The story of the Eden Garden. The temptation of Adam & Eve by the devil. Pedestal of the statue of Madonna with Child, western portal (of the Virgin), of Notre-Dame de Paris, France Français : L’histoire du Jardin d’Eden. Au premier plan la tentation d’Adam & Eve par le Diable. Base de la statue de la Vierge à l’Enfant, trumeau du portail de la Vierge, Façade ouest de Notre-Dame de Paris. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We have no idea how long Adam and Eve had lived in unison with their Creator. But we are told that they themselves choose to go against God’s Will. It was their own choice to close their ears for God’s commandment not to eat from that tree. It was by their ownchoice of will that they made an irreversible act and created a different history for themself and, in fact, for all mankind.
Normally it was foreseen that they could live for ever in a paradise, but know, as God had warned them they had to face death. Now their days of life became numbered.
They had thought that in the day they were eating thereof, then their eyes would be opened and then they could be as wise and knowledgable as God. Having the same knowledge as God attracted them. They also wanted to have the same power as Him.
The metaphorical use of elements, like animals speaking, is often used in the Bible Books. Concerning Balaam the apostle Peter endorsed the account
2 Peter 2:16 NHEBJE but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.
opening his ears, where previously his eyes were opened involving an occurrence with an angel.(Numbers 22:31) In later books of the Holy Scriptures references are made to the many lies which continue to live in this world. The lies Eve and Adam heard are like we may hear the lies of the false teachers (Genesis 3:4 vs 2 Corinthians 11:13) and want to follow them. The world may spread subtile or beguiling beliefs. (Genesis 3:1 vs 2 Corinthians 11:3,13) and get people seduced bringing them in danger of loosing their life (2 Corinthians 11:3).
After their own choice doing that act, Eve’s fall was disastrous.
1 Timothy 2:14 NHEBJE Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience;
2 Corinthians 11:3 NHEBJE (3) But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
Today in Christendom we still can see how people let their ears be tangled by human teachings, instead of listening to the Biblical truth, and accepting God’s Words for what they are and say. In the same way as the serpent beguiled Eve by its craftiness, so are many minds corrupted from the simplicity which belongs to Christ, the sent one from God. Lots of so called Christians keep to the false idea that Jesus has to be God because they do not want to believe that Jesus is the sent one from God, who as a man of flesh and blood managed to do what the 1st Adam and the 1st woman did not succeed, namely to put his own will aside and only doing the Will of god, his heavenly Father, the Only One true God of gods.
The selfish thoughts of Eve, represented by the serpent, led Eve away from the Elohim יהוה YHWH Jehovah God, in small steps leading to self-assertive independence. Today also there are the personal wishes to be in control of everything and there are still other people who desire to draw people away from God. The serpent, by its poison and its loathly form, is the natural symbol of such an enemy of man, the adversary of god or a satan. The insinuating slyness of the suggestions of evil is like the sinuous gliding of the snake, and truly represents the process by which temptation found its way into the hearts of the first pair, and of all their descendants. For it begins with casting a doubt on the reality of the prohibition.
‘Has God said?’
is the first parallel opened by the besieger.
Often we also hear others say
“What does it matter” or “There is no harm in it”
this is even more dangerous than by Eve, who was warned that there was something bad to happen. But now that message of the badness that can happen to us is also blurred by what happened in the garden of Eden.
The woman could have been protected from her serious fall if she had referred the matter to her husband, who had been given the place of headship. Because she ignored this she was deceived into deliberate disobedience to God. She saw the tree was good for food: it appealed to her taste. It was pleasant to the eyes: it appealed to her sight. It was desirable to make one wise: it appealed to her pride (See 1Jonn 2:16). she therefore trusted her own inclinations and ignored the word of God (v.6). Before consulting her husband she ate the fruit of the tree. {L.M.Grant}
Like doubt may have been filtered into the ear of Eve today we also see the reality of moral distinctions, the essential wrongness of the sin, being obscured by a mist of sophistication. Where often scholars say to the people they can not understand it because God is too complicated. But God is a God of order and a God of love, Who wants clarity and righteousness. He would not withhold something for certain people because they had no opportunity to study or to learn certain things.
Mankind came to see, like they were warned. There was the temptation. They could have chosen to let it pass, like later on Jesus did several times. Going against the Wish of God is called sinning. The promise of knowing good and evil was indeed kept, because God always keeps His promises. Though their minds were hoping for things which were not for them. Instead of their eating of the fruit making the sinners ‘like gods,’ it showed them that they were like beasts, and brought the first sense of shame.
Adam & Eve 02 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Perhaps they now got more knowledge, but this knowing of good and evil was not such a blessing as they hoped for. Their ignorant innocence was changed into bitter knowledge, and conscience awoke to rebuke them. The first thing that their opened eyes saw was themselves, and the immediate result of the sight was the first blush of shame. Before, they had walked in innocent unconsciousness, like angels or infants; now they had knowledge of good and evil, because their sin had made evil a part of themselves, and the knowledge was bitter.
Before their act God had left them to do the things in the easy way, but now with the relation disturbed, them having questioning the power of God and His right to govern the world, got the admission to take care of themselves and the world themselves.
Before their sinful act they had not to fear God but now sin had broken familiar communion with God and turned Him into a ‘fear and a dread’. Hearing His Voice (asking them in what condition they were) but not answering or showing themselves, they brought up an excuse that they were afraid because they were naked, so they hid themselves.
Genesis 3:9-12 NHEBJE Jehovah God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” (10) The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (11) God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (12) The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
After eating of the fruit the man and mannin found they were no longer fit for God’s eye, and that made them hide from Him, forgetting that God always sees us and knows our thoughts and feeling of our heart. From all this, as shown in the previous part, it is thus the work of conscience which is to expose us to ourselves, like it did to Eve. Shame had come over man and it will not go away until God gives us the tools to take that shame away. If man’s shame was to be effectually removed, God must do it.
Adam and Eve tried to submerge such feelings of guilt by sewing fig leaves together to make aprons for themselves. Since that time people have resorted to every kind of artifice to cover up the guilt of their sins, perhaps these may be professed “good works” or religious ceremonies or observances, but all are ineffective. The fig leaves were so unsatisfactory to Adam and Eve themselves that when they heard the voice of the Lord God in the garden they hid themselves. So today our own consciences tell us that our efforts to cover our sins fail so badly that we are afraid to face God. But fig leaves and trees are only part of God’s creation: they can give neither protection from sin nor a hiding place from God. {L.M. Grant}
After a turbulent year in which the Belgian Christadelphians had to undergo several tests I decided to react to those Christians who called me dirty names and send me horrible things, accusing me of defiling Jesus name or God’s name.
For that reason, wanting to bring a clear picture of the Biblical character Jesus, at the beginning of 2015 I started looking for a new platform to present texts which could justify our way of thinking and could open the eyes of others, offering them also the material from the Bible, the infallible Word of God, itself. In our eyes the Bible is the best tool to bring guidance and insight. After we shall have introduced general introductory texts, about the Word of God, presented in the Book of books, the Bible, and about the Creator and creation in general, we shall present more Biblical fragments by our explanations and when we shall come to the period of the New Covenant and New Testament we shall go step by step through the Messianic Writings (or Kethubim Bet or Kethuvim Bet), using the words of those Godly writings to show who Jesus is, what he has done and what he is still going to do, plus what he means for us, for mankind and for the whole creation.
More than once we have been and still are accused of being haters of God and being haters of Jesus, which made it so important to proof to you and the world that we carry our heart on the right place and do love Christ with all our heart, really appreciating what he did and acknowledging his position as sent onefrom God, who liberated the world from the curse of death. with this website we want to show you and those who come along that we are a loving group of worshippers of God who live peacefully as united people under Christ, being part of his body and not belonging to this world but to the world of Christ and the world of God, the Divine Creator.
Getting away from the starting bloc
Having tried out several starting blocs we are now on our way with WordPress. – Pressure-sensitive starting blocks at the start line of the 100 metres at the 2007 Pan American Games in João Havelange Olympic Stadium.
“The Eternal Laws of Creation are exact to the minutest detail because they are the expressions of the perfect Will of the Almighty! Where uncertainties and imperfections are found they only arise from man’s limited understanding and application!” {Eternal Laws of Creation #8…..likes repel, opposites attract!}
Being one or more, not feeling at ease in the body others can see
This uncertainty often frightens man. The not knowing for sure brings up many questions, doubts and lots of insecurities. We are very limited in our thinking and handling. But we should trust more in the given Word to humanity. With this blog we want others also to see how we as human beings fit in the whole universe and in the Plan of God. We want to show how Christ is The Wayto God and the Way to life and how we do have to become in Christ to become a whole person and not a split one in this world full of controversy.
Usually, Light messengers, prophets, masters, etc. mediate or, hand down rules and observances to guide their followers in living aright! Without doubt, these rules have beneficial spiritual relevance especially if they are received from Luminous Heights like the Biblical Ten Commandments! They are infallible guidelines for the human spirit living on earth and in the immediate beyond but, not meant for the literal, one sided interpretations many believers give to them! {Eternal Laws of Creation #2…….Omniscience and eternal laws!}
Man can not do anything without god letting it happen. this is also for the work we try to do to get the work of God be known at more places on the earth. the first ten months of the existence of this blog we could find readers in 66 countries. Most visitors came from The United States (1048). United Kingdom (111) & Australia (88) came before Belgium (62) and the Netherlands (16) which became behind Canada (64), India (35) and the Philippines (27).
With His Will God spans everything, maintains everything, and furthers everything from out of the Living Law which brings to each individual that which he deserves, i.e., that which he wove for himself! {Eternal Laws of Creation #2…….Omniscience and eternal laws!} And we want to knit some good duvet to keep us warm in cold Winters (figuratively speaking). In the times coming we do know we are going to enter a hard time, coming closer to the end times.
Writings and Readings
In the ten months this blog existed in 2015, there were 76 new posts, not bad for the first year!
Coming nearer to the end the messages we want to send in the air are necessary. Jesus asked his followers to go out into the world to preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God. Bringing that Gospel of the Kingdom of God we, with several writings, want to bring your thoughts to the teaching of Jesus, remembering the days that our father Abraham rejoiced that he would see Jeshua’s day. (John 8:56). Throughout the years we do hope to present our writings in such a way that you and others might come to “see” the coming day.
“we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
we dare to ask our readers to look beyond our writings. We want to challenge you and our other readers to go looking in your own or their Bible and to compare what is said in that book and what you believe at the present or believed in the past.
We sincerely hope throughout the years we shall be able to build up some followers and find more people coming to the Biblical Truth. As such we also do hope that in our readings (followed by meditation) of God’s Word, we shall be able to be “clothed with gladness” – a gladness that flows out from the relationship we have developed with our Lord.
As our world falls apart – more and more – we are going to need to sense the importance of becoming active partakers of the Body of Christ. As we are trying to do our best in the name of Jesus we want you to work with us to “work together with him” (2 Corinthians 6:1), that the Most High Lord His Guiding Hand is there and our
In the Bible we have the assurance that we may have good hope and that God preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Let us therefore be strong, and let our and your heart take courage, all you who wait for Jeshua, the Kristos or Christ to return!
In the meantime have a look at our statistics for 2015, the first ten months we presented this blog and offered our readers 76 posts.
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.
In the previous postings we have seen that man had to be reminded to his own choice to be without God as their Commander and because off that choice got a reminder of their mortality.
We by know should see the significance of the introduction of the Sabbathcommands being associated with the provision of manna.
For many people Mosaic law in the Bible can be confusing and often also in Judaic groups we can find lots of debates about certain laws to be followed in what sort of way. Many Christians do not like to talk so much about those laws and which ones we have to follow.
In many religious groups the question is posed which laws we still do have to follow.
According to some
” There are definitely some bizarre statutes, such as not being allowed to mix two kinds of fabric, or not cooking a goat in its mothers milk. There are also all the dietary restrictions of not being allowed to eat certain “unclean” animals such as pigs, not to mention all the sacrificial laws to atone for sin. These things seem drastic and at the very least, unnecessary. Now obviously most Christians don’t follow any of these. So what are we supposed to do with it? We know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So what has changed? {What are we gonna do with this Torah?}
The fall of man (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the previous postings we have shown that all relates to mankind’s decision to take a certain attitude to God. We need to understand that because of sin we were not able to relate to God as he intended it. By man’s own choice he became separated from his own Creator. For this reason god made a structure so that they could often enough be reminded of Him Divine Creator.
In the previous writings you could see that God provided physical and spiritual food for man and gave them rules to follow so that they could have an easier life. He also demanded from them to respect Him as the Only One True God and not to make any graven images of Him.
Before the only begottenson of God was placed on the earth, all believers where still in a situation to be compared with God’s people in Egypt. But now we do have Jesus, God’s faithful Son who is called out of Egypt, filling up what was lacking in the first faithless son, Israel.
First Israel, God’s son, broke the covenant and deserved God’s wrath. Like at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, God‘s promise brings the one and only working solution for mankind. It is not by doing certain works that the liberation shall come over us. It is by the Gift of Grace that we receive freedom, but that would not liberate us from following certain orders made by God.
Galatians 4:3-5 NHEBJE So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world. (4) But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law, (5) that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of children.
Completion of Israel’s designation
God his only begotten SonJesus Christ (Matthew 3:17), whom God loves and with him God is well pleased, is the one who came to complete all that Israel was designed to perform. Some Jews got to see that, but also some non-Jews. Therefore the Jews started wondering if those new converts also had to fulfil all the requirements of the Jewish or Judaic and Mosaic Laws.
Those Jews who had chosen to follow their Master–teacherJeshua as the Messiah had also some who came to compare the old Jews and the new ‘Jews’ or converted goyim, people from all nations and all sorts other religions. The news of the conversion of the Gentiles is received with joy (Acts 15:12). They could see how many thousands of Yehuḏim there had come to be ardent for the Torah.
Torah and morality for man to follow
For generations since Moses the Jews had their preachers in every town, and it was been read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath how to conduct oneself. As such it was questioned what the new converts had to avoid. Had they to worry about anything that has been contaminated by idols, immorality, the meat of strangled animals, and the tasting of blood?
The Jews had their Mosaic Law as a great bulwark of morality, and there was excuse for wondering whether pagans could keep its moral precepts, without observing it entirely. So this party, which did not represent the church at Jerusalem, (Acts 15:13 ff.), came to Antioch and insisted that circumcision and the Law were necessary for those who wished to enter the Messianic kingdom on earth, and be saved. The Judaizing party had evidently little following outside Jerusalem.
Gentiles, Judaizing Christians and Jews
In Jerusalem many thought that Paul was teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. Therefore they requested the assembly to meet. Concerning the Gentiles who believe, the apostles have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having been purified with them, entered the temple to announce the expiration of the days of purification, at which time an offering should be made for each one of them.
Acts 21:17-26 NHEBJE When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. (18) The day following, Paul went in with us to James; and all the elders were present. (19) When he had greeted them, he reported one by one the things which God had worked among the Gentiles through his ministry. (20) They, when they heard it, glorified God. They said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Judeans of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law. (21) They have been informed about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children neither to walk after the customs. (22) What then? They will certainly hear that you have come. (23) Therefore do what we tell you. We have four men who have taken a vow. (24) Take them, and purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses for them, that they may shave their heads. Then all will know that there is no truth in the things that they have been informed about you, but that you yourself also walk keeping the Law. (25) But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written our decision that they should keep themselves from food offered to idols, from blood, from strangled things, and from sexual immorality.” (26) Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purified himself and went with them into the temple, declaring the fulfillment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them.
An elaborate list of “do” and “don’t” items
A turn was made in history of man when the sent one of God had proven that man could do the Will of God and presented himself as an offering for all sinners. Jesus himself also knew that said that the Sabbath was made for man. (Mark 2:27).
Mark 2:23-28 NHEBJE It happened that he was going on the Sabbath day through the grain fields, and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of grain. (24) The Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why do they do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day?” (25) He said to them, “Did you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungryhe, and those who were with him? (26) How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the show bread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and gave also to those who were with him?” (27) He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (28) Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
The Fall of Man (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jesus reminded the Pharisees about their attitude concerning observing religious rituals; like they declared that joy was more important than observing religious rituals, but could not see how on the Sabbath certain things could be done. The gleaning on the fields by the apostles was not considered stealing according to Deuteronomy 23:2, but the rabbis were more concerned about the day on which it happened and felt it belonged to an act of their elaborate list of “not to do” items relevant to the Sabbath. For them it was a serious violation of one of the items on this list.
When the disciples began to pluck the heads of grain, in the eyes of the religious leaders they were guilty of 4 faults: reaping, threshing, winnowing, preparing food.
At this time, Rabbis filled Judaism with elaborate rituals related to the Sabbath and observance of other laws. Ancient Rabbis taught that on the Sabbath, a man could not carry something in his right hand or in his left hand, across his chest or on his shoulder. But you could carry something with the back of your hand, with your foot, with your elbow, or in your ear, your hair, or in the hem of your shirt, or in your shoe or sandal. Or, on the Sabbath, you were forbidden to tie a knot – except a woman could tie a knot in her girdle. So, if a bucket of water had to be raised from a well, you could not tie a rope to the bucket, but a woman could tie her girdle to the bucket!
{Guzik commentary on the Gospel of Mark}
What they did not understand is that Jeshua never violated the mitzvah or God’s commands in any way. He took time to study God’s Word and did everything to live according to it. Jeshua with his disciples went to different places and wherever they came they took time to worship God and to observe the Sabbath.
For this sent one from God, who did not want to do his own will (which he would have done in case he himself was God, like some think)would not have approved of his disciples violating God’s commands to observe the Sabbath. But for him there was a big difference between the laws of God and the laws made by man. He could see that by time man added rules had come in the Jewish tradition, which had more to do with man made legalistic ways than with God His Ways.
Human need more important than religious ritual
A very often overlooked issue is the one of the needs of man and of the regulations for man in this time of age.
We do live in a world where man can reign, but where man has also many needs. People do have to eat and to be taken care for, every day and not just one day of the week not. When people would not be treated one day in the week it could well be that they would die that day, because of not having had the right treatment. But not only for life matters it was important to recognise that man could and should be able to do certain things which he would or would not do on the other days of the week. It could be for relaxation, for entertainment, or for making himself wiser, etc..
Also people had to take care for others, and our of love should also sometimes do things which would demand work.
Can you imagine those who do believe in God and do find we do have to keep Sabbath, but take a taxi or public transport, watch television, want to have shops open for getting what they want, want to go to the theatre and have people working for them, so you could say they are not concerned that those people then would do something against the Will of God and would loose their life? This would be very unloving and very selfish.
Sabbath from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset
Those who say Christians do have to keep to the Sabbath Law should then keep Sabbath from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset and should abstain of any form of work but also of any relaxation which would have others working, like watching television, going on the internet, wanting medical care, etc.
Those who say the Sabbath is Sunday should look at Jeshua which day he kept. That was the Jewish Sabbath and not what they call the Lord’s Day. God’s Day of rest was from what we now call Friday-night until the time sun goes down on Saturday and not when the clock strikes 12 on Saturday night until Sunday 12 pm..
It is not by days that we can be separated from God, but by our acts of doing wrong. It is sin which alienates us from God not the keeping of one or an other day in a different way than the other days.
To remind our position in the universe of God
God had given the Law to Moses so that people could be reminded of their Creator and of their position in the creation. God’s law shows us that we are not able to attain righteousness through laws, but by making our own right choices like the sent one from God made the right choices from his own, not pushed by any other person.
The first Adam did not keep to God His Wishes and his descendants were not better. Though the descendant of the tribe of David, showed he also had could reason to be a beloved son of God. As the second Adam he also could not attain righteousness through the law. He like any man could sin, something only God can not, but he always made the right choices, following not his own will but the Will of God.
Because of being infected by the fall of man we are unable to be without spot. For us week human beings it is difficult to keep to God’s standards. His ordinances may be set apart from the human rules, but that does not yet mean that we can’t be able to become set-apart our selves (being holy).
Fulfiller of Law
By only doing God’s Will and not the one of his own, Jesus proofed to God and to mankind that man is able to keep to God’s Will. By his way of living and giving himself for mankind he opened the way for a restored relationship between God and mankind.
For centuries man had tried to live according to God’s regulations, but did not seem to succeed. Now there was this Nazarene man who succeeded. By doing so he fulfilled the law and liberated all others from the Old Ordinances bringing them under a New Covenant, a New Regulation. By the sealing of his death a start was given to a New World.
Jesus died as a perfect payment for all the past, present, and future sins of all people. Though now people do have to recognise that sacrificial offering and have to come to see that Jesus is the Way to God now.
Matthew 5:17 NHEBJE “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
In a certain way do we not need the Mosaic Law any more, when we accept Jesus as our new law giver. God gave him authority to teach the world and to judge the world. We are by Christ Jesus Justified by faith. So it is up to people to follow Jesus or either to ignore him like many ignore Jesus his heavenly Father, the Only One God.
Through Christ Jesus righteousness is granted to us, and not any more by the Mosaic Law. He nailed the law and its consequences unto the stake. Through Jesus the sacrificial laws have been nullified and the temple curtain has been torn to allow all who know God to come to him, unrestricted, through the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 2:8-16 NHEBJE (8) for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, that no one would boast. (10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them. (11) Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision,” (in the flesh, made by hands); (12) that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (13) But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. (14) For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, (15) having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace; (16) and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
Ordering works and ways of living
From the Jews there were ordered works of Torah, but those who came to Christianity should have to see that Jesus nailed the Old Covenant to the stake and as such did not have to keep to certain laws of food and customs.
Paul had also come to see that certain Jews did more live like gentiles and therefore questioned a.o. Cephas how he who lived not like a Jew, could force the Gentiles to live like Jews.
The Jews by birth who followed Jeshua understood that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Jeshua’s followers believed in the Nazarene man to be the Messiah, the promised sent one from God. They were convinced that by works of the law no one will be justified.
From the 1° Adam onwards all man had been with sin except Christ Jesus. Jeshua did not become a servant of sin. Those converts to the teachings of Jeshua died to the Mosaic Law so that they might live to God. They should walk and live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us all.
Galatians 2:14-21 NHEBJE (14) But when I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, how can you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do? (15) “We, being Jews by birth, and not Gentile sinners, (16) yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. (17) But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not! (18) For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker. (19) For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God. (20) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. (21) I do not make void the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”
False teachings unsettling minds and burdens
In the early times of Christianity already false teachers could be found and people who disturbed others by their teaching and unsettled others their minds. The assembled meeting of Jewish brethren unanimously resolved to select representatives and send them to the ecclesiae so that they could hear how the view was made under the direction of the Holy Spirit after prayer and wise consult. By word of mouth the message was given to the other ecclesia. They agreed that it was for the Holy Spirit and their meeting that had decided not to lay upon others any burden but this indispensable one, that they had to avoid whatever has been sacrificed to idols, the tasting of blood and of the meat of animals that have been strangled, and immorality. They in first instance had to keep themselves free from these things.
Acts 15:24-29 NHEBJE Because we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, to whom we gave no commandment; (25) it seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose out men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, (26) men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (27) We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves will also tell you the same things by word of mouth. (28) For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things: (29) that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell.”
As such old customs like bringing certain offers, tithing, were not necessary any more, because even by the Jews there were ones who did not like it and tried to escape from it.
From several parables and sayings form Jeshua, Jesus Christ, we do know that it is much more important to live according to the spirit of the Law, be it Mosaic or any other law, than to the letter.
End of the law
Those people who say they are Christian should follow the teachings of the master-teacher, rabbi Jeshua, and should accept his words about himself, his heavenly Father and about how we do have to live.
He also gave a golden rule which should guide us through our life and be our goal to love God and God His creation, like Jesus loved us we should love ourself and one another.
John 13:34-35 NHEBJE A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. (35) By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 15:12-13 NHEBJE “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. (13) Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 14:21 NHEBJE One who has my commandments, and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”
Romans 10:4 NHEBJE For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Colossians 2:6-17 NHEBJE (6) As therefore you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him, (7) rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, even as you were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving. (8) Be careful that you do not let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. (9) For in him all the fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily, (10) and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power; (11) in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; (12) having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (13) You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, (14) wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; (15) having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. (16) Let no man therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, (17) which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.
Shabbat Nachamu (thejc.com)
The Shabbat after Tishah b’Av is called Shabbat Nachamu, meaning the Shabbat of comfort. It is named after the first words of the haftarah from Isaiah 40, “Comfort, comfort my people”.
After the deepening mourning of the three weeks for the Temples’ destruction leading up to Tishah b’Av, (culminating in not eating meat or bathing in the days preceding the fast), this Shabbat brings comfort and relief.
Parsha Emor: Is There A Shabbat In Other Realms? (jewishpress.com)
In our Torah reading for holidays, we not only recite the laws of holidays, we include Shabbat, and oddest of all, some laws about sacrificing animals. What do all these laws have to do with one another? In this video, Rabbi Fohrman makes a fascinating argument about how Shabbat works and shows that there are shabbatot in different realms.
Shabbat Chol Hamo’ed Pesach (thejc.com)
In general, it is fair to characterise the Torah commentators of the Middle Ages such as Rashi, Avraham ibn Ezra or Ramban as looking to provide the real meaning of the text.
This contrasts with the Chasidic writers of the last 300 years, who often afford themselves considerable latitude and allow the words of the Torah to soar and lead us to a truth and meaning well beyond the original context. Such interpretations may not obviously explain the literal meaning of the words but can be powerful insights into our spiritual lives.
The Early Christians of Philippi (catholicexchange.com)
Lydia was a business woman who dealt in purple cloth – she is therefore sometimes referred to as “Lydia Purpuraria” – Lydia the Purple-Seller. She evidently had roots in Asia Minor (Turkey) for she was said to be of Thyatira … an ancient city there (in a region curiously called “Lydia”). After being baptized, Lydia generously let her home in Philippi be
Note on the Physical Land of Israel: Who Inherits the Land of Israel – Christian or Jew? (ilyston.wordpress.com)
This irrevocable promise to the seed of Abraham has been expanded. It is no longer bound to the land of Palestine. In Romans 4:13, we find that Paul states that Abraham is the “heir of the world.” This is also stated in Psalms 25:13: “His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth” (Cf. Psalm 37:9, 11, 27). Thus, it would seem that the promise of the land has extended to the entire world.
This is not merely a Pauline distinctive. We also find this idea in Jewish intertestamental writings.
Some two thousand years ago there was a man called Jeshua, today better known as Jesus, who claimed to be the sent one from God and to be bringing God’s Word. He used many old writings in his sermons which were considered writings from the ‘men of God‘ and part of the Holy Scriptures. Though several theologians consider those Holy Scriptures as the (absolute) Truth in every part and whole, because they are breathed out by God Himself. (John 17:17; Matthew 5:18; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:23; 2 Peter 1:21) often they bring teaching contradicting what is said in those holy books.
Robert Kilwardby (c. 1215 – 11 September 1279) first member of a mendicant order to attain a high ecclesisatical office in the English Church [1352 fresco by Tommaso da Modena (1326–1379)- church of San Nicolò, Treviso]Those theologians want us to believe they are the only ones who can understand the Scriptures because they have learned to do that. They also want us to believe that we should listen to their words otherwise we shall not be able to find God. Giving us that impression they forget that Jesus claims to be the one who shows clearly Who his Father, the Only OneTrue God is and shows us the Only Way, Truth and Life by which one can come to be reconciled to God the Father, and that, the invitation to be reconciled comes from the Holy Spirit and not by human beings their ideas. (John 6:44, 14:6)
Joh 6:44-51 NHEBJE No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. (45) It is written in the Prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to me. (46) Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. (47) Truly, truly, I tell you, he who believes has eternal life. (48) I am the bread of life. (49) Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. (50) This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. (51) I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Joh 14:6 NHEBJE Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
It is by Christ Jesus that God is revealed to us when God is willing to let His Power come over us and guide us. though we may live in a world where it looks like God is absent, He is not . Throughout the ages Jehovah, the Only OneTrue God has always being very involved.
Humankind should know that it is part of god’s attributes to Be, carrying the essence “I AM” in Him. Having Him always everywhere as an eternal Spirit, who cannot be seen by man or thy would die, God keeps revealing Himself constantly to mankind. Mankind has a hard time hearing, though. Even precious men of God sometimes lost track. Also for them at certain moments contact seemed to be broken.
Man should know that it is not always his ways which come true. Not always does God reveal Himself when and how we want. It might be annoying for us He does not follow always our timing, but God has His own timing for everything. We are just one tiny element in His creation. When we do not see, hear or do not feel any contact with Him it does not mean that God is absent and silent. It might mean that you’re missing his communication to you.
According to biblical and historical accounts, God has revealed Himself in the past by many means (including physically and bodily). Though often man does not hear the Voice of God or does not see His guidance.
Job 33:13-14 NHEBJE Why do you strive against him, because he doesn’t give account of any of his matters? (14) For God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention.
We do not need the theologians to get to know God and to see what He has done. Jesus asks us to believe simply because of the things he has done and promises the Spirit. Like it was the Comforter of Holy Spirit Who came to teach the apostles everything, and reminded them of everything Jeshua had said to them, the Power of God shall also come unto us if we are willing to open our mind.
Joh 14:12-17 NHEBJE Truly, truly, I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. (13) Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (14) If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. (15) If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (16) I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever, (17) the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive; for it does not see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.
Illustration of each of the 28 articles of the Augsburg Confession by Wenceslas Hollar.
Denominations, clergy, & seminaries are using systems of thought that drive their ideals. The many churches you can find in this world often put their aims and goals in the front-line and do place the words of Scripture in the way it suits them. Many may want you to believe those theological theories and many philosophies (even ones that attempt to be biblically based) must be very important and may not be put aside because they drive everything that anyone ever does, writes, thinks or says. But in Christianity you should be driven by the teachings of Jesus Christ and not by human traditions nor by teachings of clergy, which most often or dogmatic teachings from their own denomination. They, who have taken time enough to study religions and to study the Word of God may guide you and help you to find ways to interpret the Bible, but the best guide is the Bible itself, and that you never should forget.
If the Scriptures themselves are unchanging, then why is it that different teachers seem to fall into different “camps” of interpretation?
you may ask.
Dr. Tony Garland writes:
There are numerous factors which contribute to these differences of opinion about what the Scriptures teach on secondary issues, but perhaps the largest influence has to do with how one reads the Scriptures. In particular, are the passages taken plainly at face value like normative communication? Or is some other interpretive lens imposed upon the text. Also: are distinctions which are found within the text accounted for or are they glossed over or worse, “spiritualized” in an attempt to find a deeper meaning or application which differs from that which the original author intended. Another influential factor concerns predispositions and biases which interpreters bring to the text. These predispositions and biases work to prevent the interpreter from accepting the plain meaning of the text – especially where it may differ from already-held ideas or beliefs.
The combination of these factors helps explain why the different theological systems came to be. Moreover, once certain aspects of one’s interpretive view have been established, other aspects of Scriptural teaching tend to follow. Thus, although there are many variations in theological positions, most tend to fall into one of several major categories such as Covenant, Reformed, or Dispensational. {Covenant, Reformed, and Dispensational Theology – What Do They Mean?}
What we can see is that several people had difficulties with previous teachings or interpretations of the Bible. Often they were confronted with powerful institutions against they wanted to react.
About the Reformed teachings it is said that they wanted to emphasize more strongly the belief that all Christian teaching and practice must find its origin directly in the Scriptures and should not be based upon tradition, though soon their teachings also embroidered on their own teachings and traditions.
Another aspect of Reformed Theology is a strong emphasis on what it sees as a cultural mandate for Christians to live actively in society and work for the transformation of the world and its cultures. Although sound in concept (believers are to be salt and light and oppose and expose works of darkness – Pr. 28:4; Mat. 5:13-16; Eph. 5:11), where this cultural mandate is taken to an extreme it can lead to an over-emphasis on social work and even the denial of Scriptural truth concerning the predicted apostasy of this age and the reality of the coming tribulation (Mat. 24:10-12; 2Th. 2:3; 1Ti. 4:1-3; 2Ti. 3:1) – in effect concluding that Christianity will reform the world rather than the Scriptural truth that the world will ultimately reject Christ ushering in a time of fearful judgment (Isa. 13:12; Jer. 30:7; Dan. 12:1; Mat. 24:21; Mark 13:19; Rev. 6; 7:14; 9:15; etc.). Influenced by this cultural mandate, the outlook of Reformed Theology is generally amillennial (there is no literal 1,000 year kingdom of Christ on earth: Rev. 20:4-7) or postmillennial (Christ returns after an indeterminate golden age where society yields to the reforming influence of Christianity). {Covenant, Reformed, and Dispensational Theology – What Do They Mean?}
By time also different theologies came into existence:
Generally speaking, one can divide theological reference tools into three broad categories.
Systematic Theologies – Seek to present theological material systematically according to specific categories that frame the discussion, e.g., the nature of God, the work of the Spirit, the essence of sin, etc.
Biblical Theologies – Seek to present theological material according to categories more directly related to those of the Biblical authors, books, and corpuses; seek to give special attention to the progressive unfolding of this theological material across Biblical history and the Biblical canon.
Historical Theologies – Seek to present developmnent of Christian theology throughout church history and spanning various theological traditions. Some are organized according to historical period while others are organized topically. {Key Bible and Theological Reference Tools: Theologies}
Understanding the Biblical use of the different terms was the debate point and the continued starting point of thinking by the Trinitarian Constantine doctrine which prevented a clear view and understanding for many clergy and theologians and their followers.
When people come to know Christendom better they over time shall become aware of differing interpretations, sometimes get to know these differing views their names (e.g., Covenant Theology, Reformed Theology, Preterism) and shall come to decide which opinion they would like to follow. Most important for their and your decision is to come to a choice about how to read and understand the Scriptures without doing violence to all that they teach.
Making a choice you also should consider if you want to be a disciple of Christ or a disciple of one or other theologian.
When you come to understand that humankind originally fitted within the universe as a divine agency, initially being designed by the Divine Creator to be a regent race on earth, but having drifted away from the Sovereign Maker, you have to wonder which way you want to go. With the knowledge that mankind’s current nature and ways are not now as the Creator originally intended we do have to take on our own responsibility and have to find out for ourselves what God’s intentions were and are and how we want to fit in in that Plan of God.
The Roman Catholic Church works diligently to acquire all sects, including Evangelicals, in the name of unity. Perhaps that comes as no surprise to those who are aware of 1994’s Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Yet, the more recent agenda of the Vatican comes as a result of Benedict’s declaration in 2010 that it is “time to revive the ecumenical spirit.” That statement was made on the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference, which marked the beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement. More precisely, Benedict’s allusion finds its source in Vatican II, 1964 when Catholics began praying for “the soul of the ecumenical movement” (Christian Today). Thus, Pope Francis continues the rallying cry of unity; and, because of ECT, those who ascribe to the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches lend their aid.
What you will NOT notice in this ecumenical “revival” movement is repentance from false teachings common to the Catholic Church and liberal Christian theology. {Time to Revive… The Ecumenical Spirit}
It is up to each individual to make the right choice, either to follow human beings who say of themselves they have the exquisite ‘knowledge of the theos’ because they have followed a university course in theology, or to follow the man who was sent by God and showed mankind the way to God, Jesus Christ.
The God of order and clarity let His son speak and do wonders in His name, so that we could see the works of God and could come to know God and could come at peace with Him. By keen powers of self-observation, we can tell if we are letting the flesh win or the Spirit win and can come to see if we are preferring to follow human tradition or are willing to give ourselves to the Words of the Bible, letting them to come unto us giving us biblical insight instead of human doctrines.
How far does one want to go about that ‘unity’ or an ecumenical church? What would be such ‘universal Church’ and how much would be allowed in the differences of believes? Would those people grouping together consider the different smaller groups still like sects?
Pope John Paul II
At first the Vatican did not give formal recognition to the existence of the ecumenical movement, which began with the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910, and led to the foundation of the World Council of Churches in 1948. In 1960 the Roman Catholic Church established the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and tried to jump on the boat, though it took until 1995 when Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint reaffirmed the Roman Catholic commitment to Christian ecumenism. Protestant and Orthodox Eastern observers were invited to the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and the Decree on Ecumenism (1964) promulgated by that council encouraged new dialogues with Protestant and Orthodox churches. In 1999 Pope John Paul II also visited Orthodox nations and signed a joint declaration with the Lutherans on the doctrine of justification that resolved some of the issues that led to the Reformation in 1517. We have seen already several mergers between individual churches and can see that such churches in several instances also put aside some of their original teachings or rules. Though we also have seen that some proposed mergers, like the one between the English Methodists and the Church of England, were rejected by their church-members. On the other hand we can find groups which under the terms of the full communion, can hold joint worship services, exchange clergy members, and collaborate on social service projects.
Image of the Dutch Reformation iconoclasm (Beeldenstorm) Image from: De eerste jaren der Nederlandsche Revolutie (1555-1568), Elsevier, Rotterdam 1882 Reproduction in: Het beleg van Haarlem; Haarlem’s heldenstrijd in beeld en woord 1572-1572, F. De Witt Huberts, Oceanus, 1944 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many in this world hate instruction from the Most HighElohim Hashem Jehovah, and throw God’s Words behind them, refusing correction and rejecting His commands (Psalm 50:17). Many rebelled and disobeyedGod’s laws. Some even killed God’s prophets, who warned them to turn back to God, and they cursed God’sHoly Name. There were those who like king David guarded God His misvoth (or commandments) and walked after Him with all their heart, to work only, straight in God His Eyes. But many others liked men’s words and and vilified to work above all who are at their face and went and worked other elohim and molten to vex the Most HighElohim and to bow down in front of graven images in front of beings they called ‘god‘.
Neh 9:26-27 NHEBJE “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their back, and killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. (27) Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries.
1Ki 14:9 NHEBJE but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made you other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back:
Today even in Christendom we can find many people bowing down in front of crucifixes or statues of Jesus or other persons. Those people call themselves also Christians but they seem to forget what God, the Adonai who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, Himself said about such a worshipping with bowing down in front of graven images.
Exo 20:2-7 NHEBJE “I am Jehovah your God, who 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 for yourselves an idol, nor any image 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 on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, (6) and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who 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 who takes his name in vain.
This God Who created the heavens and the earth demanded to follow His instructions.
Pro 4:13 NHEBJE Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let her go. Keep her, for she is your life.
Receive God His instruction rather than silver; God’s knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies. All the things that may be desired can’t be compared to it. (Proverbs 8:10-11)
Pro 13:13 NHEBJE Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command will be rewarded.
The law of truth should be found in followers of Christ but throughout history we can see that there were many who preferred to follow teachings by men who called themselves theologians. already at the time of the apostles false prophets came unto the scene and a few centuries later the ‘church’ sold her soul to the Roman Empire fulfilling the wishes of Caesar Constantine instead of keeping faithful to God’s commandments of honouring only One God Who is One.
When centuries later some rebellious priests found that the Bible alone (sola Scriptura) should have everything to say and to instruct and condemned the Roman Catholic Church, soon they too went the same way as that church making their own doctrines. A 2014 survey on American Evangelical beliefs found that most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church. Many came to understand that their personal (“alone”) interpretation of Scripture would be authoritative instead of taking the words like they are written in the Bible (Old and New testament) for what they really express.
Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine, accompanied by the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325), holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.
G. K. Chesterton remind us that it is arrogant to ignore the teachings of our forefathers in the faith, but we should be weary to find who was in the faith. They faced many of the same theological questions we do today, and their answers have stood the test of time, but that does not mean yet that their answers are the right ones. When we look at the previous theologians their writings we must remember that bishops and councils, after all, can err. We all should also remember that politics played a big part in it as well. That’s how the Nicene Creed came to be.
To protest against an error, such as Romanism, and to affirm that every man has a right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, is a very different thing to believing and obeying the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and walking in all the institutions of the Lord blameless. To do this would unchristianize a man in the estimation of State churches and sectarian denominations; for the Bible religion requires a man to “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”, which in these times cannot be done without upheaving the very foundations of the self-complacent, self-glorifying, and self-laudatory communions of the antipapal constitution of things. It is true that no man or power has a right to interfere between God and the conscience; but it is also true that no man has a right to worship God as he pleases. This is a Protestant fallacy. Man has a right to worship God only in the way God has Himself appointed. “In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” This is the judgment pronounced by the wisdom of God upon all worship which He has not instituted. He declares it to be vain worship; concerning which the apostle to the Gentiles says: “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath; let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels. Be not subject to dogmatisms (δογματίζεσθε) after the commandments and traditions of men; which things have indeed a show of wisdom in WILL-WORSHIP and humility.”
These exhortations apply to all faith and worship, Papal and Protestant. If Popery judges men in meats, Protestantism doth the same in drinks, and in the Sabbath; they both judge men in holy-days and “movable feasts”; and though Protestantism repudiates the worshipping of angels, it proclaims in its “fasts”, “preparations”, “concerts”, etc. a voluntary humility, anti celebration of “saints and martyrs”, renowned in legendary tales for “the pride that apes humility”. Let the reader search the scriptures from beginning to end, and he will nowhere find such systems of faith and worship as those comprehended in the Papal and Protestant systems. The gospel of the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus is not preached among them; they are communions which are uncircumcised of heart; theological dissertations on texts, called “sermons”, are substituted for “reasoning out of the scriptures”—for “expounding and testifying the Kingdom of God, and persuading men concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets”. Puseyism, Swedenborgianism, and all sorts of isms, to which in apostolic times the world was a total stranger, run riot among them; the lusts of the flesh, of the eye, and of the pride of life have extinguished even the energy and zeal of the antipapal rebellion out of which they have arisen; they are dead, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, and therefore the time is come to cut them off as a rotten branch from the good olive tree. Let therefore every man that would eschew the wrath which is begun, and who would become an heir of the kingdom of God, save himself from the unholy, lifeless, and effete denominations of these “Latter Days”. By remaining in them, a man partakes of their evil deeds, and subjects himself to their evil influences. The word of man has silenced the word of God in their midst; and religion has degenerated into a professional commodity sold for cash according to the taste which most prevails in the soul-makers of the world.so
Let us then “cease from men, whose breath is in their nostrils; for wherein are they to be accounted of?” “They be blind leaders of the blind”, in whom is no light, because they speak not according to the law and the testimony of God. Let us repudiate their dogmatisms; let us renounce their mysteries; and let us declare our independence of all human authority in matters of faith and practice outside the word of God. The scriptures are able to make us wise, which the traditions of “divines” are not. Let us then come to these scriptures, for we have the assurance that he who seeks shall find. But we must seek by the fight of scripture, and not permit that fight to be obscured by high thoughts and vain imaginations which exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. Great is the consolation that “the wise shall understand”, and “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament”. Be this then our happiness, to understand, believe, and do, that we may be blessed in our deed, and attain to the glorious liberty and manifestation of the sons of God.
To the Bible then let us turn, as to “a light shining in a dark place”, and, with humility, teachableness, and independence of mind, let us diligently inquire into the things which it reveals for the obedience and confirmation of faith. The object before us then will be, to present such a connected view of this truthful and wonderful book as will open the reader’s eyes, and enable him to understand it, and expound it to others, that he may become “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”; and be able intelligently to “contend for the faith”; and by “turning many to righteousness, to shine as the stars for ever and ever”.
In effecting this purpose, we must proceed as we would with any other book, or in teaching any of the arts and sciences; namely, begin at the beginning, or with the elements of things. This was the method adopted by the spirit of God in the instruction of the Israelites by Moses. He began His revelations by giving them, and us through them, an account of the creation of the heavens and the earth; of animals; and of man. This then would seem to be the proper place for us to start from; and as we have the system completely revealed, which they had not, we may extend our enquiries into the reason, or philosophy of things farther than they. Be this, then, our commencement; and may the Lord himself prosper our endeavours to decipher and understand His word, and to disentangle it from the crude traditions and dogmatisms of contemporary theologies, useful in their beginnings as “oppositions” to the Mystery of Iniquity, but now “waxed old and ready to vanish away” with the thing they have antagonized; but which, though consumptive of the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of the Image of the Beast, have by their glosses in effect taken from the people “the Key of Knowledge”, and thus shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men. Our endeavour will be to restore this “Key”, that they may understand “the mysteries of the kingdom”, and “have right, to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city”. And this we will do if God permit.
Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 6–9). 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??
If you frequent enough Christian blogs and websites, you’ll soon discover that there is a perceived threat to Christianity in those people who claim to be either agnostic or atheistic in their view of the divine and faith. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
Promotional for wikimania 2008 banner to be added to websites and blogs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We can find lots of atheist blogs writing against Christian Faith but also lots of blogs attacking Christian writers from other denominations than theirs. Certain church blogs or church websites are eager to spit on other church websites or to say other Christian websites or blogs are form the devil.
On the net we can find lots of sites which doubt the existenceof God and the existence of Jesus.
The typical response to this “threat” is to argue using logical reasoning and rationality to prove God exists, that Jesus is God, and that in order to live a fulfilled life, one must accept Jesus as savior and make that jump from no belief to full belief in Christ. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
Those who say Jesus is God are pushed in the corner by those who say there is no god and as such Jesus can not have existed, though they forget Jesus is a historical figure like Plato, Euripedes, and others have been historical figures. Though often less is written about them nobody doubt that they existed and that they have done what is said about them. Strange then when we have the Nazarene man who was killed because he was too much of a log jam. The impediment Jew, who was to troublesome for the Romans and for the Jewish higher class, priests and Pharisees, was much more spoken off in his time and afterwards than many other historical figures everybody long after their death still accept that they existed. So why doubting about Jesus Christ, whose real name was Jeshua from Nazareth, from the tribe of king David.
Being a Christian we should believe in him who was so many years ago a living soul on this earth. We cannot
fault the belief that Jesus is the way to truth and fulfillment.
Living in this world we can not ignore it and should see what is happening in it and how people are behaving. In this world we also do have to not only observed the world around us, interact with people on a personal level who don’t believe as we do,we shall have to make choice and have to decide how much we would like others to know about our own faith.
We can spent time listening to and reading on different viewpoints of current culture and philosophy, and as Rob Martin points out
the trend towards agnosticism and atheism in Western culture today is not just simply a lack of belief in Jesus. It is much more fundamental than that and requires a different approach than the traditional “believe in Jesus” rhetoric of the past 60 years. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
The trend toward agnosticism, atheism, and other forms of unbelief is gathering force, especially among the young. And churches simply don’t know how to counter it.
and presents in this book a fundamentally different approach to apologetics. It is true that theexistence or nonexistence of a deity or deitiesmay not be knownwithcertainty, that firstprinciples or absolutetruth is unattainableandthatonlyperceptualphenomenaareobjects of exactknowledge, but that when we look around us and feel in our inner-being we can feel the ‘instinct’ and have that only one divine doctrine: to believe that there is A DivineCreatorGod. And that is really the only doctrine we should speak of, because all other matters are spoken of in the Bible and can be checked and proven.
Rather than defending Jesus as God, he brings a perspective where in the argument starts, first, with simply taking the step towards believing in a god. His argument is that it is not necessarily so much the existence of a deity that so much prevents people from converting to Christianity but the deity that is so frequently presented as the Christian God. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
Problem with many atheists but also with many Christians is that they cannot see the difference between divine, divinity and the Most HighDivine. they also do not see to understand that there are titles being used in the world which may not be taken as name or as limited to only one individual, be it someone from this earth or some extraterrestrial being if there may be such beings.
Shane argues not from a perspective of a Christian who is trying to convince atheists to believe but from an agnostic who actually understands this perspective of skepticism and doubt and presents an argument that one can be a theist, even a Christian, and still be an agnostic. This is probably one of the most intriguing arguments that I’ve heard and it makes sense. From Shane’s perspective, there is a lot about believing in the divine and believing in the Christian God that is difficult to swallow from a purely logical and rational stand point. And, based upon some of the more “fundamentalist” arguments of needing to believe in certain literal interpretations of scripture, it seems that one needs to completely suspend their reason and logic in order to believe in the Christian God.
Christian Atheist (Peter Lumsden, d. 2007) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We also do believe Shane is right, that there can be a theist and a atheist, both doubting about matters of religious views and wondering about the or a divine God. Shane also speaks about a Christian God but does not say what he thinks Christians believe to be God or does not specifies the sort of Christians he is talking about or “which Christian God”. The anabaptist writer Martin does not specify that either.
To Martin, Shane and us it makes sense and it is okay to maintain doubts and scepticism.
As a creature, literally one who is created, for me to be able to fully comprehend the Creator and all of the Creator’s reasons and plans and purposes would mean that I would need to be on the level of the Creator myself, which I’m not. So, it makes perfectly rational and logical sense to admit that there are many things that we do not know for certain. And, as Shane points out, this is where faith steps in. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
We not only should come to understand our limitations of knowledge, we also should come to live with the acceptance of our limitations and our restricted views on certain matters. For man this is not so simple as it looks at first site. We mostly want to have an high esteem about ourselves and do not want to have others see our limitations and shortcomings. We even less want them to point them out to us. We mostly are too pride to admitthatwehave limitations andstillhave verymuch to learn.
But we should not be ashamed that we do not know everything and that we do still have to learn a lot. Better is to admit that and try to learn more instead of confiding and to be happy with what we think to know already.
When going to start to look for reasons why and how to live, to look for the beginning of life, God and the matters or stories around God His son Jesus we do have to look at the beginning of the world and have to find our place in it.
According to Shane
the best path from atheism to Christianity is not in the immediate jump but to simply take the small step towards a “pure” theism, that being in the belief that there is a deity but that it does not need to be, specifically, the Christian God (or any specific god for that matter). {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
Undoubted we do have to find the Creator or the starting point first. When we want to know more about Jesus we shall also get to know what he believed how the world came into being, Who is behind everything and what is going to happen next. We shall have to look to the first cause.
Shane his primary argument for theism comes also from the idea of a first cause.
No matter your belief in the beginnings of the universe, at some point there is a first cause is Shane’s argument. Logically speaking, it is just as plausible to believe in a deity as a first cause as any other force.For me, Shane’s most powerful chapter was the trial between faith and reason. This was a very well written allegorical representation of some of the more classical arguments for and against theism with the pro-theist argument taking the perspective that the good of the universe greatly outweighs the bad as an argument for a benevolent deity. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
We could say we should first come to the knowledge about the beginning of the universe and about the well or not being a Divine Creator. But that are aspects we leave mostly to be examined by other webpages, because here on this platform we go already one step further, though at certain points we shall not be able to go around the facts to discuss the Creator Himself as well. But our main focus here on this site shall be on Jesus. Because he was already spoken of by the creation of man we shall not be able to skip this facet of his life, plus it will be also very important to brake with the very big misunderstanding of lots of Christians who want to believe in many gods having taken part in the creation (see later in the posting “The very very beginning”)
The onset of this site is not to go deeper into theism. For that there is “Stepping Toes” a.o..
To argue for a theism perspective rather than simply giving a defense for Christianity seems to work best for our post-modern/post-Christian cultural trend. With all the Christians out there who are giving Christianity a bad name in their efforts to re-Christianize society, in their rather prejudiced and unloving ways of interacting, and in their schizophrenic reading of the Bible with Jesus preaching one thing and the Old Testament preaching another, it seems best that if anyone is going to journey away from atheism towards theism, they should first take the relatively small step towards simply believing in a deity. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
Today we are too often confronted with Christians giving Christianity a bad name. They often give each other bad names and shout horrible things to Christians who do not believe the same as they. Often they also soon menace the other and threaten with hell, for them a place of damnation and eternal torture. Many people noticing that going on on the worldwibe web, start loosing their interest in the Christian community, considering them a bunch of little children fighting and quibbling all the time with each other.
Today on the net lots of things are presented as
rather matter-of-factly and “well, it’s obvious that…” A true skeptic and atheist would rankle at that kind of presentation and be turned off by it. Perhaps this is part of the problem with all apologetic literature in this post-modern era. Relationships are treasured over rationality and it is difficult to build a relationship with an author when all you have is text on the page. {Book Review: The End of Unbelief}
On this site are focus is only going to be mostly on one part of believe matter in the Christian Faith, namely on the person of Jesus Christ and what he said and how his followers have continued or not in the tradition of this Jewish Master Teacher and how by time several teachers used the teachings of that rabbi in a different way, altering what he said but also altering the person himself as well. We shall see that even the majority of Christians do not any more belief what God the heavenly Father said about His son and what the son himself said about himself and about his heavenly Father. that has become the whole problem of Christendom and making it so much more the difficult for people to find the true path, or the Way Christ Jesus prepared for them.
Do not worry when you have many doubts and question about Jesus and God, the Bible and what is going to happen to the world. If you are also troubled by the many different visions of the many denominations and are disgusted how certain church people behave, like the abusing priests, a.o., always do know that you are then looking at man, human beings with their own faults and limitations. Do not concentrate on their words as always having to be true. Compare all the sayings of people, churches, with what is really written in the Bible and listen to your heart.
By regularly reading the Bible you shall be able to find out a lot. All answers are in it. You just have to look in it, put all human doctrines aside, and believe the words written in the book of books.
We are pleased to find you here and do hope you shall join us in the quest for life, the Way, the path of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
True Image of Jesus Christ Revealed & It’s Not What You Ever Imagined! (therebel.website)
There are many images put before us that condition our minds about the appearance of Jesus Christ. Let’s take a look, Biblically and historically speaking, at what Jesus Christ would have really looked like.
How a 35 Year Old Jewish Lawyer Finds Jesus (therecoveringlegalist.com) Originally posted on Truth in Palmyra:
A….35 year old…..Jewish….lawyer…finds Jesus. If the emphasis on those three things seems a bit much, allow me to explain. We all know that the older one is, the more resistant one tends to be to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most people, if not converted by 35 will not be.
Religious But Lost (altruistico.wordpress.com)
The man was lost. That is, he did not have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus adhered to strict Jewish codes and laws, so he was certainly religious. But the problem of the lost person is not attitudes, conduct, or even character. We can change and control those through sheer determination, and many folks do. What people really need is a change of condition. We come into this world with a sinful nature that is bent away from God.
Atheists have more problems than just God (dvorak.org)
Christians who turn Atheist seem to think that getting rid of God is the cure for what ails them. That becoming an Atheist means that you have arrived at the Truth, But you haven’t.
A quick thought on labels (freethoughtblogs.com)
The previous discussion on the varieties of New Atheism had me thinking. We’ve already tried contriving a new label for those of us who think atheism should be broad and dedicated to more than just rejecting deities and intersectional — that was Atheism+.
Almost one in five Britons is now an atheist as a generational shift away from religion gathers force, a poll for The Times has found.
Experts said that the country was becoming more comfortable with atheism than with faith after the data revealed that public figures win approval for questioning the existence of God, while Christians are more than twice as likely as atheists to say that they struggle to speak openly about their beliefs.
Morer Questions For The Atheist. (debatepolitics.com)
Although the literal definition of “atheist” is “a person who believes that God does not exist,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, 14% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a universal spirit.
Stand Tall In Faith (mylordmyfriend.com)
There have been many challenges to the Christian Faith, down through the centuries, and there are likely to be many more before Jesus returns. There are numerous statement of faith, put out to counteract challenges, to the basic essentials of our faith.Jesus answered Peters confession, “That Jesus is the Christ, and the Son of The living God”Matthew 16 verse 16: Jesus declares that upon that Confession, the He is The Christ, He will build His Church.
That is the concrete slab of faith, what Jesus came to do and what He did through the Cross. One of the statements of faith, that was established, by the forefathers, to counteract, heresies and mysticism which tried to wrongly attach themselves to the Truth, about Christ Jesus was, The Nicene Creed. It is a wonderful statement of faith.
Christianity is under fire. Christian leaders are starting to recognize the signs of states trying to squelch the faith. After all, it’s happened before.
![Robert Kilwardby (c. 1215 – 11 September 1279) first member of a mendicant order to attain a high ecclesisatical office in the English Church [1352 fresco by Tommaso da Modena (1326–1379)- church of San Nicolò, Treviso]](https://messiahforall.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/robert_kilwardby.jpg)
Messiah For All 