (Psalms 90:2 ASV)
It does not say “gods” created, but speaks of a Singular Person. About That Figure we are also told He or It is not a man but a Spirit.
“{1} God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. {1) Or [God is spirit]}” (John 4:24 ASV)
“yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6 ASV)
“Hear, O Israel: {1} Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: {1) Or [Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone]}” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ASV)
“That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)
Created by speaking
The storyteller of the beginnings let us know that it was in a world of chaos were the earth was without order, and empty; and darkness upon the face of the deep, that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. There it was at the early beginnings of everything that God let His Mind go over things and used His Spirit to let it come to Power saying something. He uttered words and spoke, demanding that there would be something and it came to being. And every time He had spoken and had come into existence He looked at it, saw that it was good, and than went over to create the next thing. Only because the Maker allows something to be it can come into existence even gods come into being because God allows them to exist.
H853 ‘et הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם H8064 hash·sha·Ma·yim the heaven וְאֵ֥ת H853 ve·’Et הָאָֽרֶץ׃ H776 ha·’A·retz. the earth
Gen 1:2 וְהָאָ֗רֶץ H776 ve·ha·’A·retz, And the earth הָיְתָ֥ה H1961 ha·ye·Tah was תֹ֙הוּ֙ H8414 to·hu without form וָבֹ֔הוּ
“And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God {1} moved upon the face of the waters. {1) Or [was brooding upon]}” (Genesis 1:2 ASV)
H922 va·Vo·hu, and void וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ H2822 ve·Cho·shech and darkness עַל־ H5921 ‘al- upon פְּנֵ֣י H6440 pe·Nei [was] upon the face תְה֑וֹם H8415 te·Hom; of the deep וְר֣וּחַ H7307 ve·Ru·ach And the Spirit אֱלֹהִ֔ים H430 E·lo·Him, of God מְרַחֶ֖פֶת H7363 me·ra·Che·fet moved עַל־ H5921 ‘al- over פְּנֵ֥י H6440 pe·Nei the face הַמָּֽיִם׃ H4325 ham·Ma·yim. of the waters
Gen 1:3 וַיֹּ֥אמֶר H559 vai·Yo·mer said אֱלֹהִ֖ים H430 E·lo·Him And God יְהִ֣י H1961 ye·Hi Let there be א֑וֹר H216 or;
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3 ASV)
Jehovah God asked it to be there and it became there.
Gen 1:6 וַיֹּ֣אמֶר H559 vai·Yo·mer said אֱלֹהִ֔ים H430 E·lo·Him, And God יְהִ֥י H1961 ye·Hi Let there be רָקִ֖יעַ
“And God said, Let there be a {1} firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. {1) Heb [expanse]}” (Genesis 1:6 ASV)
In this way God spoke and everything came into being, but once it had started, having a beginning it received a cause. God being the Ultimate Power knows everything and brought to a cause the need to be sufficient, or adequate.
Today’s atheists, who like to use words like ‘rational’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘scientific’ in describing their beliefs, believe that the greatest beginning of all — that of the universe — had no cause whatsoever! Some admit it is a problem, but they claim that saying ‘God did it’ explains nothing because you then have to explain where God came from.
This is what brings the only dogma people should have. This brings up the only thing which demands a belief without a proof and without being able to see it. All the rest in the world and what we do believe can be proven and is available to our minds to be justified and unruffled. But to proof that there is that God Creator is almost impossible, though we being created in His image have elements of Him in us and have the feeling of His Power in us and can see it around us, in nature in things that happen. When looking around us we can see the complexity of our planet and how things are made up, which points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it still today.
Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This singular start to everything that exists which scientist are wanting to explain already for ages and of which their findings not ever were in contradiction to the Bible we can find it explained simply so that everybody could understand the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself. The Bible had never the intention to be a thorough book of scientific explanation. It is meant to be a handbook for everybody. The Holy Scriptures want to present an easy to follow and easy to understand manual.
The Word given
The Word ofGod brought everything into being: heaven and earth, mountains and rivers, and every living thing. In the beginning, God called into existence by speaking, which is an uttering of sounds which forms words.
A big mistake of many Christians is that they consider those words to be different persons. they look at it as being a god person and another god person. They are mislead by misinterpreting the way the evangelist John looks at the creation of the world all together and looks at a new world he has seen come to into existence.
The apostle John, perhaps being the favourite young disciple of Jeshua (Jesus Christ), saw in Jesus the beginning of a New Creation in which Jesus is the 2° Adam, also created by the Word of God according to the Word God had given at the beginning of time. Namely, it was in the beginning God had spoken, had created the 1° Adam after He had made light (day 1), skies or heaven (day 2), put the earth into good shape having at His command the waters of the earth gathering together at certain places, forming seas and oceans, lakes and rivers, so that in other parts, the dry land became visible (day 3), after God’s further command, earth was made to produce all kinds of plants, grass, and trees, shrubs and flowers, each contained its own seed for further growth and reproduction, came the 4th day on which the sun, moon, and stars were created to shed light upon the earth.
By God His speaking there was set a time for day and a time for night, a time for the week, the month, and the year, and a time for each of the four seasons and soon after an other time was set to restore what that 1° Adam had ruined.
After God by His speaking had called for the seas to get filled with fishes and other water animals and to have in to the air above the earth flying animals on the 5° day he continued on the 6° day to created all the other animals, large and small, those that walk and those that creep or crawl on the earth. And towards the end of the sixth day, God putting His breath into a body which He made of earth and clay made a living soul. This was the human. This first man created being called Adam, which means first man of red blood. It was a man of flesh and blood made in the image of God.
Given to recognise
To this human being God granted high mental ability that one could think and reach one’s own conclusions. Jehovah God also gave the human the power of speech,giving them the possibility to create words, and He made humans superior to all other creatures of the earth which he could give names for himself and use them for himself.
This created being could be aware of that omnipresent Creator Deity and we too should by His works be able to come to recognise Who God is.
“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, [even] his everlasting power and divinity; {1} that they may be without excuse: {1) Or [so that they are]}” (Romans 1:20 ASV)
Nobody has an excuse not able to come to see or understand creation and the Hand behind it, because everything around us declares the Hand and Work of God.
“1 «For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.» The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night showeth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language; Their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a {1} tabernacle for the sun, {1) Heb [tent]}” (Psalms 19:1-4 ASV)
“Lift up your eyes on high, {1} and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking. {1) Or [and see: who hath created these? he that etc]}” (Isaiah 40:26 ASV)
All people, creatures of the Most High Maker, should have the feeling deep in them. They all, having some elements of Him, should have some feeling that there is that Maker, God Who doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. (Isaiah 40:28)
Though by time lots of people still did not come to know their God, Jesus having given His Word to reunite man with His good creation, made His Word, His Speaking or His Word of Promise, to become reality, having it come onto this world, being born some two thousand years ago. The child born out of the tribe of king David was that long ago, in the Garden of Eden promised Messiah. (see The very very beginning 3 Messiah’s total point of origination)
The Word, God and a god
“In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” (NWT)
“The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.” (The New Testament in An Improved Version)
Or literally there is written in the book of books, the bible, which we consider the infallible Word of God:
Yah Chanan (#Jo 1:1-3): In the beginning the Word having been and the Word having been unto God and God having been the Word he having been, in the beginning, unto God all through his hand became: and without him not even one being whatever became.
Traditionally ortotalattheorigin of all things, there was the Word, the expression of the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah. By that coming out of breath from His ‘Mouth’ all the creatures of the earth and the powers of nature where created and placed in the control of the other creature, called human.
Having the saying “the Word was a god” makes many Christians wanting to see that such word was not only just ‘a’ ‘god’ but ‘the God’. They transfer the title of any higher person, like Apollo, Zeus, Erebus, Gaea, Tartarus, Pharaoh, Moses, even angels, are called gods, to making Jesus from a god into the God.
People seem to forget that in the beginning the Word already existed, because the Elohim Maker of everything was already in existing. The Divine Maker is the Supreme Being without a beginning, meaning never born nor created. He had no mother, though several Christians want Him to have a mother like the many gods have their Mother Earth Gaea.
The Word was with God because it is something which comes into existing by using the Mind, and God used His Power, the Holy Spirit, to bring forth His thinking and His speaking. It was God’s Voice that sounded over all chaos and made order, because God is a God of order and not a god of disorder and not a god of confusion.
God His Voice bringing forth Words, had each Word of very high value and as such was His Word highly placed and as such being ‘a god’. But the evangelist John is not only talking of the beginning of the world in general. He sees the Old World and a New World. For him Jesus is the beginning of the New World, the New Creation. And Jesus is also brought forward by the speaking of God already at the beginning of the world, though he only came into being so many thousands of years later. That Nazarene man John and some others had followed as good disciples, he considered the 2° Adam and the long awaited promised Messiah.
As Jesus was the core-figure of the movement ‘The Way‘, a Jewish sect some two thousand years ago, John, Stephen and many others saw in him also a very special rabbi and prophet, a sent one from God, who might, by many, also be considered a god, like there where many gods honoured in John’s time and still now. Though we may not forget that a god is not at all the same as The God, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who was worshipped by Jesus Christ as the Only One God Who was greater than him (Jesus) and any other human being. Jesus was the son of God and not a god son.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 ASV)
“but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (Galatians 4:4 ASV)
“Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.” (John 5:19 ASV)
“Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28 ASV)
The Lord Protects (ectordzro.wordpress.com)
Who is like you oh believer, a person saved by the Lord? The Lord is your shield and helper means God helps you by protecting you. He being your glorious sword implies the Lord fights battles on your behalf in other to protect you, as you live in His spirit of excellence.
The Principle of Intellectual and Spiritual Freedom (circleofasiamission.wordpress.com)
In understanding the occult position, one will at once understand the position of the Yazdān traditions possessed by the Kurds; but it would not be realistic to understand the position of Blavatsky or the secret doctrine all at once. Her position is totally from the esoteric position, symbolical, astronomical, & philosophical.
All The Ways I Killed People As The Son Of Satan (kotaku.com.au)
Lucius is a sad-looking little boy. He’s also the spawn of Satan. The original Lucius pretty much followed the plot for The Omen: you’re the son of Satan, now go and kill everybody in your house one by one. Think Hitman, but as an evil demonic kid. Despite being somewhat fun, it felt very restrictive in that it only allowed you to use specific items on specific people in a pre-scripted way.
‘Satanic capital’ claims dismissed (bbc.co.uk)
In the most recent census, 17 people in Bolsover wrote Satanism as their religion.This suggested it had the highest concentration of Satanists in England and Wales.
But the Church of Satan believes many people had lied on their census forms because they “think it is funny”.
Messiah For All 