Predestination Is Not Election

Posted on August 20, 2019 by ehurst

The Doctrine of Election isn’t really in the Bible, but Sovereign Grace is.

Keep in mind that the Scriptures were written mostly by Hebrew people. God designed their language and culture as the means to reveal Himself to fallen humanity. The Hebrew language itself is inherently symbolic; most common expressions were parables. This language arose from the Ancient Near East, a range of people, places and cultures that were utterly convinced that there was a Spirit Realm, but that you could not possibly describe it in human language. So virtually all ANE languages were indicative, not descriptive. Ultimate truth is beyond actual knowing, yet that ultimate reality made serious demands on human existence.

And while the Hebrew people were notorious for falling away from their Covenant, the firm assertion of Scripture is that there is only one God — their God Jehovah. The whole of Hebrew Scripture points to a very personal reality, animated with the life force of Jehovah. Everything in reality was seen in light of relations with Him. He is depicted as an imperial eastern potentate, a tribal feudal ruler. His nation was His family, adopted by covenant. He was ever-present in all of Creation. The whole of human existence was a matter of how devoted one was to His dominion and authority.

If you read Romans 9, Paul’s clearest statement on predestination, you realize that the term he used (Greek: proorizo — a horizon established in advance) applies to God’s mercy on people in this life. That is, it’s predestination in the sense of your lot in life. While it most certainly implies eternal destiny, there is really very little said about that directly.

This is a very Hebrew approach to the question. Don’t focus on your eternal destiny because there is no way we can talk about it. However, be aware that there is an eternal Spirit Realm where the consequences of things in this life are played out. In Hebrew revelation, death means the end of your opportunities to seek Jehovah’s favor, to bring Him glory. Seek His glory in this life because no one can explain what happens afterward. In other words, there is precious little about us going there, and an awful lot about how that other realm affects life here.

Backing up to the previous chapter in Romans, Paul encourages his readers to seek the power and glory of eternity in the here and now — “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). Even when he says something about what lies beyond death (8:18), he then goes on to talk about how that demands we manifest divine glory here and now. When we talk about eternity, the only way to hold that discussion is to talk about what it demands of us in this world. The word “saved” (8:24) falls in the context of redemption of our current existence. We need that expectation of eternity to cope with this life.

Thus, the whole discussion of predestination is focused on conforming to the image of Christ (8:29). Predestination is all about choosing us before we even enter this life (sovereign grace), but seeks to shape what this life will be for us. We are then required to make appropriate choices about our lot in life. Get your priorities straight in this world and eternity will take care of itself.

In that sense, we see that the classical systematic theology statement about divine election misses the point. It tries to settle a question about something we cannot possibly know in this life. Sure, you can become quite secure and convinced in your own eternal destiny, but it comes in the personal awareness of God’s favor, not some declared official status. Election cannot be objectified; it is inherently personal in nature.

When Paul addresses the issue of works, it is invariably in the context of dealing with Jewish legalism. Even Greek and Roman folks knew better than that nonsense. And the Epistle of James castigates Hellenized Jews for trying to separate works from faith. Thus, when Paul says legalistic performance won’t serve any purpose, he’s on the same sheet of music with James. The key to God’s favor is seeking it through revelation. Revelation is inherently mystical, symbolic, full of parables, because there is simply no way human language can capture the essence of the Spirit Realm where God and His throne reside. Jesus taught in parables to indicate truth in a way that would unite heart and mind in service to the Father, but could not carry the mind there alone.

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What’s Wrong with Augustine?

Posted on August 19, 2019 by ehurst

(This is being cross-posted on both blogs.)

A fundamental element in my personal sense of calling is putting the gospel message in reach of everyone. There are plenty of good servants of God who helped me along the way; most of them were academics in one sense or another. My job has been to bring that high brow stuff down, largely by seeing the foundation clearly, but emphasizing the implications. I am okay with high-brow stuff, but it’s not my mission to operate on that level very much, especially in what I write.

So when someone asks me about Augustine of Hippo, it requires warning you that if you want a high browed discussion from me, you are asking the wrong guy. Still, my summary is likely to answer the basic questions.

The man himself was a Berber, but born long after the overpowering Roman influence had changed his native land in North Africa. Thus, his family spoke Latin at home and prided themselves on upholding the best of Roman civilization. He passed through a very strong academic background, which included a hefty admiration for Hellenism, as well. Eventually he became a Christian and embraced a very romanized brand of Christian religion. His high intellect and solid classical education produced a body of work that remains influential in Western Christianity today.

On the one hand, his writings could be considered the foundation of Western Christianity in a certain sense. Not in the sense that he is the whole thing, but he represents a major turning point in pulling things back together after they had begun to fragment and scatter intellectually. He was a big-picture thinker. There’s nothing wrong with reading modern translations of his stuff if you have the time and inclination; you can find free copies on the Net.

Here’s the fundamental issue: He represents the turning point away from heart-led faith. He brought faith down into the realm of the intellect in a way that changed the shape of Western Christian religion forever. In his own thinking, he was trying to make faith reasonable, to show that faith and reason were not enemies. But he was already deeply infected by the notion of the heart as something far less than the way the Bible depicts it. In his writing, the heart is crippled compared to the biblical image. He still sees the heart as ruling, but with serious limiations.

He had no notion of the heart with its own “mind” superior to the intellect. He moved that function into the brain, and sets up the idea that the mind is not completely fallen. His work prepares the way for the Roman Church to declare that the intellect can be more-or-less morally perfected, that it can be fully redeemed while in this life. That perception is the foundation for how the Roman Church has turned out.

I’m not claiming credit for originating this criticism. Granted, I have yet to find anyone else who says it like this, but I’m sure others have grasped this before me. I learned heart-led as a conscious notion from non-Christian sources. It’s inherent in the traditions of the Ancient Near East, and very obviously consistent with the ancient Hebrew traditions, though seldom directly explained in studies on that. Even standard commentaries you find in Christian homes will tell you the Bible sees the heart as the seat of the will, in the sense of commitment and faith. But it is also consistent with some of the pagan philosophical stuff you can find in more recent writings. There are some very bright non-Christians who picked up on this as they struggled to find something deeper than Western Christian theology. But even among pagans, the heart-led way tends to be a minority view.

Still, we can be sure that the whole concept of the heart as a sensory organ and a distinctly separate “mind” that can process what it senses, and as a superior source of understanding of philosophical issues is nothing new. It is the best explanation so far for what I have lived with most of my life, and answered all my questions about faith. It soothed all my soul’s wounds from the abuse at the hands of a world that prefers Augustine’s approach. I won’t tell you this is God’s answer to all humanity; it’s the answer that works for me.

Standing on Augustine is an excellent start down the path of criticism for the Enlightenment and everything that follows it. But all that does is drag things back as far as Augustine. We still need to be aware of Augustine’s major failure. Not that he consciously rejected the truth of the heart-led way, but that it was lost and buried by the time he came along. We can find glimmers of that higher path of the heart throughout Church History, but it was almost always the view that was rejected and squelched by the mainstream. We can thank Augustine for that.

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Driven by Calling

Posted on August 18, 2019 by ehurst

There’s a very driven man with a YouTube channel who fought with Tesla for quite some time over the right to restore wrecked Tesla cars using salvaged parts. It doesn’t matter that I really believe electric vehicles — using current technology — are a complete waste of resources. What matters is how driven this man has been over the years, learning all there is to know about how Teslas are put together and how to diagnose and repair anything and everything on them. He did so all the while facing Tesla’s hostile attitude and outright interference in his efforts. He acknowledged that his persistence sounded like an obsession, but he’s a true believer in the technological concepts, as well as the basic right to actually own a physical object he can buy, and no one telling him what he can do with it. He now runs a business based on this whole idea. Yet you would be hard put to find any trace of arrogance in his demeanor; he just wants to help people.

In an interview, the legendary rock guitarist Eddie van Halen revealed how he was driven to experiment with guitars and amplifiers, learning how they worked and making some very early improvements in the actual design of the equipment. I honestly don’t like some of his songs, but I recognize his genius. Regarding his pioneering playing techniques, he openly credits a higher power that gave him his talent. He says he was driven by a sense of calling and remains humble about it to this day.

You can easily find more examples like these two. The world is full of such people, and the vast majority of them aren’t so talented, just driven. We keep coming back to this same point over and over: Seek a sense of calling from God. Don’t seek it because you want to achieve what the two men above have accomplished. They weren’t looking for fame and fortune. They were simply trying to scratch an itch; it was a matter of who they were as humans.

Isn’t it a little odd that we find paragons of faith outside of religion?

I am by no means a computer genius, nor any kind of Internet guru. I know only what I’m driven to learn about those things. Some of you have zero interest in my choice to use Linux and BSD, but I believe you understand how God uses my interest to draw people to His message. Maybe you know that I’ve also been obsessed with rediscovering the ancient Hebrew traditions, even to the point of rejecting my own cultural heritage for the most part. Every now and then I get a comment on one of the blogs from someone wanting me to go back and debate my choices. Those issues are settled in my heart and I’m not going to revisit them at the behest of someone who bristles at my faith.

I’m driven; I’m not looking back. There is no particular goal, only the sense of calling every day to go where God drives me. Yes, it tends to limit opportunities to have a better life, as most people measure such things. It tends to cut me off from friendships and even some of my earthly family. I often feel rather isolated and lonely, but I refuse to turn back. This is who I am.

This is the key to understand the ministry attached to Radix Fidem. This is who we are.

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Teachings of Jesus — John 14:18-24

Posted on August 17, 2019 by ehurst

Jesus is still talking along the lines of returning home to His Father’s heavenly court to take up His co-regency. The disciples are still expecting a restoration of the literal Davidic Kingdom of Israel. Their blindness here is almost painful.

Having just told them of the Comforter to come, Jesus reaffirms that they will not have to proceed alone. He will be back. He says this knowing they don’t get what He means, but will understand later when it actually happens as a historical event. When it happens, the world will no longer see Him because He will not take a human physical form. But He will be alive, something that they need to remember once the Crucifixion and burial comes. In that same sense, they will also live — it will be an accession of eternal life, a gift that comes to them because He will raise from the dead.

When that day comes, they will finally understand how they can be united with Him in the Holy Spirit. Up to now, the Holy Spirit did not typically enter the hearts of men, but drove them via proximity. As men drew near to Jehovah with their hearts, it was like the wind filling the sails of their souls. After the Ascension, the Holy Spirit would enter the soul and unite with them, more like a ship with a motor. The Spirit that comes will be a manifestation of both the Father and the Son, indistinguishable in the human experience.

But it will still require faith. Jesus builds the image based on the Old Testament parable of Himself as feudal master. One who truly embraces the covenant that Jesus offers becomes family; their familial passion will be obvious. And it will be considered the same commitment to the Father, because the Father and Son will be indistinguishable in human experience. Such people will get to know God as a Person, the Father closer than any human father could be.

The other Judas (Jude, AKA Thaddeus or Lebbeus) was just as lost as the others when he asked how it was possible that they would see Him and the world would not. How could this Messiah-King reign over Israel if only a handful could see Him?

If you were on the same track as Jude, you would think Jesus had ignored the question. Instead, Jesus was explaining why the question was missing the point. Anyone who is committed in faith to Jesus as Lord will embrace His message. This would amount to moving into the shadow of God’s divine favor, which has been standing there waiting for us since the beginning. When someone stands in God’s favor, both Father and Son will invade that person’s being in the form of the Holy Spirit. They will know that they are not alone.

This is not so with anyone who rejects that same message. Without that message, it is impossible to stand in God’s favor. No one can find it without a heart of faith, because the message itself is structured for the heart alone. This message did not originate from Jesus; it is the same ancient message of Jehovah from the Garden of Eden. Jesus merely came to make that message so obvious no one can pretend they can’t get it if they but wanted it.

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Fussing about Churchianity

Posted on August 16, 2019 by ehurst

I spent a little time recently reading specifically Christian news sites. Aside from one that holds a Catholic slant, most of them collect stories regarding American evangelical politics. There’s a lot of stuff aimed at pressuring US government entities to do things favorable to conservative evangelicals.

That would include some lawsuits I would consider totally frivolous, like the guy in Idaho who wants to be an independent construction contractor, but refuses to give the state his SSN because of his peculiar religious beliefs. We are convinced the Word says this man should simply accept the obvious, that for him to follow his peculiar religious rules will result in persecution. Persecution comes with following Christ, and we should consider it normal.

Sometimes the content of stories seek to hide something more sinister than trying to force government to make peculiar exemptions. You perhaps have noticed a number of evangelical influencers who have renounced their allegiance to cultural Churchianity — Marty Sampson of Hillsong and Joshua Harris of Covenant Life Church — along with several who are dragging their religion through the mud of public scandals. Most of these are associated with a peculiar thread in Western evangelical religion: Dominionism.

We’ve discussed that before. In broad terms, it is the religion of conquering the world politically in the name of Christ. This view is espoused by Hillsong and a handful of Calvinist organizations that have proliferated in the past decade. But the actual attempt to assert such political influence has been around since before WW2 in the US. Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family, while motivated by the panic of the left against even the slightest shred of conservative religious influence in society, is nonetheless an accurate warning about a very secretive program.

While many groups are ostensibly Dispensationalist/Zionist in belief, the broader Dominion Theology is quite often teamed up with the non-Zionist Covenant Theology of the more recent Calvinist revival. It is probably the single greatest political threat to globalism. Ever since the globalists and Zionists split some time ago, the latter has built a potent imperialist network intent on forcing Western evangelical cultural Christianity down everyone’s throat. They have infiltrated the ostensibly globalist intelligence community well enough to keep the Deep State from becoming even more blatantly partisan.

The single greatest threat to genuine faith is embracing traditional organizational models. What you see paraded as “new” church formation is merely the same old entrepreneurial model commonly used in niche entertainment businesses. I call them “entrepreneurial churches” because the model bears little resemblance to traditional churches, except perhaps in the most superficial ways. But it remains trapped in the single greatest lie the Devil has ever promoted: that churches should work to be taken seriously by the world. It’s part and parcel of head-centered religion. It goes all the way back to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine.

Still, we are not hostile to all organized Christian religion. We have been called to a very narrow and difficult path, and the mainstream churches don’t want us. Our ministry is aimed at giving a sense of fellowship and identity to folks who cannot fit themselves into the mainstream religious organizations. We serve those church’s interests, if not their concrete objectives. We most certainly aren’t trying to compete with, displace them or be like them in any way.

Not all of the news is bad. In case you have grown weary of the propaganda against Christian faith itself, here’s something to counter the lies. Someone who actually studied the situation tells us the numbers reveal a different story. People are still hearing the call, and trying to find a religious setting that answers to that sense of calling. We sincerely hope they find what they seek, because we know that the Lord works in churches, often despite the humans running the show.

Meanwhile, please note that I turned off JScript to visit these sites because they are among the very worst offenders about hounding visitors with the most atrocious and annoying advertising.

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Fellowship Is His Glory

Posted on August 15, 2019 by ehurst

The key to shalom is fellowship.

During my time serving with the US Army in the Netherlands, I became fully conscious of the power of Christian fellowship that reaches across sectarian boundaries. It was like stumbling into the light and opening my eyes. This was the key to meaningful faith. Those who hid out, seeking the fellowship of only their own brand of religion were missing out. Sadly, they gained the upper hand of chapel politics before I left. We were very close to the biblical model until the iron walls of human tradition rose up to block us off.

At the time, I was still struggling to overcome my own brand of human traditions. With few exceptions, all my efforts to recreate that sense of fellowship were crushed by the system to which I thought I belonged. After a decade of abuse trying to break me, that system finally spat me out.

Meanwhile, the primacy of fellowship as the mark of holiness had blossomed within my teaching. Once I renewed my philosophical understanding of Hebrew intellectual traditions, I realized that our single most powerful witness in this fallen world is how we love each other as fellow believers. Purity of doctrine means nothing if it doesn’t reap the harvest of shalom. There are boundaries, of course; otherwise there is no sense of covenant belonging. We are hard wired to seek a tribal identity. It means we must include these and exclude those. Those will have to form their own tribe because their faith demands things that won’t work in other tribes, where the demands of faith are yet different.

There is no place for hurt feelings if the context of fellowship changes. That’s just God’s signal for you to move on and take up a different ministry, encouraging and supporting the faith of yet a new tribe. So a critical component of divine obedience is learning the ways of fellowship and it’s necessary boundaries. And for those who stick around, it means learning how to keep compassion warm and alive, despite all the variations we bring to the covenant fellowship. It’s process, not product.

This is nothing new to any of you, I’m sure. It’s inherent in the heart-led way. But what most of you may struggle with is some misplaced instinct to leave your covenant brothers and sisters alone too much. Under ideal conditions, we wouldn’t be able to avoid each other. We would know what each other smelled like fresh out of bed and late at night. Because we fellowship through the means of the Internet, it means we must fill in the blanks of virtual fellowship by bugging each other, as it were. Even as an introvert, I long for the human connection with all of you.

There’s no sin in staying quiet when you have something God commands that takes up lots of time and attention. However, this should not be your standard M.O. Don’t deprive each other of the lifeblood of fellowship. Our shalom together is His glory.

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Gamma Culture

Posted on August 13, 2019 by ehurst

Before my brother died, he tried at one point to get me to listen to one of his favorite bands, Linkin Park. I agreed those boys had some talent, but I didn’t care for what they were saying. I didn’t remember much about it, so I listened to one of their songs on YouTube yesterday: “Numb.” Then I remembered why I didn’t like them. Whining about teen angst does not impress me. And yes, my brother wasn’t a really well adjusted happy camper, either. Substance abuse played a major role in his early demise.

He was 15 years younger than me, and had been very early to embrace the likes of Linkin Park and similar bands. He was on the leading edge of the generation behind me. I’ve noticed over the years that a significant portion of them were much more nerdy, in the sense of clustering around the Gamma Male scale of social development. Gammas tend to be sensitive, seeing abuse when it isn’t there, and refusing to let things go when they are offended. If Linkin Park’s guys were real men, they wouldn’t waste much time complaining about maltreatment. Instead, they would sing about their victories, or at the very least how noble it was to face difficult odds and not give up. The songs wouldn’t end in angst, but on some note of triumph.

What it tells me is that there is now a very high Gamma Male factor in the US. Not that nobody has noticed before, but this is particularly offensive to our brand of faith. It leads to a kind of blaming God for not making things better than they are, so that we have at best a bad view of Him, and at worst a nearly uniform rejection of divine revelation. It is the epitome of abusing human reason as an excuse to reject religion itself. It’s one more way the Devil seeks to keep souls captive through delusion.

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Dig the Bunker

Posted on August 12, 2019 by ehurst

Just so you’ll know ahead of time, it’s unlikely there will be any new insights to share in the near future. That is, I’m quite certain we’ll be granted fresh clarity that more tightly weaves together our understanding of revelation. There may even be some fresh implications explored now and then, but nothing really new. You already have it all in your heart somewhere, and it’s just a matter of getting you head to grasp it and run with it.

You already have what it takes to ask and perform miracles appropriate for God’s glory. You already have the faith it takes to lay down your lives, if you just exercise it. You have already seen grand visions of what God can do with our covenant and teaching. The trick now is to practice the discipline of staying with it, and not letting anything important slip away.

And just in time — any day now something is going to break. We need a consistent testimony of the Lord’s glory in the midst of the coming plagues. Just keep doing what you already know you should do. When the next level of tribulation hits, it will be too late to panic. If you aren’t already prepared to face it, there’s not much I can do to help you now.

So it may get quiet on this blog especially, and only the occasional technology noise on the other blog. I don’t want you to think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth. I am used to having something to say every day; that’s the way it has been for more than a decade. But now is the time to dig in and simply do what we know already. If you need a little fresh inspiration, it might help if I had some questions to ponder. If not, just get used to the silence. Don’t depend on me, but on the Lord.

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Celebrate His Wrath

Posted on August 11, 2019 by ehurst

The Lord hasn’t allowed me to see anything like a timetable. Still, what I do see is that the US is on the verge of some kind of economic collapse. That will eventually provoke a social and political chaos we cannot imagine. This country will shatter and there will be significant bloodshed. Things will be tough on us. The saints of God will tribulate.

You should rejoice. That is, in the sense we know this is the hand of God, we should welcome it. There will be no hiding, though the Lord has promised He will protect His own to some degree. That protection rests on obeying the Covenant of Christ. The obedience that marks us as different from the world is what paints the Blood of the Lamb on our doorposts.

But let me remind you all that a primary marker of our difference is that we celebrate the wrath of God even in our own lives. We call out to Him in prayer for His wrath to fall on sin, and we beg Him to start with us first. We want to be first in line for the cleansing power of the Lord. His wrath is His mercy. This is His glory, and we celebrate.

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Teachings of Jesus — John 14:12-17

Posted on August 10, 2019 by ehurst

In the Ancient Near East, every great ruler operated on the basis of a covenant. It was typical for such a ruler to pass this covenant to his heir, with a period of co-regency for the sake of smooth transition. Often the heir would be sent off on some mission to prove he was fit to take the throne, and on his return would be the vestment ceremony. Once secure in his position, the heir could then modify the covenant under his father’s guidance. This is the context of Jesus’ words here.

The disciples still weren’t quite getting it. They no doubt recognized the scenario, but had been convinced they were involved in a different scenario. Jesus had flatly told them what was going on, but their minds had locked onto the false track and He was relying on the way things worked in the Spirit Realm to help them catch up later.

He had just referred to His miracles as sufficient basis for proceeding forward in faith. If they simply could not quite grasp the order of things involving the Son of God stepping into a spiritual kingdom, at least they could see that His miracles marked Him as a valid representative of the Covenant God, Jehovah. It was important to elevate the awareness of the Covenant in their minds, as it was the basis for everything He said and did. Once He took His place as divine co-regent, the New Covenant would again be the center of every consideration.

On that grounds, He promised that every miracle He had performed under the Old Covenant would be within their authority. And because He was returning from His mission to the vestment ceremony in Heaven, the New Covenant would give them even greater miraculous authority as the key figures in His new divine court. They were to be princes of the realm, serving in their missions scattered across the empire while He remained back at court on the throne. It would be everything the Father had done in the past, plus more new things He would be doing. The Son would use His Presence at the throne to ensure that this authority would be issued.

It sounds like carte blanche in our Western ears today, but that’s not what it meant in the context when Jesus promised to do anything asked in His name. That “in His name” part referred to His established pattern of behavior, His known agenda. If they asked anything consistent with His past actions, He would secure the authority for their request. It was critical that their request was consistent with what He had revealed.

Indeed, He made it a point that everything rested on His teaching. If they were so sure they really were committed to Him and His reign as Messiah, then it should be no problem for them to stay on track. There should be plenty of fire and desire for what Jesus had commanded them.

By demonstrating that commitment, they would give support to Jesus’ plan to send them the Holy Spirit. Instead of one human person — Jesus the man — who couldn’t be more than one place at a time, they would have His divine Presence in their own souls. Thus, He could be everywhere His people went all at once. The implication is that they could carry the living personal presence of their Master with them, and He would keep right on teaching and clarifying things for them, prodding them as needed.

It would mark them as truly different in this world. The rest of humanity would be unable to receive this divine Presence without also embracing Jesus as Lord the same way they had done. Without that, the world was unable to discern the Presence in the first place. Yes, these disciples could sense that Presence because it was just like Jesus being there in the flesh. In due time, the Person would be inside them, in union and communion with their own souls.

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