Charisma He Gives

Posted on April 9, 2024 by ehurst

There is some sense in which we will, in our resurrected bodies, retain something we gained from our mortal existence. I have no idea how to express this, but there is something we will bring with us from this life into Eternity.

That’s inherent in what Paul wrote about Christ. His short catechism about Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20 was a powerful counter to the Gnostic heresies and the Judaizers and their denial that Christ could be both human and divine. Paul said that all we could know about God was inherent in Jesus. But that He was the firstborn from the dead makes a critical statement that whatever we can expect to see in the Resurrection will echo what Jesus looked like and acted like during that forty days He hung around before Ascension.

What makes it difficult is that we cannot know what part of His post-resurrection body was merely a manifestation of where He was at the time. In the Final Resurrection, we cannot estimate what our glorified bodies will be, but we will have them. What that represents is affirmed in the teaching that only what we do for His glory will follow us into Eternity. Thus, whatever we hope to have there will depend on how thoroughly we dedicate ourselves to His glory here. It’s an added reason to walk in faith. Don’t you want to look your best in Eternity?

It’s impossible to come up with a clinical distinction between flesh and eternal nature. The only clue we have from Scripture is how we must allow the Spirit to reign over our lives through our hearts, not through the intellect. The intellect is part of our fleshly nature, and it always wants to be its own god. We do have the equipment to subject the flesh, but it’s not a status we can achieve. Rather, it’s an ongoing process and something that must be fed in order to grow stronger than the fleshly nature.

Every day we kill just a little bit more of the fleshly nature, until the day we graduate to our rest. It does not require a definitive clinical explanation. The demand for that kind of thing is the flesh itself seeking an excuse to take control and manipulate. We must rely on the ineffable nature of divine truth to keep the flesh on the back foot.

That demand for clinical data, for “propositional truth”, is always a matter of flesh. This is why we reject a lot of so-called historical church orthodoxy. That orthodoxy, starting with early church history and the propositional statements on Christology, are catering to the flesh. It turns theology into a profession with certifications and markers for fleshly consideration, for something that is supposed to deny the flesh. We don’t need factual precision; we need obedience. We need only a functional definition of who Jesus is in order to follow Him.

Elect souls know how to find Him. The only thing we need to teach them is denying the fleshly nature and escaping its manipulations. By refusing to satisfy intellectual curiosity on things, we deny the flesh’s control. Our biggest problem is that the fleshly nature is the very foundation of our Western Civilization. Everything that makes the West “great” in the minds of Western Civilization’s advocates happens to be catering to the flesh and its lust for control, it’s lust for rejecting God’s way of things.

Serving Christ is purely personal. It’s nepotism and playing favorites; it’s unashamedly feudal in making Him Lord. It’s not about the rules; the rules are Him. He is the One living and active and able to slice cleanly between spirit and flesh. And how we learn that in our heads is to recognize the tendencies and where the choices lead. We seek a powerful internal sense of God’s priorities in this life.

Each victory over the flesh, each empowerment of the Spirit in our mortal existence, adds beauty and character to our eternal bodies in the next life. I don’t know about you, but I want all the charisma the Lord will give me.

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Explain When Appropriate

Posted on April 8, 2024 by ehurst

I’ve been asked several times to build out my mythology a little farther. The Doctrine of Election is no myth. It was not understood in the Old Testament, but it was also not foreign to it.

Heiser’s Unseen Realm series lays out with good authority how the Hebrew intellectual traditions viewed the Elohim Council, and some hints of the nature of the dispute that got Lucifer relieved of his duties as God’s Covering Cherub. Collecting all the hints together, we see that Lucifer was the Chief Bodyguard (the nearest term we have for his position). At some point, he became corrupt enough to keep for himself some of the glory due God.

There was a dispute over whether the Devil was justified; we would say he filed an appeal with the Elohim Council. On the one hand, he got confined to a special realm created just for him. It was the Elohim Council God referred to when He said, “let Us” do this or that. Together, they created a special prison for Lucifer. However, based on the rules of how God operates, it seems Lucifer still retains some authority and ranking. This was visible in the narrative of the Fall. Further, he managed to cultivate some allies on God’s Elohim Council.

As part of this dispute with God, Heiser speculates that Lucifer objected to how God made humans and how He chose to handle them. It seems that Lucifer was incensed that we were granted such high privileges and such a generous situation so close to God. Something about that question makes it part of the original case of Jehovah v. Lucifer. At any rate, the Devil gains the title of “Satan” by how he seduced the humans into accepting his path for them. His position is wholly adversarial against us, and that’s what that title means. Humans were shifted from their eternal form and confined to a form Satan could manage. It includes the confinement of the space-time continuum and all that means in Hebrew mythos.

As we move forward in time, we see that God at some point parceled out the nations to His satraps on the Elohim Council at the Tower of Babel. Heiser points out how this is not just speculation, but clearly an image in the Old Testament itself. Later, God upbraids them for doing such a poor job of managing the nations, having misled the humans by presenting themselves as deities, rather in concert with the Devil’s contention that they deserve some worship and glory for themselves.

So, within this ongoing dispute with Lucifer and his allies on the Elohim Council, God sets out to build His own nation from scratch to show them how it’s done. That would be Israel, of course. But there is a secret in this plan. First, God establishes the broad principle of covenant. This principle includes a way of protecting His interests in His nation, and limiting interference from His erstwhile competitors on the Elohim Council. Something in this arrangement contributes to His proof, His argument against the Devil and his allies.

But there was a secret hidden in this whole covenant thing. Paul refers to this several times as the “mystery of the gospel”. God had planned all along to send a Messiah to clarify the covenant, but the Messiah came to open the Covenant to everyone, not just His own nation. You see, the whole covenant thing didn’t work as a human government; that much was clear from the history of Israel. Too many of the people involved refused to operate in faith. As Jesus explained to Nicodemas, the Covenant presumes the necessity of spiritual birth, and it wasn’t happening to the whole nation.

The Covenant Nation of Israel was a controlled experiment of sorts, a showcase of something we cannot comprehend fully. The Covenant appeared on the surface to be doable for fallen humans, but God’s Chosen Nation was easily the most cantankerous people ever born. Any other nation would have been far more compliant, but God was trying to prove something. From within this difficult nation He would bring a Messiah, His own Son.

God had planned all along to simply give faith to a certain portion of the human race, those whom He had elected from the beginning, even before Satan was placed in confinement. The secret was that the Elect would come from every nation, not just His own nation of Israel. God would initiate a new reign under His Son, the Messiah He had promised at the Fall. And the basis for identity in this Messianic “nation” would be divine election. God states clearly in the Bible that He will eventually win this dispute by humiliating His opponents.

That much is given via scholarship in the Scripture. There’s more, but that’s enough outline to explain the rest of my speculations.

My point here is that the underlying model of our humanity is two-fold. There is this fallen shell in which we exist, and it is tied to the Devil’s realm. But there is a separate entity that is eternal, and it belongs in Eden. What is so hard to swallow is that some majority of those living in the Fallen Realm lack an eternal component. It will never be there; they belong to this realm. The Elect are not superior; we are no different on the fleshly level. It’s all the same flesh and fleshly nature. Flesh is Satan’s property as part of his realm.

One does not become Damned (someone with no eternal component) because of something they do to lose their eternal nature. They never had it in the first place. They are merely flesh, period.

The Damned will cease to exist when this world is dissolved. We will shed that part of us and continue to exist in our eternal form. It is this eternal nature that separates us from the others. That eternal nature is capable of having its say in our internal processes. Without it, no human can accept the message about Eternity. We might be able to offer enough clinical data to make it intellectually plausible, but no one is going to actually buy into it wholly because they don’t have the necessary minimum prerequisites.

The interaction between the Elect and the Damned is critical to God’s proof. So, the means by which we spread the gospel are informational, but it is much more. The data is just the carrier for the living truth. The only people out there capable of receiving the message are people with an eternal nature already existing inside of them. They will recognize the hidden truth in what we share. It is not a human decision on any level; it is entirely a divine miracle. We don’t persuade people to accept Christ. We cannot. God doesn’t work that way. We can only awaken their elect nature if it’s already there, and it simply is not there for the majority.

While we get some mileage out of various verbal transmissions, the most powerful message is how we live. The Elect are known to Satan, and are experiencing hassles in life that generally don’t afflict the spiritually dead people around them. How we live in the face of that kind of pressure is a signal they cannot ignore. There comes a point in the life of each Elect when God will use our testimony to awaken the call.

This is why we admonish each other to walk in the power of faith before speaking. Show it first, then explain it when appropriate.

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Stages, Levels, and Code

Posted on April 7, 2024 by ehurst

With some questions, I need to wait a while before I can address them. The last thing I want to do is establish something as doctrine when it’s just my personal opinion. When we talk about something connected with the Spirit Realm, all we have are guesses and estimates based on the few things the Bible hints at.

The doctrine of Divine Election has yielded tons of speculation from far better thinkers and writers than me. Still, I’m not sure I can go with what these smarter people have said. Some of the implications have taken me in a different direction. What follows is not doctrine, but my personal mythology, my guesses that seems to bring me peace for the time being. You are encouraged to come up with your own answers. These are things on which we need not agree.

Spiritual birth is confined to the Elect. We are the only ones whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. There are plenty of folks out there who are elected and don’t know it yet. I don’t know if Jesus was including all the Elect in His comment about rejoicing that our names are there, but He certainly included those spiritually born. They were simply waiting for the gift of the Spirit. Whatever people got from the Lord prior to the Resurrection, it included spiritual birth, but not the full gift of the Spirit of Jesus living inside. Now, the Divine Presence is the single critical marker of the regenerate Elect.

What happens to those who die without spiritual birth? I’m going to assume that their conscious awareness lives on in a temporary condition until Jesus returns. Jesus indicates it’s not a pleasant situation for the unregenerate, but the Elect are resting. We have the English word “Hell” to indicate one, and Jesus referred to “Paradise” for the other. On Judgment Day, everyone will be pulled out of their storage place. This world and everything that belongs to it will end. Anyone who isn’t Elect will then be dissolved. I don’t believe that “Hell” will continue after that. The Elect will go back to Eden, whatever that means.

Yes, I believe in a two-stage destiny. As long as this fallen realm exists, we remain in the first stage. Once it’s over, the second stage is an entirely different kind of thing. I’m sure evangelicals will gasp and think I’m crazy. That’s okay; they’ve been treating me that way for a long time.

But in the end, those who are not Elect are part of a big drama that we cannot comprehend in our current state. They are part of this world, part of the punishment, accouterments of the prison, and not subject to eternal connections. The Elect don’t get the same deal everyone else does. We often catch a much rougher ride here in the Devil’s realm. He knows who we are.

There are limits on what he can do. However, the failure of most spiritually born folks to actually embrace the Covenant means they aren’t taking full advantage of that protection. It’s not simply a matter of the Code of Covenant Law; the covering of Christ is based on your heart’s commitment (faith) and your obedience.

Some failures of obedience will have permanent consequences, leaving gaps in the moral hedge for the rest of your life. Other failures can be mitigated to insignificance. It’s a part of Covenant studies to learn what does and doesn’t have lifelong effects. But the non-elect belong to Satan along with the rest of this world, and it’s really a matter of his agenda who experiences what. The consequences on some levels still hit them, but they aren’t likely to notice it in those terms. Some levels of the Law Code work regardless; they are woven into the fabric of this fallen world.

It’s complicated, but because the mainstream has ignored the Covenant and how it works, we have no solid tradition of recognizing priorities and levels. How these things break out into teaching has been a major effort behind this blog.

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NT Doctrine — Colossians 1

Posted on April 6, 2024 by ehurst

Colossae was nestled in the Lycus Valley, running between two high mountain ranges, not too far from Laodicea. Paul passed through this area because the main highway ran through both, but didn’t preach in any of the cities. One of Colossae’s leading citizens, Epaphras, converted to Christianity in Ephesus. The man brought this gospel back to his hometown, and a church grew there. He came to visit Paul somewhat early under Roman house arrest. Epaphras eventually came back to his hometown with a letter for the church in the company of Onesimus with a letter for Philemon.

This was part of the old Phrygian Kingdom, and the Cult of Cybele. The temple of Diana in Ephesus was actually the new name for the old temple of Cybele. The worship there was little changed with the new name. The Greek invasion brought another layer of philosophical assumptions and religious belief to the Lycus Valley, but the old Phrygian scholarship was still very strong. The Jewish population wasn’t that large, and they were known to be somewhat paganized. Despite this, the Judaizers were very active in the region once their campaign began. If not the birthplace of Gnosticism, the valley was certainly one of the strongest centers for it. The Judaizers contributed much to Gnosticism.

The biggest threat to Christian faith in Colossae was the many direct philosophical attacks on the divinity of Jesus, so Paul’s letter seeks to more firmly assert it. The first half of this chapter is devoted to greetings, Paul’s thanksgiving for the church and his prayer for them. This prayer ends with an emphasis on the centrality of Christ.

We note that verses 15-20 read like a hymn or poem, structured in Greek to be memorized and quoted often. It is a very dense statement of doctrine. The word “firstborn” is used twice. First, He was alive and mature before any part of Creation existed, and also had authority over it. Indeed, He was the agent of Creation. Paul pointedly declares that not a single authority in existence escapes Jesus’ dominion, simply because He made them, and they exist only for His convenience.

Not only does He precede all of Creation, but He holds it all together. The system remains intact only as long as He wants it so.

It’s only natural that He is the Head of His Body, the church. He is also the firstborn from the dead, the forerunner of the resurrection to come for all His saints. If we do not follow Him, we aren’t even on the path. The Father was pleased for the fullness of His own power and authority to be expressed in the Son.

Finally, the Father chose Him as the agent of reconciliation. By embracing Jesus as Lord, we make peace with God from the Fall. And while we could not possibly comprehend what it means, Jesus is also the agent of peace for beings in Heaven who have offended God.

At the conclusion of this lyrical statement of faith, Paul goes on to remind the Colossians that the same reconciliation includes them. They were once completely off the rails morally, and their lives portrayed it. But because of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Elect can be presented before the Father as cleansed from the Fall. The Covenant is now open to them. They can exercise covenant privileges by remaining firm in their faith.

Paul refers to the mystery kept from the various authorities for centuries. This was God’s plan to nominate and then call the Elect from every nation on earth, something of which the Elohim Council had no awareness. Once it was done via the Cross and resurrection, it was too late for them to protest. The power of Election and faith carries them through trials, same as Paul.

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Rejoicing at Revelation

Posted on April 3, 2024 by ehurst

When you recognize the clear statements in the Bible on Divine Election, the implications are enormous. There stands this vast network based on the false Decision Theology that dominates religion talk, and it’s all a lie. We do not convince sinners to repent; God doesn’t work that way. We simply embrace those whom the Lord Himself moves to repentance.

We embrace them and do our best to help them transition to thinking about the divine destiny inherent in God’s calling on their lives. That destiny is, as often stated here, aligning with Jehovah’s agenda for humans. That agenda is what we are made for; we have no other reason for existing. Once our spirits are awakened, there is no going back.

Our spirits and hearts know, but the difficulty is getting our minds to play along. A lifetime of crap we’ve been fed by the various fallen influences in our world is a major barrier to walking in that destiny. While it says this is the highest privilege a human could have, Scripture also describes it as taking up your cross. It’s not something we could sell if we tried. Nobody in their fleshly mind is going to embrace their own demise.

And yet, that is precisely what the gospel is all about. It appeals only to those whom the Holy Spirit has already placed under conviction. Unless they sense the need, even if inchoate, of ditching this foul existence, they will not embrace the Cross.

And if they do not embrace the Cross from the start, they have lied to themselves. They do that if we lie to them about what the gospel offers. I’ve experienced some of the greatest joys and wonders while walking with Christ, but those came from increments of self-death, surrendering yet another part of my fleshly existence. The Cross is not just for Jesus taking our place, but He was showing the path we must take.

Christian religious leaders have a vast burden of shame for having sold the gospel short. All that crap about how Jesus makes this life better? No, He makes this life end. He calls us to the next life. This life is worth nothing. The only question is learning how to make the last dregs of this life count for something eternal.

What will they do when the centuries of fleshly prosperity end? The coming apocalypse will see an exodus from the churches because the bulk of the membership are not self-aware Elect, just hapless victims misled to believe they were “born-again” and that the church way of life was a gateway to Heaven. Notice how I worded that. They may be Elect, but they are not aware of it in that sense. They have been led down a false path of making the most of this life in the human sense. They’ve been taught that Jesus died to give us more of this world.

Very soon, this will all come apart. The illusion will be stripped away as God pours out His wrath on the earth. That stuff is going to splash all over His children, too. What distinguishes us is that we know it’s coming, and that it is wholly justified. Many of us will lose everything, the same as everyone else. There is no avoiding it; preppers don’t understand that God intends for us to walk through Hell, too. But we will be rejoicing at the revelation of our Father.

A pure church is one that comes together by divine power, not by human marketing.

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Great Privilege and Expectation

Posted on April 2, 2024 by ehurst

The Word of God is Jesus Christ. In-depth studies of Hebrew lore that stood prior to His birth shows that the Hebrew scholars believed that God’s Word in the Unseen Realm was always a manifestation of His will, an entity that was separate in some sense, but still Him. It defies words and exceeds human mental grasp; the discussion in Hebrew lore rested more on the necessity of practical use. In practice, God’s Word acted separately from Him, yet consistent with Jehovah’s divine moral character.

One of the best explanations is found in the copious footnotes and extra material posted online from Dr. Michael S. Heiser’s various books, starting with the Unseen Realm. His point is that the Word, once expressed, takes on a life of its own. This is actually necessary, since God’s own Presence would dissolve our fallen reality. He sends His Word into our world as the highest possible manifestation of His personality. It’s very personal.

If you are determined to study this for yourself, I’ll offer some links:

There is no precis for this question. I’m not going to chase it down for you because, if you don’t read it in context, you’ll miss too much of the necessary background. It’s a graduate level course of study in itself. My point here is that the Bible as a book is not actually “the Word of God” but a record of His Word. The Word Himself is a living being; the Bible is a written record. It came from fallible humans and has been handled and kept by them. It is not perfect in our western absolutist sense of factual detail. That whole idea is asking the wrong question. Rather, we are obliged by faith to take in the broad sweep of the Bible’s message and hold ourselves accountable to what it demands of us as a whole.

Perfection in the message is not a concern, obviously. The real issue is not a matter of human performance, but genuinely loving and submitting to our Creator. He isn’t paying that kind of attention to the details of performance. He wants your heart.

The real issue is the Person of Jesus Christ living in your soul. The flesh is fallen and untrustworthy — indeed, somewhat hostile to this invasive Presence — but can be disciplined. The intellect provided by the fleshly nature is the servant here, working to organize and implement what the Spirit of Christ demands. We can use our minds to serve a divine purpose, so long as we keep in front of us that the mind cannot be wholly trusted.

We can construct for our use a sort of Biblical Law, a mental organization of the message of the Bible. It’s for sure that no two of us would come up with the same results, nor should we expect it. There is no such thing as “propositional truth” in a fake realm of existence. This world is not ultimate reality by any means, but a provisional place with a very limited shelf-life.

Pretend for a moment that we could persuade the whole world to take seriously the need for constructing a Biblical Law, and that we could come up with a substantial agreement on the content. It would not change the fate of this world. This world will still be destroyed when Christ returns. It would still not be worth clinging to this life. A valid Biblical Law starts with a foundation of dismissing this mortal existence as of no great value. The Bible is inherently otherworldly.

If we could bring the whole world under a valid Biblical Law, it would not change that some of us are Elect and eternal, and the majority are eternally doomed. Election stood before mortals were born and mankind populated the earth. Nothing any human can do will change their individual eternal identity. God has chosen not to explain any of this, only to declare it as so.

The whole issue for the Elect is to recognize their election and embrace what is implied by it. We are supposed to live by His Word in order to glorify Him. The whole back story of politics in God’s courts in Heaven explains that our world exists for one purpose: This world is the proof of God’s contention with the rebellious Elohim Council members regarding the Devil. The Devil was confined to this world because he tried to scrape off some of the glory due God. Some of the Elohim Council sided with the Devil. You and I exist in our human form solely to glorify Him and prove His point that all glory is due Him, and no one else.

None of our dreams and goals in human ambition mean a damned thing. It will all be consumed in fire at the Return of Christ. We are nothing more than a proof, a modeling of truth, a simulation to demonstrate something way more important than our puny existence. The only thing we can possibly take with us into Eternity is divine favor, and that favor does not fall on anything rooted in human concerns. This world is trash, and the only treasure is what is inside our souls.

That treasure consists of our desire to please God. Nothing else matters; it is all — at best — mere packaging for carrying around our commitment to Him. It is critical to keep this in mind when we face the rising tribulation of God’s wrath on our world. It’s here and it’s only going to get worse. Somewhere out there ahead of us is a day when His wrath will be spent, but that will come after a majority of the world’s population is dead. It’s a great privilege to watch His hand at work.

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Not Merciful and Kind

Posted on April 1, 2024 by ehurst

In response to a private conversation, I feel the need to reiterate a fundamental truth from Scripture: Your fleshly nature is not the real you. If you are among God’s Elect, then your fleshly nature is something you are compelled to drag around, the vessel that carries your soul through this fallen world. You cannot trust it; the flesh always lies.

Your guilt complex is part of the flesh. That kind of dead weight on your soul will not follow you into Eternity. Guilt over imperfection stays in this world.

This is particularly important when we think about the social conflict between males and females. Scripture says quite flatly that women are morally subordinate to men. I won’t use the word “inferior” because of the false baggage attached to it, but Paul makes the point that Eve was morally deceived, while Adam knew better. Women are not equipped with a full depth of moral discernment. And that we are discussing this in light of the Fall in the Garden of Eden is proof that men are not inherently superior in moral discernment, but they can be.

Adam was tasked with guarding the boundaries and failed because it’s hard work, not because he needed a woman’s guidance.

This is the nature of things. Men will ever be imperfect, and women are obliged to accept that. The definition of manhood includes dragging around a fleshly nature that will fight against God’s truth every step of the way. A great many moral failures of men are simply part of the package. Whatever it is women imagine they should demand is all wrong. God’s broad general requirement is that a woman walk from one moral covering to another. She’s under her dad until she’s married.

Meanwhile, a man should aspire to moral virtue, all while knowing he will struggle in way or another. We don’t have in our American Christian culture a kind of hero who knows he is flawed and still drives forward because the mission comes first. Paul makes much of men who pay no real attention to what’s in the mirror, until the Spirit comes and holds up a mirror in their souls.

But God does not operate by the fleshly standard of guilt and penalties. He does not engage in forensic examinations; it’s not a question of legal standing. We bandage our spiritual wounds and keep moving forward, because He doesn’t drop us simply because we make mistakes. The biblical standard of manhood includes the idea that some of us have to use various prostheses to keep going because some choice we made back in the past took away something we cannot recover. There are plenty of issues in this world where you get only one shot, but the mission does not end simply because you missed that shot.

This is the biblical standard, and God condemns the current mythology by which women demand men who don’t exist. Worse, men like that should not exist; women should wake up and recognize that their myths are from Hell. American women are not just wrong, but very deeply, hellishly wrong. “They will be saved in childbearing” means that, as a general expectation, she needs to embrace the man God brings into her life, settle in and build a family with him. Her dreams and plans don’t mean crap; she must embrace his. And she is supposed to honor and love him and obey, while he cherishes and protects her and provides what he can.

Women who claim God has called them to something else are lying to themselves. In Scripture, the only exception to motherhood is chastity and community service. Your choices are limited, ladies, but they are for men, too. This is the Word of God, and all this flouting is bringing down wrath on America. Because of the lies by which people live today, tomorrow will be Hell on Earth, because we have steered ourselves into Satan’s hands. The Devil is not merciful and kind.

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NT Doctrine — Resurrection Review

Posted on March 30, 2024 by ehurst

This is a review of a previous lesson on the Resurrection.

John 20 (Parallels: Matthew 27, Mark 16 and Luke 24)

Jesus lay in the tomb. As the Lamb, He died on the day of Passover, a High Sabbath. Then, there had been the regular Sabbath the next day. Finally, in the wee hours of morning darkness, the women who had been there when Jesus died, and had seen where His body was laid, left the place where everyone had been hiding. This was almost surely somewhere in Bethesda, the newer quarter of Jerusalem built north of the Temple plaza.

It was just a short walk to the memorial garden as the women carried their spices. John mentions only Mary Magdalene because she plays a central role in what happens next, but the other Gospels tell us at least three more came with her — the other Mary, Joanna and Salome. They discussed how they were going to get that massive stone moved from the door of the tomb. The door was a large round slab requiring several men to move it.

The doorway was a bit low and required crouching to get through it, but it was also below the ground level, with the threshold even lower, enough so to capture that stone door. It would have to be rolled back up the incline to uncover the entrance. Upon arriving, it was just light enough for the women to see that the stone was completely away from the face of the rock where the tomb had been carved.

Matthew tells us that there had been an aftershock from the quake that struck when Jesus died. This put the guards on edge. Then an angel floated down from the sky, whose very physical form and clothing emitted light. This single being alone rolled the stone back from the door, breaking the seal in the process. All of the guards together probably could not have moved it. Nobody had to tell them this was not someone they could fight; the men nearly swooned. Who can guard against such a powerful being?

After removing the stone away from the face of the tomb, the angel rolled it a bit to one side, pushed it over on one face, and sat down on it. The guards felt utterly powerless, and probably fled almost immediately upon recovering from their shock. At some point, another angel showed up. Nobody could report how Jesus had risen and left, but He was already gone. The angels were waiting for the women to arrive.

As soon as they got close to the tomb, the angels met them and told them they were wasting time, because Jesus was among the living again. They told the women to go back and report that Jesus had risen, and that they should all go to meet Him where He had told them in advance, on some mountain in Galilee. The women hurried away. Near as we can tell, John and Peter were not in the hideout. Mary Magdalene got separated from the others, going to John and Peter, who likely had rented space for their fishing business. The other women headed for the larger group holing up, probably in the same home as the Upper Room. On the way, these others encountered Jesus Himself.

They fell at His feet, hugging His lower extremities in worship. He reiterated the angels’ message, referring to the disciples as His brethren, and made sure to mention Peter, the one who would surely have felt he deserved to be written off.

The women ran on to where the disciples had been staying during the two Sabbaths. They told them everything they encountered; it took some doing to convince anyone that they weren’t deluded, drunk or joking. Mary Magdalene found Peter and John in their separate hideout, who didn’t hesitate to take off for the garden where the tomb stood. John was a faster runner, so he got there first. He stooped down and saw how the linen casing had collapsed inward without having been disturbed. He believed that Jesus had risen.

Peter was slower, but simply blundered all the way into the tomb. He noted the collapsed mummy casing that had not been altered in any other way, and the head wrapping folded neatly close to where Jesus’ head had rested. He marveled at what he saw — obviously the body had been removed without cutting the linen strips soaked in the now dried gum Arabic. After he came out, John went all the way inside, as well. Then they all went back to their hideout in Bethesda.

Somewhere behind the men, Mary Magdalene made her way back to the memorial garden. It would appear they were gone when she arrived. The angels’ message had not yet sunk in with her. She stood outside the tomb weeping, fearing the worst had happened. Eventually she stooped down to see what was inside. Not only was the mummy case still there, but also the two angels sat there, one at each end. Again they asked her why she had not believed them the first time.

At that moment, Jesus Himself came up behind her. Being a dutiful Hebrew woman, she avoided eye contact with a man she didn’t know. Assuming this was some hired keeper of the memorial garden, she asked about the missing body, willing to take responsibility for it. Without knowing much about Joseph or Nicodemas, she likely figured that the body had been placed there out of mere convenience for the timing with the approaching high holy days. Such a powerful and rich man probably wanted it moved now that the ritual observance had finished.

It took Jesus calling her name for her to realize who it was. She called Him “Master” and tried to hug Him. It was almost humorous how He told her He wasn’t gone yet, and suggested they both had a lot to do right now. She could save the hugs for later. She ran back to the disciples’ hideout in the Bethesda quarter and added her report to all the others. Most of them would be staying for the week of Unleavened Bread.

Meanwhile, the soldiers that had been guarding the tomb reported to the Sanhedrin, indicating that they had been detached from regular duty and temporarily placed under command of the Temple Guard. They told the whole story. The officials could not allow this to leak out into the public, so they bribed the guards to tell the story that they had fallen asleep, and that during their slumber, the disciples had stolen the body. Of course, this would be an admission of dereliction of duty, a capital offense under Roman military law. The Sanhedrin promised to cover for them by explaining the situation to their officers and to Pilate, but they wanted to keep everything as secret as possible. As the fake story was being repeated around town, it meant there was a warrant for the arrest of the disciples for breaking the Roman seal.

Two of the disciples decided to leave town, Cleopas and one other. They were hiking to Emmaus where they lived. On the way, Jesus casually joined them and asked about their discussion. They were kept from recognizing Him, and were naturally shocked that this fellow wasn’t aware of all the noise about Jesus and His death. They mentioned their disappointment with how things turned out, and noted the unconfirmed claims of Him being seen alive. Upon hearing this, Jesus scolded them for being so slow to put the picture together.

Then He launched into a recitation of the prophecies that had indicated quite accurately how the Messiah would die and rise from death. He further reminded them that the Messianic Kingdom would have to be a moral empire of hearts, not some political entity. They must have thought He was a rabbi on the good side of things, and invited Him to stay with them. This was just common courtesy; it was late and time for dinner. They honored their fascinating guest by treating Him as a respected superior. As soon as He blessed and broke the unleavened bread, the Spirit allowed them to recognize Him. And just as suddenly, He vanished.

They immediately forgot the meal and rushed the seven miles back to Bethesda and recounted their experience. As they all were discussing this, Jesus materialized in front of them, greeting them with “shalom!” Most Jews believed in ghosts, and their presence was always bad news. Jesus sought immediately to calm them down, and warned them they had been too locked into their human expectations of a political reform, and never paid any attention to what Jesus had pointedly told them several times about the nature of His reign as Messiah.

While He was in a resurrected body, it was still fully manifested in solid form. He demonstrated this by eating food. He still bore the scars of His execution, and showed them as proof who He was. He began another lecture on the nature of His Kingdom. He was careful to bring it home to them, with none of His normal cryptic statements. He finished by telling them that they now had His divine authority to declare sins forgiven, as the means of demonstrating the new situation, under the New Covenant.

We learn that Thomas had not been present for this late Sunday evening meeting. When the others reported it to him, he showed his character. He was the first one honestly ready to die with Jesus, and was still committed to what he knew best. His commitment rested on what he could verify for himself. Not given to strong emotions either way, he dismissed the wild tales of Jesus alive again, insisting he needed better proof.

It came eight days later, as the disciples tarried in Jerusalem. It was the day after the end of Unleavened Bread. They met again, and this time Thomas showed up. The doors were locked because the warrant for their arrest was still a hot issue in town. Jesus materialized in front of them and turned to Thomas, inviting him to sate his curiosity. At this point, Thomas simply reaffirmed his former readiness to die for Him.

Jesus warned Thomas that the time for hard logical proof was passing. From here on out, Thomas would need to change things. Instead of forming commitments on hard proof, it was now time to let his convictions stand on their own to drive his choices. Taking this as his cue, John reminds his readers that he saw more than enough proof over the coming days with Jesus hanging around a while. People who need proof would never get enough. We will have to take it on faith.

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Just Use It

Posted on March 29, 2024 by ehurst

You may have heard of the Halo video game franchise. It’s quite entertaining, up to a point. It’s also anti-Christian. A major premise of the game is mocking faith in Eternity and pushing the dire necessity of advancing humanity against all resistance. We must evolve and become something else, something that we are supposed to believe is within reach.

It’s a lie from Hell. Humanity is nothing but a vapor. I’m not saying don’t watch the videos or play the game. I’m saying you should understand the message and know clearly what’s wrong with it. Because it calls out to us on the basis of everything our civilization holds sacred, it’s nearly impossible to refuse that message — until you have dismissed that whole civilization.

Over and over again: This world, this reality, is not reliable. Anything that belongs to this reality is equally unreliable. That means the flesh, and everything it can know and do. The greatest victory in human history was the Cross. Of all the examples we can imagine, this was the model of heroism to which we all aspire. Our only mission is to defeat the flesh and nail it to the Cross.

Our heroes are the people who succeed at this well enough to be at peace with things which no man can control. For each of us, that phrase — “things which no man can control” — refers to everything God did not place in your hands. The world is doomed to Hell. Those who cling to it will go to Hell with it. Let it go. Cling to Christ instead.

What grows from these roots of faith?

You cannot know God and His ways without His Holy Spirit. Without Him breathing life into your dead spirit, you are doomed. This world is all you have. No philosophy is capable of cracking the secrets of Eternity from mere intellect alone. Mine is no better. Unless He calls to you through my writing, nothing I offer here will do you any good. Having the Holy Spirit doesn’t solve all your problems, but it will put you in a position to hear from Him and begin to change your outlook on this life.

The Scriptures witness to us of Jesus Christ, His Son. They do not contain Him, but they point to Him. We are accountable to Scripture in the sense that, without starting there, we cannot hope to get acquainted with Him. That’s the starting point, the gateway, if you will.

Meanwhile, on the human level, God never operates without an element of human deniability. Dead spirits reading the Bible will not come under His convicting power. He must call them and breathe life into them. The Scripture has no power without His Presence. Anyone reading the Scriptures without the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit cannot hope to understand them. It’s not automatic that you will understand them, but that you can if you commit yourself to finding Him there. And the longer you keep poking around in the Bible, the more your perception of what it says, and consequently what you know of Him, will change.

It’s personal. It’s not in the written word itself, but in His Spirit Presence. The Scriptures aren’t magic; it’s just ink on paper. Indeed, the honest truth is that we cannot be entirely sure the versions we read reflect the originals documents. We believe they do, but there is enough uncertainty that no human will ever be satisfied with the results of the research into that question. The best you can do is recognize the sound of His voice from whatever version you read.

The relationship with Him shapes the rules, not the other way around. Paul said that, back when Israel was under the Covenant of Moses, there were countless unknown souls who found the Lord without access to any Scripture at all (Romans 2), while only precious few of the nation that had the Scriptures ever kept peace with Him. The Book will open your obedience to the privileges of the Covenant, but it cannot give you obedience.

Should you seek God’s face about which translation is best, you might get a useful answer. You may well be led to one or another. It will not be the answer He gives to someone else. It’s not a question of translation scholarship, nor even a the lifelong pursuit of which source documents are the “most accurate” conveyance of the original documents.

Sure, I can warn you that any translation that relies on the Masoretic Text is filled with pernicious efforts by rabbis to undercut Christian faith. I can warn you that all the writers of the New Testament quoted only from the Septuagint. It was the one they trusted. Yet the vast majority of our English Bibles use the Masoretic for the Old Testament. This is why so many English translations have different wording between the Old Testament passages and the way they are quoted in the New. This is why we have so many perplexing Old Testament passages that make no sense, as if part of the text is missing. The Masoretic scholars were dishonest.

But you know something? Nobody will give you a modern English translation from the Septuagint except the Greek Orthodox, and their doctrines are quite mistaken on some of the most fundamental questions. In other words, we are stuck with an unwieldy situation. If you truly believe the Bible is magical with its own powers, you are really in for a rough ride. You’ll be jerked around by the vagaries of human capabilities for something that will never offer a solid answer.

The Scriptures will help you shape a mental frame of reference for responding to the earth shattering power of the Holy Spirit within you. The Bible helps you to formulate an expectation of what your convictions will say. But the Bible is not your convictions; it is not the Holy Spirit Himself.

Pick a translation. Use it. Seek the Lord’s face. Don’t fret over those complicated questions; there is nothing you can do short of devoting your life to deep scholarship in Bible translation. That’s not very practical for most of us; God doesn’t call all of us to that.

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The Big Reset

Posted on March 28, 2024 by ehurst

In general, western women are evil, American women in particular.

We have noted the situation we are in. The feminist cult (female supremacy) has locked up all opportunities for the future, so that there can be no marriage and family, can be no love and structure to society. What God says must be done cannot be done by men of good will. And there are so few women of good will that they might as well not exist.

This civilization cannot be saved. The sickness is terminal. There is only one solution: The civilization must be destroyed. We did not take care of the problem ourselves, so God is going to do it for us. And in the process, we will be dispossessed from the land, because we were unwilling to take the measures God required. We have failed the covenant.

What was it we failed to do? We should have seized the social controls, by violence if necessary. But the civilization we had was based on feminine moral superiority, so it’s only natural that western men cucked and simpered totally from the very beginning. Had the West actually been following Christ, we would have rejected that pagan background and restructured everything to God’s liking.

He defined the role of women, and we never had it, not even for a moment. He defined the role of men, and that was also missing from the start. The West has never been Christian by the biblical definition. Men reign; when they do not, everything is broken. Female humans are not women when males are not men.

Do you understand that civilization is just a layer on top of the fundamentals of society? If you don’t have the proper foundation, a civilization cannot endure on its own. It’s nice to have, but the moral fundamentals are the absolute necessity.

The Lord will reduce us to a level of existence that forces us to live fundamentally, mere survival. Human instincts will be restored and men will reign again. It will be ugly and brutal. When God’s wrath falls, most of the human race will be wiped from the surface of this planet. It’s time for a big reset. Failure to adapt means the vast majority of westerners will never make it.

We who live today, most of us will be around to see this shocking level of destruction.

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